For those of you with reverse cycle refrigerated air conditioning...

[Beach Mama]

Ours is ducted heating and refrigerated ducted cooling both of which run on electricity. We just got 3 mthly bill that was $850, that is with running the heating all day every day over winter and it's been a long cold one. I had it on just a week ago. I thought it was rather high. When we had gas ducted heating it was around $400 plus electricity so it's probably not that bad maybe $100 more for the quarter.

[Visitor7]

We have a/c, not ducted though. So not sure if this will help. Like Nelle has said, running your a/c at 25 degrees is best. Have a look at your energy's suppliers website. They'll have handy hints for using a/c's.

1. How big is your house?

4 bedroom 2 bathroom and 2 living areas. We have split system air cons in every room of the house.

2. How many people live in your house?

5

3. What is your electricity bill during winter months?

around $300

4. What is your electricity bill during summer months?

$700

5. Do you have any big electricity "suckers" (pool, spa, excessive use of dryer etc)

We have a pool which is on a cheaper tariff. It only costs around $40 per quarter to run.

6. How often do you use your air conditioning?

None at all during winter.
During summer, the girls air con goes on when they have a sleep, and the split system in one of the lounge room is one most of the day.
We have all brm air cons running at night.

[Jaycee]

Jodi, that's the other option I'm looking at - putting 3 split systems through the house. Did you install them yourself or were they already in the house when you moved in?

Thanks everyone for your replies!

[Enchanted]

We have ducted and love it. The house isn't cold but keeps it MUCH cooler and is so much cheaper to run than our old split systems.

1. How big is your house? 3BR, 1 bath, 2 living areas.

2. How many people live in your house? 4 peeps!

3. What is your electricity bill during winter months? $500

4. What is your electricity bill during summer months?$400

5. Do you have any big electricity "suckers" (pool, spa, excessive use of dryer etc) We have 3 fridges a freezer, an LCD and a plasma. So I assume they all use a bit.

6. How often do you use your air conditioning? In summer usually everyday and we have it running all day everyday. I was scared to get our bill last summer but it was so cheap compared to what I thought it would have been! We have ducted heating too and we run it all day and just turn it down at night. So the bills have been pretty good.

[Beach Mama]

We were originally looking at getting the split systems, best thing you can do is get a good company out to have a look at the layout of your house and see what will suit best. 3 large systems that would cool most but not all of our house installed was going to be around $8000 and the refridgerated was $10 so we felt for the extra 2k that it would be better to have the whole house cool when we want it. I slept with a doona for most of summer last year!

[Visitor7]

Jodi, that's the other option I'm looking at - putting 3 split systems through the house. Did you install them yourself or were they already in the house when you moved in?

Thanks everyone for your replies!

They were already installed, but when we bought the house (5 years ago now) we had an air con dude look at them to make sure they were the best air cons for the house, which they were.