Split System Installation in Spotswood

A converted industrial space can have a five metre ceiling, an exposed steel deck roof with little or no insulation, large single glazed steel framed windows and a concrete slab floor. The volume alone can be three or four times a residential living room, and the envelope offers almost no resistance to heat flow.

Sizing these spaces is a volume and construction calculation, not a floor area one, and the honest answer is often that a single head will not do it. Two heads, or a much larger unit than anyone expected, or insulating the roof first. Where insulation is possible we recommend it before the equipment, because it changes the required capacity dramatically and it improves the space year round.

Period cottages around Hudsons Road are compact, with modest room sizes and ceilings around 2.7 to 3.0 metres. They are easy to condition and the capacities are modest, typically 2.5 to 3.5kW for bedrooms and 5.0kW for a living area.

What limits them is outside, not inside. Compact blocks with minimal side access mean one viable condenser position in most cases, which pushes these homes toward a multi head system serving two or three rooms from one outdoor unit. That is fine, provided you understand that all heads share a compressor and a refrigerant circuit and cannot run in different modes.

Spotswood sits between the water and the West Gate approach, and outdoor equipment here weathers harder than the distance from the beach suggests. Salt, wind and, on the warehouse conversions, large elevations with no eaves at all to shelter anything mounted on them.

We specify corrosion protected condenser coils and stainless or hot dip galvanised mounting hardware across this suburb rather than only near the foreshore. Where a mounting position offers no shelter, the specification does the work a roof overhang would do elsewhere. An annual fresh water rinse of the outdoor coil is worth more here than almost anywhere except Seaholme.

Installed cost is $2,500 to $7,500 depending on capacity and head count, with warehouse conversions frequently at or above the top of that range because of the capacity required and the access involved. Victorian Energy Upgrades discounts are applied to the invoice directly, no income test, property at least two years old, $200 including GST minimum contribution, amounts confirmed at quote because the program changed on 30 September 2026.

Refrigerant work requires an ARC licence and the electrical connection requires a licensed electrician issuing a Certificate of Electrical Safety. Converted buildings here often carry legacy three phase supply, which makes larger equipment practical without a supply upgrade. Cottage boards, by contrast, are frequently original and undersized and need attention before another dedicated circuit goes in.

What should never be optional is the part you cannot see. Brazed joints, a nitrogen pressure test, a proper vacuum on the lines, insulated and UV protected pipework and a graded condensate drain. On an exposed Spotswood elevation the UV protection on the pipe insulation matters more than most places, because unprotected lagging perishes in a couple of summers.

We hold REC 37223 and carry out both the refrigeration and the electrical work ourselves, so the system is commissioned and running before we leave rather than waiting on a second trade. Our workmanship is guaranteed for 12 months on top of the manufacturer equipment warranty.