CENTRAL AIR Central air-conditioning is the preferred kind of cooling system in the USA. Greater than 75 p.c of households with a cooling system use central air, in keeping with the newest information from the United States Energy Information Administration.
However New York Metropolis is without doubt one of the huge outliers. The rationale: Its constructing inventory is older than that of most main American cities, in keeping with estimates by the Division of Buildings, with about three-quarters of the buildings constructed earlier than 1960 — in different phrases, earlier than central air-conditioning became popular. Retrofitting older residences with central air means putting in a condenser exterior the house, a fan-and-coil system inside and ducts to distribute the cooled air. That’s not low cost, and it requires house, a useful resource missing in lots of New York Metropolis residences.
“It is extremely difficult to retrofit a constructing that was constructed with out air-conditioning,” mentioned Andrew Gerringer, the managing director for brand new enterprise growth on the Advertising and marketing Administrators, a New York growth, leasing and advertising firm. “Buildings which have put in it” — together with, he famous, some residences at 190 Riverside Drive and Manhattan Home at 200 East 66th Avenue — “have achieved so by means of nice expense and aggravation.”
Even if you’re keen to surrender a closet to put in a central air system in your prewar house, your constructing might not will let you put a condenser on the roof. And retrofitting an house constructed with out ductwork might be prohibitively costly. Within the best-case situation — the place you don’t should run a pipe by means of your neighbor’s kitchen ceiling to get to your compressor — putting in or changing a whole-house system can value, on common, from $2,650 to as much as $15,000, in keeping with Fixr.com, a website that tracks dwelling enchancment prices.
One other consideration: Most central air techniques lack room-by-room management, so if you wish to cool the bed room when you’re sleeping, you’ll have to chill the remainder of your private home, too. Nonetheless, as a result of the ducts and mechanical parts are inbuilt, successfully hidden inside the partitions, flooring or attic, central air is probably the most discreet choice.
Comments are closed.