Mini-splits for the Live Oak rooms that were never on the ductwork
A 1920s bungalow, a 1978 ranch and a 2005 two-story each have a room the duct never reached. One kind of equipment fixes all three.
Three housing eras, one missing duct
The 1920s bungalow near Howard Street was built for porches and cross-breezes, not ducts. A previous owner enclosed the back porch and added a window unit that rattles and drips. The main house eventually got a closet air handler, but the porch never made the plan.
The 1978 ranch in Sherwood Forest had a garage converted into a family room in the 1990s. The converter ran one flex duct off the nearest trunk. It is six degrees warmer than the rest of the house every afternoon.
The 2005 two-story in River Woods has a bonus room above the garage where the duct system peters out. The upstairs thermostat is satisfied long before that room is.
Three different houses, the same problem: a room the ductwork was never designed to serve.
What a ductless system solves
A mini-split puts a small air handler on the wall of the problem room and connects it by a refrigerant line to a compact outdoor unit. It heats and cools that room on its own thermostat, draws no air from the rest of the house, and does not ask the overworked central system to do a job it cannot. For the bungalow it is the only option that does not involve tearing into plaster. For the garage conversion and the bonus room it is cheaper and more effective than reworking the trunk line.
It is also the right answer for farm shops, home offices in outbuildings, river cabins, and the Advent Christian Village-style cottages where a quiet, compact system matters.
Single-zone, multi-zone and cold-climate versions, in plain terms
- Single-zone. One outdoor unit, one indoor head. The simplest and most efficient configuration; right for one problem room or a shop.
- Multi-zone. One outdoor unit serving two to five heads. Right for a cabin with bedrooms, or a bungalow where the whole house goes ductless. Each head has its own control.
- Low-ambient or cold-climate models. Rated to keep heating well below freezing. Live Oak’s hard freezes into the 20s are brief, so the standard inverter units cope, but for a space that must hold temperature on a 6-degree record night, the cold-climate tier is worth the step.
- Ceiling cassettes and slim-duct units. For rooms where a wall head is not acceptable, such as a renovated downtown house with a preservation-minded owner.
We install Lennox ductless equipment and service the other major brands already on the wall.
Mounting it on a pier house, a block wall or a metal building
A raised frame house gets the condenser on a wall bracket above the flood line, with the line set run in a painted cover down the siding. A block ranch gets a pad on the slab side with a short, direct line run. A metal shop gets a backing plate inside the wall framing and a sealed penetration so wind-driven rain stays out. On Suwannee riverfront lots the condenser goes as high as the bracket allows; a flooded mini-split condenser is rarely worth repairing.
The condensate from each head drains by gravity or a small pump. On well-water houses we route it where the discharge will not stain and add a cleanout.
Monthly rinse, yearly check
Rinse the washable filters monthly in pollen season, keep the outdoor coil clear of pine straw and grass clippings, and have the system checked once a year. Mini-splits are reliable machines; the failures we see are almost always a clogged drain or a coil caked with yard debris.
Mini-split questions from Live Oak
Can one mini-split handle a whole small river cabin on the Suwannee?
A single head can cool an open-plan cabin well. Add a bedroom with a door and you want a second head or a multi-zone system; a closed room off a single head stays warm.
Will the outdoor unit survive a two-week outage on generator power?
Inverter-driven mini-splits are gentler on generators than old compressors because they ramp up instead of slamming on. We still recommend a surge protector, and we check the generator’s capacity before adding load.
How do I keep spring pollen from clogging it?
Rinse the indoor unit’s filters monthly from February through April when the pines are dropping yellow, and keep the outdoor coil clear of pine straw. Both take minutes.
Can a mini-split head go on the wall of a metal shop building?
Yes. We mount to the framing with a backing plate, run the line set through a sealed penetration and hang the condenser on a bracket or a pad. Insulation in the shop decides how well it performs.
Got a room the air never reaches?
Call for a ductless estimate. We will tell you whether one head or several fits the space.