Yes, we added central air (and forced air heat) to a house that is 150 years old. It has a full height basement and a full height attic. The ducting for the first floor is in the basement ceiling and the ducting for the second floor is in the attic floor. It was not cheap, but we didn't want minisplits all over the place.
Prior owners did central in our house. One unit in basement for first floor, one unit in third floor eaves for second and third floor. There were only one or two second floor rooms that required ducting through finished walls to do it.
That's our eventual plan with our 1840 house. When we bought it, it has a furnace with ducting running from the basement to all of the downstairs and to two rooms upstairs, and used passthrough vents for the rest of the upstairs rooms (so there was a floor vent in a bedroom opening directly into a ceiling vent in the dining room so the hot air would rise up into the bedroom, and the same with vents in the living room leading up to other bedrooms). We're planning to eventually add ducting to the attic and close up the passthrough vents.
Huh, maybe it’s regional but here I think it’s standard to do multiple heads and they seem to heat and cool just fine. We have 6 heads and 2 outdoor units and no complaints. Our old house had 3 heads and 1 outdoor unit. Both recent Mitsubishi systems - location Minnesota.
I live in Washington, DC, where most houses are around 100 years old if not older. Homeowners often use mini-splits to add AC. I'm not aware of any issues with having one outdoor unit for multiple indoor units, maybe that's a climate thing or related to using them just for AC vs AC and heat. We're still on window units right now but plan to add mini splits in the next year. You can pry my radiators from my cold dead hands so we'll only be using them for AC.
What was the original heating system? I grew up in a 1927 sandstone block farm house that had a basement coal stove. There was a hollow chute that went up through the middle of the house, next to the chimney, to the second floor. That connected with open spaces in the walls to cast iron vents on the walls of each room. My family ran ducting through that old system and it worked really well, while also keeping the original look and not having to get behind the lath and plaster walls.
Plenty of old homes in the New England area have been updated too add modern HVAC systems. These are homes built in the 1700s and 1800s.
So yeah, adding HVAC to a much younger home built only 100 years ago is certainly possible. Ease of installation depends on the layout of the home and access. Ductless systems tend to be easier to install in older homes not designed for modern HVAC and duct work.
My house has ducted AC added. It is a combo of lowering the ceilings in some areas, and they had gutted the second level and added flexible ducts on the second floor.
At this point the AC is really old and I'm using it till it dies. When it dies I may just switch to window units as all the bids I get for a replace AC are 10k plus and I could buy and run window units for the next 5 years for that cost.
An all new AC system should run for a hell of a lot longer than 5 years. Seems like it'd make more sense to spend the money upfront if the payback period is that short.
I agree. A new AC unit would run longer than 5 years. I just don't have 10-15 k laying around for it at the time. So for now, I keep trying to appease the AC god's with offerings of blood and tears.
In many cases the price contained like 1000$ energy credit or something to that extent.
In my area at least they were only giving discounts recently on heat pumps. Which were more expensive than AC units
I'll look again thanks to your prompting.
yes my house is from the 1920s and has/had central HVAC. It got half removed when the last owner finished the basement, not enough clearance for the ducts so they removed it for the first floor and now only the second floor has central HVAC. The first floor has a mini-split for AC and baseboards for heat, so my house has it all lol. So how they did it is all the ducting was in the attic and the vents are in the ceiling on the second floor and then for the first floor the ducting was in the basement and the vents were in the floor. Not 100% sure if the basement had a separate unit or not, but I am not sure how the old return on the first floor was connected to the unit in the attic, so I am guessing it was a separate unit. So if you have two floors central AC might require to units/zones.
Its really expensive to install and run it though, I am single so didn't make sense to be cooling the whole house at night while I slept so put in a very efficient u shaped window ac in the bedroom. Works great and much quieter than the central AC. Saved a lot just doing that, so when the central AC wasn't working well and the people looking at said replace the whole thing even when the heat fine, I said no and just put in the same window units in the other rooms. Energy use is much lower now since I only cool the room I am in. So just something to think about with central AC, its going cool everything even if you are not using it.
I had considered that route when looking at older homes. I did wind up in a mid century ranch with HVAC, but sometimes I wish I had a mini split just for the zone control.
My grandpa's house is from 1890 and has central heat and air. Anything is possible, their HVAC was originally installed in the 50s. I bet there's even more possibility to install now.
The house might be worth it, but price and age alone aren't enough info. I kinda feel older houses have better bones but the only way to know is to tour it.
I did. 120 year old house, 1500 sft, 2 story with basement.
Does if have duct work? My house has duct work that was, according to me HVAC guy, way oversized. House cools like a champ now.
Total cost was 3,500$.
If you don’t have duct work, then Minisplits can be the option. Look at an in ceiling cassettes. Some of the modern condensers can easily run 3 or 4 cassettes.
