Madison, Lee and Falmouth: ducted or ductless in a house older than the power company
Madison has some of the oldest houses anywhere we work. Every one of them forces the same choice, and the right answer changes from one porch to the next.
Two ways to cool a hundred-year-old Madison house
Set them side by side on the lawn of a Victorian in Madison’s historic district, because that is where the decision gets made.
Ducted. One air handler, usually in the attic, feeding registers in every room. It is invisible inside the house, it filters and dehumidifies all the air in the building, and it works beautifully when the attic is tall, the house has a central hall, and the ductwork can be sealed and insulated to a modern standard. It fails the house when the attic is a crawl, the duct ends up kinked over framing, and a third of the cooling leaves through the roof.
Ductless. Wall-mounted or ceiling-cassette indoor heads in the main rooms, slim outdoor units behind lattice at the side of the house, refrigerant lines through a three-inch hole. Nothing in the attic, every room on its own thermostat, and quiet, long, modulating run times that dry a tall-ceilinged room better than a cycling central unit.
Most of the old houses in Madison land clearly on one side once we have been in the attic. A few land on both: ducted for the main floor, a ductless head for the upstairs that never cooled.
Downtown, the college and the I-10 exits
Madison is a county seat of about 2,900 about 30 miles west of Live Oak on US 90, with a courthouse square, a historic district of antebellum and Victorian homes that is genuinely old by Florida standards, mid-century neighborhoods around it, and North Florida College on the edge of town. The interstate exits at 251 and 258 carry the hotels, fuel stops and restaurants, and the highway through town carries the stores and offices.
Lee, Falmouth and the river crossing at the state park
Between Live Oak and Madison the highway passes two places worth naming. Falmouth is the small community in western Suwannee County just before US 90 crosses the Suwannee at Suwannee River State Park, where the Withlacoochee comes in and the old ghost town of Ellaville sits inside the park boundary. Homes here are rural acreage on wells and co-op power, and the low ground near the river shares the Suwannee’s flood habits. Lee is the small town at the Madison County line a few miles past the bridge, with a grid of modest homes and farms around it. Both are served on the Madison day, and both get the farm-country truck: package-unit parts, belly-duct repair, surge protection and a drain kit for well water.
How we schedule the far end of US 90
Madison is about 30 miles beyond Live Oak, which is itself about 144 miles and two hours forty-five from Cook’s base in Flagler County. We say so plainly. Madison, Lee and Falmouth are scheduled together on a west-end day, usually with the Hamilton County towns on the same trip or the day before, and dispatch tells you the window honestly rather than optimistically. The line is staffed at every hour for one price, pricing out a replacement is free, and the Lennox line we install includes both the ducted and the ductless answer.
From the west end of the highway
Our Madison house is from the 1880s and has never had central air. Will ductwork ruin it?
It does not have to, but it can. A house with a tall attic and a central hall can often take a ducted system with small high-velocity or carefully placed registers. One with low attics and plaster medallions is a ductless candidate. We walk the house before we recommend either, and we have done both in the historic district.
Is ductless really cheaper to run than a central system?
Room by room, yes, because you only cool the rooms you are in and the units modulate instead of cycling. For a whole house run every room all day, the gap narrows. The bigger savings in an old house is not losing a third of the cold air into an unsealed attic.
How do you handle the college and the businesses near the I-10 exits?
As commercial work: rooftop and split systems on offices, stores and restaurants at exits 251 and 258 and along the highway, with maintenance schedules a manager can plan around. Who holds the contracts at the college is a question for its facilities office, not for us to assume [[CONFIRM WITH JERRY]].
Lee and Falmouth are tiny. Do you really come out for one call?
We come out for the day. Lee at the county line and Falmouth by the river bridge are stops on the Madison route, grouped with the town itself, so one call is never one trip for us.
Old houses, new comfort, west end of US 90
Madison, Lee, Falmouth. Call and we'll walk the house before we recommend anything.