Sun rooms can go a long way for a home. They make your home look and feel much larger without the cost and work to make a full extension. And, with large windows they allow you to take in the sun and fresh air with the comfort of being indoors.
As great as they are, however, they’re not perfect. Often, heating and cooling a room like this is tricky. But, do it right and you can enjoy your indoor/outdoor space in all kinds of weather. In this case, that involved ductless HVAC technology.
Problem: A ranch home in North Reading, MA with oil heat and no air conditioning could only use their sun room when the temperature was just right outside.
Solution: Installed a Mitsubishi ductless HVAC unit with outdoor unit to heat and cool the sun room.
A sun room is, essentially, an enclosed patio. To create one, you simply build the room around the outside of your house. This is different from knocking down an outer wall and creating a full room.
However, that means this room doesn’t get heated or cooled with the rest of the home. In this case, our homeowner had gas heat. This is pretty much the most powerful way to heat a home. But, that didn’t help in this case. There are no vents out there.
Once the weather got cool, then, he wouldn’t really be comfortable. It was just too cold. That shaved away a few months of the year when he could use it.
Meanwhile, he had no central air in the house at all. That meant the room didn’t even get any extra cool air the rest of the house cooling off. Take off another few weeks in the heat of summer.
What our homeowner needed was a way to make the most of his room. But, he also didn’t to rework the duct work in his home to reach that room. That would be a huge project. It’d be expensive and take a lot of time.
It’s a big enough project inside a house. Leading them outside would make it even trickier than usual. Today, however, there is a simple solution: electric ductless heating and cooling. Our homeowner had done his research and knew that’s what he wanted.
He reached out to NETR after reading our outstanding reviews and seeing that we are the number one Elite Diamond Dealer Contractor in New England. And, he knew we used products from Mitsubishi, an industry leader in ductless heating and cooling units.
Ductless is a perfect solution for heating and cooling a space such as this. It has all the strength and versatility of a central HVAC unit. But, it’s flexible like a portable heater or window air conditioner unit.
And, in many cases it’s more efficient — and costs less — than either of those options.
A ductless system uses HVAC units that are placed on the wall to provide forced heat or cool air. That air comes from a condenser unit located outside the home. It travels through flexible plastic tubing less than an inch in diameter to reach the unit inside.
This is what makes a ductless system so versatile. Running that tubing is about as simple as running electrical wire. You can run it through the walls almost wherever you want.
In the case of this home, it was very simple to run the tube from the outdoor condenser into room and up the wall. We installed the unit itself over a few of the windows. That way, it works from a spot where you can barely notice it.
You also won’t notice the tubing at all. We simply drilled the hole for it behind the unit. And, the unit itself is whisper-quiet. Since it doesn’t use an on-board fan like a window unit a/c, it doesn’t give that constant roar when it’s on.
The ductless unit is also easy to program. It has its own thermostat, so it works apart from the furnace. Our homeowner can turn it up when he’s using that room and turn it down when he won’t be in it for a while.
This makes it less expensive than if it were part of his central unit. If that were the case, he’d be heating the semi-outdoor room whenever the heat was on in the rest of the home.
The same goes for keeping it cool in the summertime. And, as an added bonus, the unit comes with a remote. Even though it’s high up on the wall, our homeowner can adjust the temperature from anywhere in the room.
We took some time after installing the new ductless unit to run through all the features with him. Now, he’s ready to enjoy perfect climate control any time of the year.
Do you want a better and more cost-effective and efficient option for heating and cooling your home? Contact us and we'll design the perfect Mitsubishi ductless HVAC solution for you!
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