I have long touted the many benefits of ductless mini-split systems. I even had one installed at our old house in Aliso Viejo in for the master bedroom after quickly realizing that the central wasn’t doing a good enough job of cooling the upstairs master bedroom with south facing windows and a hot garage underneath. And it was life changing. But last night solidified why I need to convince my landlords to let Command Comfort install a ductless air conditioner in the master bedroom of our new home.
Despite the beauty of South OC and our first owned home in Aliso Viejo, a few years ago, we decided to move back to Huntington Beach, CA before our second child was expected. Huntington Beach is quite a bit closer to my office in Los Alamitos but more importantly, it is closer to both our families. And with a second child on the way, we were eager to be closer to helpful grandparents. After searching for the right house in the right neighborhood, we finally found “the house”. It was perfect all but for one thing. No air conditioning. A big deal breaker for me. The owners of the home promised that HB gets a good enough breeze and doesn’t need cooling but I knew better. Of course ductless was the first thing on my mind but for a large rental home already ducted, central a/c was the better investment choice for the owners. So they hired Command Comfort to install a central air conditioning system. That was a huge upgrade to the home and well worth their investment and got us into the home. Still though, during the first summer in Huntington Beach, we had to freeze out the downstairs to get the upstairs even reasonably cool at night. And despite a moderately high-efficiency model we installed. We hated our summer electric bills and stopped running it at night. I suffered through some uncomfortable nights, drifting off only to dreams of my nice cool master bedroom in Aliso where the whisper quiet fan would lull me to sleep every night with no fear of a high electric bill.
But here’s where it gets really interesting. Last night, literally this happened exactly as I’m about to tell you. It was 75 degrees upstairs (hot for me). I had just put the girls to bed and that’s hard enough to do on its own. When I got into my room I knew it was going to be a bit too hot for me so I grabbed my phone, opened the Nest app and turned the a/c down to 72 degrees. Now my preferred temp is closer to 70 but I thought 72 was a good compromise. Nevertheless about 5 minutes after the central a/c kicked on, my oldest daughter opened our door and told us that the big fan in the hallway scares her and she can’t sleep with it on! My first reaction was WOW, this is a perfect ductless commercial. Maybe I can sell the script to Mitsubishi Electric. Hahah. But quickly I realized the bigger deal was that I had to turn off the a/c, try to get my little one back to bed and then somehow sleep in an uncomfortable room.
So the moral of the story is…. Get yourself ductless a/c for your whole house or at least the most important rooms in your home. Often times the master bedroom and living room are great choices. Even if you have central a/c already. Ductless is quiet, it’s incredibly energy efficient, they clean the air using anti-allergy enzyme filters while they run and they maintain a perfect temperature so that you and the little ones can sleep in peace! Most agree that summers are becoming increasingly hotter each year and your beach house in Huntington Beach, Newport Beach and Laguna Beach (to name a few) could really benefit from a ductless air conditioner installed by Command Comfort.