Humans went from passive heat to forced-air heat in the 1920s. Now: As you may already know, people are slow to change, even when the change is good. This same mentality exists in some form, in all that humans do. Back in the early 1950s, humans manufactured (natural gas fueled) air handlers in closet-sized compact units; good idea at the time! This (later) allowed them to install a cooling unit right into this forced-air heating unit. With one thermostat, one could automatically control indoor air year round. Now, following the wood burning stove or fireplace for heat, came many short-lived ideas for maintaining a livable temperature indoors (hot or cold). The one that survived is the split-system air handler with heat and cooling built in. The photo (left) is of a basement monster that's not all that old!

The compressor is the other half of that split system; it’s outside because it generates and dissipates heat when charging up (reactivating) the coolant, which flows thru tubes into a radiator within the air handler in the home (typically located in the attic, closet or basement). It is the job of the carpenters and designers to make spaces for ductwork to flow, and then, the HVAC contractor must come in and spend most of their time building the plenum for/and all the branch ducts to be distributed home-wide. Thus, ductwork is expensive to build, clean, and repair.

The focus here is on the ductwork. By centrally locating one whole-house unit to feed many rooms in a home at once, ducting is what carries that conditioned air to each room (forced by a fan in the air handler). However, ducting has a bad side; it harbors all airborne particles… dust…and dust harbors a plethora of microbes. Therefore, we have the duct cleaning industry to combat that problem. Also found in ducting, however, are animals (dead and alive) and bugs of every kind that reoccupy the space! They find their way in from attics, basements, and even the closed-in drywall boxes built to hide them. A fundamental design paradigm is little or no dead spaces in a home.

Based on what we humans now know about indoor air pollution, the best solution is to have no ducting at all. By heating or cooling each room independently, no ducting is needed, plus, more control by the individual occupying that space (no more fighting over the thermostat). And why cool a room you are not using? Just add a modern air-cleaning unit to the room, turn the ceiling fan on low (for ambience!), and your good to go!

Today’s units are easy to install, replace, maintain and control; indeed, they come with remote controls (cool huh)! They’re small, self-contained, wall-mounted, and could even be replaced by the homeowner; that’s why HVAC maintenance people rarely recommend them. I do; indeed I install them! The one here at right has the compressor unit (the outdoor section) that's efficient and quite. The indoor section is typically wall-mounted up high, near the ceiling; It's nearly silent. This system is replacing the old octapus monsters growling in the basement, especially by customers with allergies. They say that, once the monster and its ducting are all removed and the vents sealed and patched in all rooms, and the new system is operating along with an Ionic Breeze, or a heppa filtration system, all associated symptoms stop.