One quiet system for the whole house, with a vent in each room and nothing on the walls but a controller. It's the biggest job we do, so it starts with a long look at your roof and every room, and you get the plan in writing before any ducting goes up.
NSW air conditioning and refrigeration Lic. 000000C (demo)
ARC refrigerant trading authorisation AU00000 (demo)
They gave us a written plan with the days on it, and the install took the three days they said. The ceiling was patched and the house was vacuumed before they left.
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23What's involved
Ducted air conditioning hides the working parts: the indoor unit sits in the roof space or under the floor, ducts carry the air to a vent in each room, and the outdoor unit sits beside the house. Ducted air conditioning installation is planned work that takes days, and nearly every problem we're called to fix on someone else's ducted system started at the planning stage. The classic is one zone covering a cold bedroom and a hot lounge.
We plan and install ducted systems across Newcastle, Lake Macquarie and the Hunter, from double-brick homes in New Lambton to new builds in the estates around Cessnock and Singleton.
If you only need to cool two rooms, splits are usually cheaper to buy and run. Ducted makes more sense when you want most of the house conditioned, you'd rather not have a head on every wall, or you want one system to manage. Our post on split system vs ducted works through the choice with real room counts, and our split system installation page covers the other option.
The size of a ducted system can't come from the floor area alone. On the quote visit we go through the house one room at a time and note what heats it up:
That gives a heat load for each room, which sets the size of the indoor unit, the size of each duct and outlet, and how the zones are drawn. It's the step a cheap quote skips, and it's the reason one end of the house can be cold while the other never cools down.
The indoor unit is big, and it needs a solid platform, enough height to service it, and room for the ducts to leave it without sharp bends. Plenty of brick and tile homes have all of that. Older Newcastle terraces and some weatherboards don't: low pitches, skillion extensions at the back, and a ceiling space you can barely crawl into. We go up into the roof on the quote visit and tell you what's possible. The answer might be a floor-ducted system or a split for the back room. If ducted isn't the right fit for the house, we say so.
The return air grille is where the system draws air back in, through a filter, and it's the most misplaced part of a ducted install. It belongs in a central spot with a clear path back from every zone, usually a hallway ceiling, and well away from a bedroom door where its hum keeps someone awake. Its filter is also the one you'll clean, so it has to be somewhere you can reach with a step ladder.
Every room measured.
Then the ducts go in.
Zoned ducted air conditioning splits the house into areas you can switch on and off on their own. A motorised damper in the duct opens or closes each zone. The usual layout is living areas in one zone and bedrooms in another, so you're not cooling empty bedrooms all afternoon or an empty lounge all night. Two-storey homes often add a zone per floor, because heat rises and upstairs needs more help on a February evening. Each zone is shown on the quote with the rooms in it.
So what does ducted air conditioning cost? Published Australian cost guides in 2026 put a typical system at roughly $12,000 to $17,000 installed, rising past $20,000 for large or complicated homes. Those are national averages, not our price. Yours depends on the heat load, the number of zones, the roof and the controller you choose, and the free quote sets each of those out as its own line. If the house needs a new circuit for the system, we arrange a licensed electrician and that's on the quote too.
Every ducted system comes with a wall controller, usually in the hallway or the kitchen. Most current systems also offer wifi air conditioner control, either built in or as an add-on, so you can turn zones on from the couch or cool the bedrooms on the drive home. Some controllers can read the temperature in each zone and adjust the dampers to suit. We set up the app on your phone before we leave and show you how the zones are named.
Most of the work happens in the roof and outside, but the inside of the house sees some of it too. We cut the openings for the vents and the return air grille, so there's ceiling dust in each room, and we lay drop sheets and clean up at the end of each day. The power goes off for part of the job. You can live in the house the whole time, though it helps to clear the tops of wardrobes and anything sitting under a vent.
If you already have a ducted system that's playing up, our air conditioner repair page covers ducted faults, and our air conditioning service page covers keeping a ducted system clean. For a new system, the four steps below set out what happens from the quote visit to the walk-through, followed by photos of finished homes so you can see how the vents and controllers look once the ceiling is closed up.
23How the install runs
Week 1
We measure every room, check the roof space for height and access, look at the switchboard, and ask how you use the house: which rooms are used at night, which face west. You get a written quote with the system size, the zones and the price.
Before install
Where each outlet and the return air go, where the outdoor unit sits, and the install dates. If the board needs a new circuit for the unit, we arrange a licensed electrician and it's on the plan with its own line.
Install, two to three days
Day one is the roof space: the indoor unit and the ducts. Day two is the outdoor unit, the refrigerant pipework and the controller. Most single-storey homes are done in two days; a bigger house or a tight roof takes three. You can stay home throughout.
The last afternoon
We pressure-test and vacuum the pipework, charge the system, check the airflow at every outlet and balance the zones. Then we show you the controller and the filter, patch and clean up, and leave the warranty paperwork.
23Our work
A Lambton home, from one tired wall unit to the whole house on zones.
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23Questions
Published Australian cost guides in 2026 put a ducted system at roughly $12,000 to $17,000 installed, and past $20,000 for large or difficult homes. Those are typical national figures, not our price. Yours depends on the size of the house, the number of zones and how easy the roof is to work in, and we quote it free after the heat-load check.
Most brick and tile homes from the last few decades have room for the indoor unit and the ducts. Low-pitched roofs, older terraces and some weatherboards with a skillion section are tighter, and sometimes the unit has to go under the floor or the ducts need a different route. We go up into the roof on the quote visit and tell you what fits before we price anything.
Most family homes end up with two to four zones, usually living areas in one and bedrooms split into one or two more. More zones give you more control, but each one adds a motorised damper and a little cost. We draw the zones around how your household uses the house through a day.
Most current ducted systems offer a wifi controller or an add-on module, so you can switch zones and change the temperature from an app. It's handy for cooling the bedrooms before you get home. We set it up on your phone at handover and show you how the zones appear in the app.
The install itself usually takes two to three days for a single-storey home, longer for two storeys or a tight roof. The power is off for part of that time, and you can stay in the house throughout. The whole job, from the quote visit to the walk-through, is set out in four steps on this page.
A well-placed system is quieter than a split, because the indoor unit sits in the roof or under the floor. What people do hear is air rushing through an undersized vent, or the hum of a return air grille outside a bedroom door. We size the outlets so the air moves slowly and keep the return away from the bedrooms.
