There is absolutely nothing wrong with using ductwork to distribute conditioned air through your home. One drawback, though, is that a central air conditioner or a furnace will generally demand that you heat or cool your entire home to one temperature. With the installation of a zone control system you can resolve the issue, but many homeowners don’t want to sink any more money into their existing systems.
Those that opt for ductless mini splits, however, won’t have to. That is because ductless heating and cooling system (and yes, they do function as both) can deliver zoned heating and cooling without any tweaking or modifications. It is just inherent to their design.
It should come as no surprise to learn that ductless mini splits do not use ductwork in their operation. This is beneficial in a few ways. One of the most obvious is the fact that you won’t have to worry about wasting energy as you heat or cool your home due to leaky ductwork. Plus, many homes in this area are quite old, and may not have been designed with ductwork in mind. The benefit that we’re focusing on today, though, is the ability to heat and cool different areas of your home to different temperatures.
Ductless mini splits use individual, wall-mounted blowers in order to heat or cool the areas in which they are installed (heat pump technology allows for the reversal of the cooling process, enabling the system to offer heating as well). Each of these blowers is controlled independently of the others, and has its own corresponding thermostat.
When you don’t have to maintain just one temperature throughout your entire home, you can live more comfortably even as you cut back on heating and cooling costs. Not everyone is comfortable at the same temperature, after all, and not all areas of your home will need to be set to the identical temperature. For example, by turning up the AC in the living room when you have company, but keeping the bedrooms at a more moderate temperature, you can strike the right balance between comfort and efficiency.