What should we do for central AC: traditional, high velocity, or mini-splits?

[Anonymous]

We're planning to renovate our colonial, which currently has no central AC.

The attic is currently not finished, but is in our near-term plans to finish soon. The basement has a small partially finished area, but we plan on finishing the entire thing. The remainder of the house is about 1600 sq ft (first/second floor). The house currently has radiators, which I think we'll plan on keeping. As the attic and basement aren't yet finished, it seems that the addition of ductwork may not be too onerous compared with a traditional installation.

Our current house has Nest, and I love being able to remotely control and schedule the climate in the house.

I think in an ideal world, I'd be able to separately control the temperature in at least the first/second floors, the attic, and the basement.

Part of me thinks that mini-splits could work well for the basement and attic, especially due to their ability to be used for heat. I don't like the limitation on using a local remote though, but it may be tolerable for those two areas since they're not the "core" living space of the house.

It would seem that duplicating systems is a waste of money in general, and maybe we should just go with a traditional or high-velocity and put registers on all 4 floors. How many zones could this be divided into? 4 would be ideal.

Thoughts?

[Anonymous]

I am also interested in this question.

[Anonymous]

OP here. We just got an estimate from a contractor. He recommended that we do a traditional AC install in the attic, which they would size appropriately for the attic, first, and second floors. Ductwork could run through back corners of closets in all the rooms. I asked about splitting into zones, and he said they could surely do it, but it'd be a big cost upper from the equipment standpoint and didn't recommend it.

He recommended not changing the radiators, and not running AC to the basement, as it's basically all underground. We discussed that a mini split could be added to the basement later if needed.

He said they'd put the ductwork in place in the attic with a damper so that we could turn it off when not used, and they'd put the ductwork and boot in place to just be finished with a register when we were ready.

Waiting on an estimate - they seemed to think it was a simple job.

[Anonymous]

I live in a small split level (1850 sq feet). Air conditioning is run through ductwork that was really designed for only heat. We have to keep the fan on all the time to properly circulate hot or cold air. The dampers aren't really effective. A brand new system with working zones or a mini split system both sound amazing to me!