anyone have central air? mine is 1800 squ.ft house. one level.4 brs.
i'm now using one small window unit..want to go ----- cool... any help??
Well first of all, are you aware energy wise what you are asking for?
Running A/C on a whole homes WILL run your electricity bill over the 699.99 KWh whack rate... you will pay anywhere up from USD 200.oo/month.
You also realize, that in this country it is not uncommon to experience power blackouts most every day and that an inverter system will NOT run such a rig and a gen-set may have to be quite largely sized to provide the power needed.
You will also have to protect the compressor unit from damage it may suffer from repeated power cuts (especially when the power comes back fairly quickly [delay unit needed]).
That being said, many if not most detached homes here, EVEN in some of the 4 most luxurious developments do NOT have central air. And maybe not only for above considerations.
Thus, you will most likely NOT find many businesses which effectively
specialize in CALCULATING and installing central A/C in
single family detached homes, except maybe around Santo Domingo.
But you will find, again in the major cities, some companies which specialize in commercial A/C and also equip modern upper scale apartment buildings.
Hard (aluminum lined hard foam or metal) and soft (corrugated and insulated flex-pipes) ducting material is available. So are compressor and evaporator sets as commonly used in the US.
Installing a central A/C system in a home, is not as complex a job as it can be to CALCULATE and plan it!
There now are computer programs available to do that for you. They estimate flow and and air volumes and directions, taking the home's geographical location and orientation (N-S) into account as well including each room's use, size of windows etc into the equation. THIS IS OF UTMOST IMPORTANCE if you want an effective BALANCED A/C result throughout the home!
If you want to do it yourself, there ARE books available in the US (google it) and probably the calculation programs (you input a simplified schematic of the home and some data) may be downloadable "for FREE" somewhere by now.
I had to do it in Spain, where central A/C in single family detached homes is also NOT as common as one would assume... it was interesting, even fun and we had excellent results. But we were lucky to have had help and being given a custom calculated "blue print" of our ducts, in sizes, forms and shapes (we used the aluminum lined hard foam which can be cut on site to create custom size and shaped ducts. Very wind noise conscious and well insulated!)
... J-D.