Split System Installation in Sunshine

The original Sunshine housing stock has 2.4 metre ceilings and separate rooms rather than open plan, which keeps volumes low. A bedroom is typically 2.5kW where the ceiling insulation is sound and 3.5kW where it is compressed, missing, or the room takes full western sun through a single glazed window.

The living room is usually 5.0kW, or 7.1kW where a wall has been removed to open it into the kitchen, which is the most common renovation in this suburb. Removing a wall changes the volume the system has to condition, and it is worth telling us at the quote if that is on your plans rather than after the unit is installed.

New Sunshine townhouses are built to current insulation standards, so the heat load per room is genuinely lower. What they lack is space. Double storey layouts with stairs eating the wall the head should go on, bedrooms with a window on one wall, a wardrobe on another and a door on the third, and a services area outside that already holds the hot water unit and the meter.

The result is that head and condenser placement decides the design more than capacity does. A multi head system with one outdoor unit is often the only way to serve several rooms. Where the internal wall available for a head faces a stairwell or a bulkhead, we may need a different unit style or a different wall entirely, which we work out on site rather than on paper.

Townhouse and apartment developments almost always have an owners corporation, and anything mounted on a common wall or in a shared services area needs written consent. In most Sunshine developments there is a designated position and approval is straightforward when you use it.

The other thing worth knowing is that these dwellings have limited individual roof area, which matters if you were hoping to offset running costs with solar. A 3 to 5kW system is typical, and after normal household daytime use there is not much surplus. That does not change the case for reverse cycle, which is cheap to run regardless, but it does change what people expect from it.

Installed cost is $2,500 to $7,500 depending on capacity and head count. Reverse cycle returns 3 to 4 units of heat per unit of electricity, where gas converts only 80 to 92 percent of its fuel, so heating a room costs roughly 28 to 36 cents an hour instead of 50 to 72 cents for ducted gas, saving about $200 to $450 a year.

Victorian Energy Upgrades discounts come off the invoice directly, with no income test, on properties at least two years old, with a $200 including GST minimum customer contribution. Announced changes commence 30 September 2026 and amounts are confirmed at quote. Every indoor head needs a dedicated circuit and isolator, and original post war boards here frequently have no residual current protection and need replacing first.

Refrigerant work requires an ARC licence and the electrical connection requires a licensed electrician issuing a Certificate of Electrical Safety. We hold REC 37223 and carry out both parts ourselves, so the system is commissioned and running before we leave rather than waiting on a second trade, and our workmanship is guaranteed for 12 months.