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Adding cooling to a building that was never meant to have it.
A long read on the most common job we are asked about: what goes wrong when cooling is added piecemeal, the five questions that decide how to do it properly, and what changes between a facility and a house.
I · The pattern
How buildings end up with four systems.
It rarely starts as a plan. A heat wave arrives, someone buys a portable air conditioner for the hottest office. The next summer a tenant has a ductless head installed in their suite. A server closet gets its own unit. A manager adds a window unit. By the fourth summer the building has four or five unrelated cooling devices, none of them sized for the space they are in, several of them draining condensate into buckets or onto flat roofs, and an electrical service that was sized for lighting and a boiler pump.
Houses go the same way at a smaller scale: a window unit in the main bedroom, a portable in the living room, and a panel that trips when both run with the kettle on.
Every one of those decisions was reasonable. Together they are a building nobody designed.
The good news is that the building has usually told you everything you need to know by the time you call us: which rooms overheat, which face west, which floors are worst, where the equipment has already been squeezed in. A survey turns that into a plan.
II · Five questions
What decides how cooling should be added.
1. What heats the building now?
If the heating is old or expensive to run, the cooling project may be the moment to replace both with a heat pump. If the heating is sound and fairly new, cooling can be added alongside it. That single decision changes almost everything that follows.
2. Is there ductwork, and is it any good?
Buildings heated by radiators or baseboards have no ducts at all, which points towards ductless or small-duct systems. Buildings with a forced-air furnace have ducts — but ducts sized for heating are often too small to carry the airflow that cooling needs. We measure before assuming they can be reused.
3. How much electrical capacity is left?
The question most often skipped, and the most expensive one to discover late. Older commercial services and older house panels are frequently near their limit already. We check the service and the panel as part of the survey and say plainly if an upgrade is needed, so it is priced in from the start.
4. Where can equipment and condensate go?
Outdoor units need a place that is structurally sound, reachable for service, clear of setbacks, and not outside somebody's bedroom window. Every cooling system produces water, and in an older building the hardest part of the job is often finding a proper route to a drain.
5. How does the building get fresh air?
Closing windows to hold cooling in removes ventilation the building was relying on. In a damp climate that shows up the following winter as condensation and stale air. We design the ventilation with the cooling, not as a later fix.
III · Facilities and homes
The same questions, different consequences.
In a facility, the plan is the product
For an office, school, clinic or apartment building, the most valuable thing we produce is often not the installation but the plan: which zones get what, in what order, on what electrical capacity, within which budget year. That lets a building be converted in stages — one floor or one wing a year — without anything installed early becoming a mistake later.
Work is scheduled around occupancy. Schools in the breaks, offices out of hours, apartment buildings with notice to tenants.
In a house, the decision is usually one system or two
Most homeowners are choosing between adding cooling alongside the existing heating, or replacing the heating with a heat pump that does both. We lay the options out in writing with the trade-offs — including the electrical work, the placement of the outdoor unit, and what the house will look and sound like afterwards.
IV · What we will not say
No temperatures, no savings, no rebates.
You will not find target indoor temperatures, running-cost comparisons, energy-saving percentages, payback periods or rebate amounts on this page. Every one of those depends on the building, how it is used, the tariff and — in the case of incentives — programmes that change often enough that anything printed here could be out of date.
What we will do is survey the building and give you a written proposal with the options, the trade-offs and our reasoning. If a utility or state incentive applies to what we are proposing, we will tell you what it is and where to confirm it, at the time.
V · Straight answers
Can we do one floor or one room now and the rest later?
Yes — and with a plan, it is a good way to do it. The important thing is that what goes in first is chosen with the later stages in mind, so it does not have to be torn out.
Our building is historic. Does that rule things out?
It narrows the options, particularly for outdoor equipment and piping routes. It rarely rules cooling out entirely. We work with whatever constraints apply and tell you early if something needs approval.
Are portable units ever the right answer?
As a stopgap for a single room, sometimes. As a building's cooling strategy, no — they are inefficient, they need a window, and a building full of them is usually straining its electrical service.
Tell us how the building is heated now.
That, and what happens to it in a hot week, is enough to start. We will explain the survey and its cost before anyone comes out.