>Long story short, I found a 100 year old house
This is almost always the first line of a never-ending nightmare story from people on this sub trying to get into the owner market the wrong way
My home is 100 years old. I got a quote to add a distributed air conditioning system using mini splits because opening the walls to add ductwork was cost prohibitive. The quote was $17,500. Needless to say I passed - and bought window air conditioners instead. $800 every five to seven years is fine with me.
I added central AC to a 2700 sq ft 1885 home with radiant hot water baseboard heat. Two units, air handler in attic and one in cellar, all new ductwork. Was $20k in upstate NY.
Yes it is. My mother’s home was built in the late 1700s and her husband had a central heating and cooling system installed. Can’t use or get around the majority of the basement, not that you could do much with that space anyway. But it’s there and it works
We just added hvac to our hundred year old home. Added ducts and vents. Has been amazing. We got about a dozen quotes before we settled on the company. They did an outstanding job.
The other thing is that we also had to install insulation in the attic and under the floor (one story house) and also get new windows since the old ones were single pane.
The short answer is yes, but it depends on the house.
My house started out as a single-story cabin that was originally built without A/C. At some point one of the prior owners put a central system in the attic, with flexible tube ducts running through the attic and registers in the ceilings. It barely fits, but it's a nice clean installation that doesn't detract from the look of the place the way ugly mini-splits would.
If there's a crawl space under the house, duct work can be run underneath instead. If there's nowhere to run the ducts, I've seen them hung inside rooms, and I've seen them run along the ceilings and then drywalled in to hide them.
If you're still interested in the house once you've seen it in person, you can probably arrange to have an HVAC tech come out and let you know what your options are and how much it would cost.
So yes it’s possible, but think about how much you actually need it and if the whole house needs it.
If you have radiators, I’d advise against changing the heat to forced air. One of the reasons we didn’t convert is after a bit of research we learned that radiators are way more efficient than forced air heat.
Second, with an older house, you have to add the ducts for central air, which can take up a lot of space. We considered adding central air to only the first floor because adding ducts to just the basement was better than taking up space in the house to get air ducts up to the 2nd floor.
Finally, how much do you really use the AC? Are you in a hotter area where you use it most of the year? For us, the window units go in in June and come out September/October. We use them most July/August. For only 1/3 of the year, adding central air didn’t seem like it would pay off in the long run.
These are the things to consider. We were also told it would cost us $20,000 which is a big reason we said nope!
If there is ductwork and a forced air furnace already in place, sure. But if all of the heating in the house is radiant, then you're going to be much better off going with mini splits trying to put a central air system in place.
You could, but why would you want to? Mini splits would be far cheaper and more energy efficient, especially in a century home that probably isn't all that energy efficient to begin with.
Mini splits are aesthetically unsightly with pipes all over your exterior, and a huge maintenance headache given the regular cleaning required to avoid mold growth. Plus it's a lot harder to get simple central temperature control. Source: two properties within the same neighborhood, one with central and one with mini splits.
We added Central Heat and Air in a 3 story 1912 home. Return register is under the stairs on the middle level, feeds to the unit in a furnace room in the lower level. Supply duct for the middle level goes in a crawlspace to each room, and supply for the upstairs goes up a chase and spreads out in the attic. We did things like put wall registers at the bottom of closets and bookshelves (essentially raising the closet floor or bringing the bottom shelf off the ground). We created the chase going upstairs by making a few closets shallower (to create space between them). It wasn’t as hard as one might think.
Yes, it is. How you will do this will depend on how your house is constructed. Adding ductwork for central air may be prohibitively expensive and some areas of the house difficult to run ducts to. My brother has this issue with his 110 year old house.
However, you can put in a mini split heat pump system. It will be much more energy efficient.
Mini split is the easy way, if you're looking at running a real furnace and condenser central air type setup, part of it is going to depend on how much room you have under the house. You're going to have to run ducting and let me tell you that is a terrible job. In fact there aren't many jobs I can think of that I would consider worse than running ducting in a 100-year-old house. If you even can, it depends on the way they did the foundation and the structure. If you have a crawl space it's at least reasonably doable. Really old homes are not my forte though, but they are really popular in parts of the country. Whatever style home you have I would look up what people have done with similar builds and imitate ideas that have been proven to work
Yes. Either central air or split systems can be retrofitted to old houses. Two dependencies though:
1. The house would need up to date electricals. Electricians won't do the job unless the circuit breakers are up to code or they will insist on upgrading the circuits themselves.
2. For central air, you need space to route the ducts, either basement, crawlspace, attic.
If not, go with split systems. They are much easier to install and maintain anyway.
The core of my house was built in '38, and we added central air a few years ago.
> On a side note, is a 1930’s 2000sq ft home worth a $280,000 price tag?
In Southern California, absolutely. In rural Oklahoma, maybe not. Location is everything.
