Gas to Electric Heating and Cooling Upgrades in Woodend

Reverse cycle in a cold town: how we make it work

Reverse cycle heat pumps lose heating capacity as the outdoor air gets colder, and Woodend gets cold. That is not a reason to avoid them; it is a reason to design for it. Three things make the difference between a Woodend conversion that keeps the house warm in July and one that leaves the household wishing they had kept the gas heater:

• Sizing on the coldest mornings. We calculate the home’s heat load, floor area, ceiling heights, insulation, glazing and orientation, at the low temperatures Woodend actually produces, and we select equipment on its rated capacity at those temperatures rather than its headline figure.
• Ductwork that can carry the airflow and hold the heat. Reverse cycle moves a larger volume of air at a lower temperature than a gas heater. The ducts have to be sized for that airflow and insulated properly, because a roof space near freezing pulls heat out of thin duct fast.
• Return air and outlets designed for the house. An undersized return starves the system exactly when it is working hardest. Outlets sized and placed for reverse cycle keep the far rooms as warm as the living area.

Where a house cannot support a system that meets those three, whether because of roof space, budget or the building itself, we recommend staying with gas or moving to a multi-head system, and we say so at the site visit.

What a real conversion involves in Woodend

A proper whole-home conversion commonly involves removing the gas ducted heater and decommissioning it as the program requires, deciding with you whether the evaporative cooler stays or goes after we inspect it, installing a completely new ducted reverse cycle system sized for the home, installing new, appropriately designed ductwork, and installing new supply outlets and return air. New ductwork is not an optional extra on our conversions; it is part of every ducted reverse cycle system we install. Our guide on reusing gas heating ducts explains why.

Period homes without roof space

Woodend’s period weatherboards and brick homes around the town centre often have high ceilings and little usable roof space. Forcing a ducted system into a roof that cannot take properly sized ducts produces a noisy, underperforming system, and we would rather not install one. For those homes a multi-head split system covering the living areas and main bedrooms from one outdoor unit is often the better electric answer, and a new gas ducted heater remains a perfectly good one. Our multi-head versus ducted comparison sets out the trade-offs.

The systems we install

We install ActronAir and Rinnai ducted reverse cycle systems, for which we are factory-trained dealers who purchase directly from the manufacturers, and we have substantial hands-on experience installing Mitsubishi Electric ducted systems. For a Woodend home the selection is driven by low-temperature heating capacity first, and we recommend one system rather than list three.

The program, briefly

The replaced gas heater must be decommissioned so it is permanently unusable and removed, and the work must be documented. Only accredited providers can apply the discount, and only approved equipment qualifies. VEU rebate administration for Macedon Ranges Gas & Air projects is processed under Melbourne Gas & Air, another trading name of the same legal entity; the accreditation details that apply to your job are shown in your written quote. We handle the decommissioning, the documentation and the discount as part of the installation. Eligibility rules and discount amounts change, so we confirm them for your home at quote time rather than publishing a figure here.