An air conditioned granny flat is becoming a popular choice for families across Brisbane. Which is really no surprise considering the river city’s blistering hot summers and bitterly cold winter days.
Any qualified Home Air Conditioning expert can install air con in a granny flat.
But before we show you how easy – and affordable – it is to air condition a granny flat, some definitions are in order.
Such as…what IS a granny flat, and what rules apply when building a granny flat?
According to the Brisbane City Council, a granny flat is a secondary dwelling associated with a dwelling house.
Provided the secondary dwelling is less than 80 square metres and is for a member of your household (defined as “one, two or more related or unrelated people who reside (together) on a long-term basis and who make common provision for food or other essentials for living”) you do not need to apply for Council Approval.
You will need approval if:
Right. Now that the “house-keeping” is out of the way, back to…
An air conditioned granny flat is great for ensuring comfort, and if it’s a reverse cycle air conditioner, it will be year-round comfort.
It makes the flat self-sufficient from the house, so your loved one – or visitors – won’t ‘pop in’ to the main house when the mercury rises…they’ll have their own air-conditioned space.
Of course, you could make do with ceiling fans, but unfortunately all fans do is push the hot, humid air around – it won’t cool the room and eliminate the humidity like a top brand air conditioner will.
If your granny flat adjoins or is close enough to your home, and you have a ducted air conditioning system in your house, it may be possible to connect an existing duct to your garage if it is in close range.
Every job is different, so Acer Services won’t be able to let you know if this is a viable option until we have seen the set up.
In our experience, we’ve found that split system air con is a great choice because it:
Whichever type of granny flat air conditioning you opt for, we can look at the switchboard (or sub board) to make sure it can cope with the added load of running air con.
Although Acer Services can obviously ‘retrofit’ air conditioning into an existing dwelling, the best time to think about installing air con is when you are actually building a granny flat.
If you plan it from the start, you’ll know exactly where to put both the indoor and outdoor units for optimum efficiency and convenience.
Sometimes a small change to the layout can make a significant difference to how well the air conditioning will work.
For example, if you leave it too late the air con unit may have to go widthways across the room, instead of lengthways which would be improve the air ‘throw’ and the air flow.
While you are building a granny flat, you may also want to consider insulation to limit your need for air conditioning to particularly hot days and cold weather only.
This will substantially reduce running costs.
Another thing to consider is to choose a granny flat air conditioner that has a “sleep mode” feature.
With sleep mode on, the air con will switch off automatically after your visitor has fallen asleep, or when they go out for the day; after all, there’s no point in running expensive air conditioning if no one is getting the benefit of it.
The final features you may be looking for are style and a quiet operation, in which case Acer Services may recommend some of the super quiet and ultra-stylish new air conditioners from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries such as the new Bronte range or Avanti range.
For more information, tips and advice about air conditioning a granny flat, have a chat with the friendly, helpful team at Acer Services. Simply click here to contact us.