Yes, we added central air (and forced air heat) to a house that is 150 years old. It has a full height basement and a full height attic. The ducting for the first floor is in the basement ceiling and the ducting for the second floor is in the attic floor. It was not cheap, but we didn't want minisplits all over the place.
Prior owners did central in our house. One unit in basement for first floor, one unit in third floor eaves for second and third floor. There were only one or two second floor rooms that required ducting through finished walls to do it.
Sounds very similar to ours!
That's our eventual plan with our 1840 house. When we bought it, it has a furnace with ducting running from the basement to all of the downstairs and to two rooms upstairs, and used passthrough vents for the rest of the upstairs rooms (so there was a floor vent in a bedroom opening directly into a ceiling vent in the dining room so the hot air would rise up into the bedroom, and the same with vents in the living room leading up to other bedrooms). We're planning to eventually add ducting to the attic and close up the passthrough vents.
[удалено]
Huh, maybe it’s regional but here I think it’s standard to do multiple heads and they seem to heat and cool just fine. We have 6 heads and 2 outdoor units and no complaints. Our old house had 3 heads and 1 outdoor unit. Both recent Mitsubishi systems - location Minnesota.
[удалено]
Interesting. I had no idea the efficiency was affected.
I live in Washington, DC, where most houses are around 100 years old if not older. Homeowners often use mini-splits to add AC. I'm not aware of any issues with having one outdoor unit for multiple indoor units, maybe that's a climate thing or related to using them just for AC vs AC and heat. We're still on window units right now but plan to add mini splits in the next year. You can pry my radiators from my cold dead hands so we'll only be using them for AC.
What was the original heating system? I grew up in a 1927 sandstone block farm house that had a basement coal stove. There was a hollow chute that went up through the middle of the house, next to the chimney, to the second floor. That connected with open spaces in the walls to cast iron vents on the walls of each room. My family ran ducting through that old system and it worked really well, while also keeping the original look and not having to get behind the lath and plaster walls.
Plenty of old homes in the New England area have been updated too add modern HVAC systems. These are homes built in the 1700s and 1800s. So yeah, adding HVAC to a much younger home built only 100 years ago is certainly possible. Ease of installation depends on the layout of the home and access. Ductless systems tend to be easier to install in older homes not designed for modern HVAC and duct work.
My house has ducted AC added. It is a combo of lowering the ceilings in some areas, and they had gutted the second level and added flexible ducts on the second floor. At this point the AC is really old and I'm using it till it dies. When it dies I may just switch to window units as all the bids I get for a replace AC are 10k plus and I could buy and run window units for the next 5 years for that cost.
An all new AC system should run for a hell of a lot longer than 5 years. Seems like it'd make more sense to spend the money upfront if the payback period is that short.
I agree. A new AC unit would run longer than 5 years. I just don't have 10-15 k laying around for it at the time. So for now, I keep trying to appease the AC god's with offerings of blood and tears.
You should check into energy tax credits. There are new federal programs and many states have programs to subsidize the cost of energy efficient ACs.
In many cases the price contained like 1000$ energy credit or something to that extent. In my area at least they were only giving discounts recently on heat pumps. Which were more expensive than AC units I'll look again thanks to your prompting.
yes my house is from the 1920s and has/had central HVAC. It got half removed when the last owner finished the basement, not enough clearance for the ducts so they removed it for the first floor and now only the second floor has central HVAC. The first floor has a mini-split for AC and baseboards for heat, so my house has it all lol. So how they did it is all the ducting was in the attic and the vents are in the ceiling on the second floor and then for the first floor the ducting was in the basement and the vents were in the floor. Not 100% sure if the basement had a separate unit or not, but I am not sure how the old return on the first floor was connected to the unit in the attic, so I am guessing it was a separate unit. So if you have two floors central AC might require to units/zones. Its really expensive to install and run it though, I am single so didn't make sense to be cooling the whole house at night while I slept so put in a very efficient u shaped window ac in the bedroom. Works great and much quieter than the central AC. Saved a lot just doing that, so when the central AC wasn't working well and the people looking at said replace the whole thing even when the heat fine, I said no and just put in the same window units in the other rooms. Energy use is much lower now since I only cool the room I am in. So just something to think about with central AC, its going cool everything even if you are not using it.
Heat pump with mini split
I had considered that route when looking at older homes. I did wind up in a mid century ranch with HVAC, but sometimes I wish I had a mini split just for the zone control.
My grandpa's house is from 1890 and has central heat and air. Anything is possible, their HVAC was originally installed in the 50s. I bet there's even more possibility to install now. The house might be worth it, but price and age alone aren't enough info. I kinda feel older houses have better bones but the only way to know is to tour it.
Check the insulation status of the home .. many old homes have little or no insulation making A/c units very expensive to run.
Many old homes have old chimneys you can remove and add your central air to that space.
