Split System Installation in Yarraville

Victorian and Edwardian front rooms in Yarraville commonly have ceilings around three metres, single glazed sash windows and solid or weatherboard walls with no insulation. The high ceiling adds volume, so a 4 by 4 metre bedroom holds closer to 48 cubic metres than the 38 you would get at 2.4 metres.

They are also usually the coolest rooms in the house in summer, shaded by a verandah and a mature street tree, which is exactly why people underestimate what they need in winter. An unused open fireplace flue is a direct path for conditioned air to leave, and sealing it is one of the cheapest improvements available in these houses.

The rear extension is where most Yarraville households actually live, and it is thermally the hardest part of the house. A raked or skillion ceiling adds volume, a skylight adds heat gain nobody accounts for, bifold or stacker doors add a large glazed area, and the roof is often a low pitch colorbond skillion with minimal insulation depth available.

These spaces regularly need 7.1 to 8.0kW where the floor area suggests 5.0kW. Head placement matters as much as capacity. A head mounted at the low end of a raked ceiling throwing toward the high end works. The reverse leaves warm air pooling at the ridge with nobody benefiting from it.

Yarraville cottage blocks are narrow and the rear extension has usually consumed whatever side access existed. That leaves a rear yard position, occasionally a wall bracket, and very little else. Airflow clearance and service access have to be maintained, which rules out squeezing a unit into an 800mm gap between the extension and the fence.

The practical consequence is a multi head system: one outdoor unit in the rear yard serving heads in the extension, the main bedroom and perhaps a front room. It works well. The limitations are worth knowing though, because all heads share one compressor and one refrigerant circuit, so heating and cooling cannot run at the same time in different rooms.

Installed cost is $2,500 to $7,500 depending on capacity and head count, and Yarraville jobs tend to sit in the middle to upper part of that range because of pipe run lengths and multi head configurations. 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 contribution. Announced changes commence 30 September 2026 and amounts are confirmed at quote.

Every indoor head needs a dedicated circuit and an isolator. In Yarraville the board is often a layered record of two renovations, so we test the main earth, the consumer mains and the existing residual current protection before adding circuits. Any board work appears as a separate line rather than as a surprise at the end of the job.

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 do both parts ourselves, which is what most manufacturers require before honouring a warranty claim, and our own workmanship carries a 12 month guarantee on top of the equipment warranty.