Central Air conditioning in a gut renovation

1. Are you sure you can get board approval for this?

2. Expect the duct work to eat up at least 2 feet of your ceiling space.

3. $80K-ish is pretty realistic.

Ask your super or someone on the board whether anybody else has done it, and if so then check with that owner. It's also useful to go to the Buildings Dept's website and look at job documents. If recent, there're Cost Affidavits, but I don't know how accurate they are. I just saw one where for a $600K+ renovation the central AC was $76K+.

In your setup, four big rooms or six small ones, with no outdoor space, there's usually no place to easily fit the pieces, so that's likely to be the biggest obstacle. That's probably why most people give up on central AC and go for several through-the-wall units.

To see the impact of ductwork, find ads for apartments with central AC, and look at the pictures or go to open houses. Most seem to lose about a foot of height where the ducts run, and even less if they use a high-velocity system like Unico.

This is not technically central AC but it's a good alternative for older buildings.

Mitsubishi - Mr. Slim Split-ductless: M-Series cooling system.
http://www.mehvac.com/products/subCategory.asp?ProductCategoryID=24&ProductSubCategoryID=139

Problem is where to put the outdoor unit. You seem them a lot in Asia, where the outdoor unit is hung on the outside wall or sitting on a balcony, but that wouldn't work in a typical prewar building here.

It WOULD work on the back of a typical prewar building here, and would be no louder or more hideous than a window a/c, but there's a fear of the unknown that will probably forever prevent it from happening.

OTOH, the inside units are mind-bogglingly ugly, and probably unnecessarily so. One company makes one that's supposed to resemble (and function as) a picture frame, but, uh, no.

I believe there's a high-velocity central air system that uses narrow tubes rather than ducts, so you wouldn't need the gigantic soffits. Don't know if that can use a louvered window opening instead of a true outdoor compressor (or whatever the outdoor thing is called).

We put in central air in a gut renovation of a prewar apt.
The only board issue related to noise from the condenser--so we made sure the unit we got had lower noise.

A few issue to keep in mind:

1) We have a 6 room apt. A one-zone a/c unit would not cool more than the front 4 rooms. So that is what we opted for. Electrically, we could not support a two-zone unit. So we have the bathroom, master bedroom, den, living room, and dining room vented for AC.

2) You will need space to house the compressor and condenser. One can be in a closet (we used part of a linen closet) and the other must be vented to the outside. Since we replaced our windows, we reconfigured one window in the maid's room, so that the condenser takes up the bottom half of the space, and a new smaller window takes up the space above the condenser/cabinet.

3) We did NOT have to drop our ceilings excessively for duct work. With a good architect and GC, we were able configure things so we only had to drop the ceiling (about 1 1/2 ft) in a small hallway outside of the linen closet--thus making it possible to point vents into the master bedroom, living room, and bathroom. We created a soffit (which really simply looks like another ceiling beam) in the den for the last part of duct work to vent the den and dining room.

4) The AC unit was purchased through http://www.nationalcomfortproducts.com

5) A company called Mechanical East (brooklyn) installed it.

6) Make sure the "grille" that will go on the outside of your window that has the condenser is correct specifications and installed properly. This will take making sure that your GC is working together with your HVAC guys during installation.

7) If I remember correctly I think the AC equipment was around 35K and I don't remember what the installation was. But I think that 75K that was quoted earlier is way high. Of course, it depends on whether you will have more than one zone.

Hope this is helpful.

Friends of mine put in central AC in a 3500+ loft during a highend reno. It cost about $100K I think. Duct work was more extensive than Gilly's job. Relatively small # of apts (20?) so things operate somewhat informally in the building and they placed the outside part of the equipment behind the building in an alley.

BEWARE: a mistake they made was not adequately considering the noise/vibration issue from the inside machinery. They had it installed in a dropped ceiling space (their ceilings are quite high) above the hallway/entry area to their bedroom because it made the most sense mechanically/aesthetically/ practically. Big mistake. For $100K, their bedroom now vibrates and hums when the unit goes on. It is insulated, etc but it still can be felt and heard.

Very informative Gilly thanks for posting.

is ductless a possibility?

I'm doing a gut renovation of an apartment that's 2700 sq. ft. where central air (2 zones, maybe 3) was installed. This plus some work dealing with the heating system cost about $40k. It may be cheaper when you're doing a gut renovation bc the walls and ceilings are completely open and replacing and finishing them are typically allocated to the general carpentry budget.

As mentioned by other posters, you will need a fair amount of space for the mechanical components - air handler exchange, compressor, condenser. We used a space in the ceiling, closet space and some outdoor space, respectively, for these units. Kylewest has a good point about the noise/vibration from the compressor and condenser. You should try to put these on the floor and soundproof The duct work will take about 1.5 ft in the ceiling, but as Giller mentioned, if you have a good architect/hvac team, you can design around it without lowering all of your ceilings. It really depends on how your apartment is laid out (e.g. a central hallway is helpful).

Also, I'm not sure if this is an option, but I know it old historical houses in PA, they use a forced air system for central heat and air. I've heard good and bad things about it, but it might be something to look into.

You can get a great ductless, hotel room style unit for 15-25k. For 1400 sqft this is ideal. Dont rund ducts just create a few new columns on the walls with the units inside. One in the master, one in the living/dining, one in the kitchen, one in the second bed. Depending on your layout of course. New HVAC is alays going to eat the budget when going with anything better than a window or through wall unit.

Thanks. That is indeed helpful.Is the best way as often the case to have 2/3 companies come and bid on it? Any name/ recommendation?

We're in the design phase of a gut renovation of 3 prewar co-op apartments. We plan to install central air through a split system with the compressor mounted inside the apartment. It will be vented to the outside through a window, replaced entirely with a louver. From the unit, we'll run 3-4 refrigerant lines to the air handlers. We plan to use the ducted versions, as opposed to the ugly wall-mounted units. The air handlers will be tucked away in closets with short runs of duct work to adjacent rooms. Total budgetary pricing is about $80K inclusive of equipment, electrical, duct work, access panels, grills, everything. This is for a 1800 sq ft, 3 BR apartment.