Air Conditioners

Avoid heating and cooling unnecessary rooms. Closing off doors to rooms such as the laundry and bathroom greatly reduces the load on your heater/AC.
Ceiling fans are a very efficient way to cool a house.

Ways to keep cool in summer

Type	How they work	Purchase Cost	Running Cost	Energy Efficiency
Behavioural Cooling	Close doors and blinds to reduce heat load Open a couple of windows to create cross breezes Wear clothes that will keep you cool	Nil to low	Nil	Very High
Fans	Fans do not cool the room, but the moving air feels cooler due to the evaporative effect as the air blows across your skin Fans work best in humid climates	Low	Low	High
Evaporative Cooler	Work by passing hot air from outside the house though moistened filters, and then pumping the cooled, and humidified, air into the house Work best in hot dry climates	Moderate	Low	Moderate
Refrigerated Air Conditioner	These systems have both a refrigerant compressor component and an evaporative component They can be either in a single unit or a 'split-system'	High	Moderate to High	Moderate to High

If you are installing an air conditioning system get the size of the unit right - as a guide in a reasonable well insulated house you will need a cooling capacity of around 1.25 kilowatts for each 10 m² of floor area that you are trying to cool.
If you have a split system, consider shading the outdoor unit if it received a lot of direct sunshine. This can reduce running costs by up to 10%.
Because cool air tends to fall, if you are installing a ducted system choose ceiling vents as they work more effectively than floor vents.

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