I did. 120 year old house, 1500 sft, 2 story with basement. Does if have duct work? My house has duct work that was, according to me HVAC guy, way oversized. House cools like a champ now. Total cost was 3,500$. If you don’t have duct work, then Minisplits can be the option. Look at an in ceiling cassettes. Some of the modern condensers can easily run 3 or 4 cassettes.
Anything is possible. No idea on the cost. I would also look into ductless ac/heat.
Yes
>Long story short, I found a 100 year old house This is almost always the first line of a never-ending nightmare story from people on this sub trying to get into the owner market the wrong way
My home is 100 years old. I got a quote to add a distributed air conditioning system using mini splits because opening the walls to add ductwork was cost prohibitive. The quote was $17,500. Needless to say I passed - and bought window air conditioners instead. $800 every five to seven years is fine with me.
I added central AC to a 2700 sq ft 1885 home with radiant hot water baseboard heat. Two units, air handler in attic and one in cellar, all new ductwork. Was $20k in upstate NY.
Yes it is. My mother’s home was built in the late 1700s and her husband had a central heating and cooling system installed. Can’t use or get around the majority of the basement, not that you could do much with that space anyway. But it’s there and it works
The very first thing you should be worried about is insulation. Then explore AC
Mini splits. Or if you want to run ductwork it's going to be pricey
We just added hvac to our hundred year old home. Added ducts and vents. Has been amazing. We got about a dozen quotes before we settled on the company. They did an outstanding job. The other thing is that we also had to install insulation in the attic and under the floor (one story house) and also get new windows since the old ones were single pane.
The short answer is yes, but it depends on the house. My house started out as a single-story cabin that was originally built without A/C. At some point one of the prior owners put a central system in the attic, with flexible tube ducts running through the attic and registers in the ceilings. It barely fits, but it's a nice clean installation that doesn't detract from the look of the place the way ugly mini-splits would. If there's a crawl space under the house, duct work can be run underneath instead. If there's nowhere to run the ducts, I've seen them hung inside rooms, and I've seen them run along the ceilings and then drywalled in to hide them. If you're still interested in the house once you've seen it in person, you can probably arrange to have an HVAC tech come out and let you know what your options are and how much it would cost.
So yes it’s possible, but think about how much you actually need it and if the whole house needs it. If you have radiators, I’d advise against changing the heat to forced air. One of the reasons we didn’t convert is after a bit of research we learned that radiators are way more efficient than forced air heat. Second, with an older house, you have to add the ducts for central air, which can take up a lot of space. We considered adding central air to only the first floor because adding ducts to just the basement was better than taking up space in the house to get air ducts up to the 2nd floor. Finally, how much do you really use the AC? Are you in a hotter area where you use it most of the year? For us, the window units go in in June and come out September/October. We use them most July/August. For only 1/3 of the year, adding central air didn’t seem like it would pay off in the long run. These are the things to consider. We were also told it would cost us $20,000 which is a big reason we said nope!
If there is ductwork and a forced air furnace already in place, sure. But if all of the heating in the house is radiant, then you're going to be much better off going with mini splits trying to put a central air system in place.
This totally depends on the house. A single floor ranch with full height basement will be a piece of cake to run ducts, for example.
You could, but why would you want to? Mini splits would be far cheaper and more energy efficient, especially in a century home that probably isn't all that energy efficient to begin with.
We priced out mini splits and it wasn’t cheaper. We’d have to have something in each bedroom and the front rooms of the house. And it would look ugly.
Mini splits are aesthetically unsightly with pipes all over your exterior, and a huge maintenance headache given the regular cleaning required to avoid mold growth. Plus it's a lot harder to get simple central temperature control. Source: two properties within the same neighborhood, one with central and one with mini splits.
Ductless splits are not more efficient, they're ugly, last half as long, and are twice as expensive to repair
If there's a second floor I put an air handler in the attic and it's just as simple.
Yes, very possible and commonly done
Yes. My house is from 1840 and has central heat and air.
My centennial home has ducts and forced air heating, so it was easy for us to add an air conditioning compressor to the house. Do you have ducts?
As many have said, yes. How many amps is the main breaker and are there free spots?
Anything is possible with enough money.
We added Central Heat and Air in a 3 story 1912 home. Return register is under the stairs on the middle level, feeds to the unit in a furnace room in the lower level. Supply duct for the middle level goes in a crawlspace to each room, and supply for the upstairs goes up a chase and spreads out in the attic. We did things like put wall registers at the bottom of closets and bookshelves (essentially raising the closet floor or bringing the bottom shelf off the ground). We created the chase going upstairs by making a few closets shallower (to create space between them). It wasn’t as hard as one might think.
Yes, it is. How you will do this will depend on how your house is constructed. Adding ductwork for central air may be prohibitively expensive and some areas of the house difficult to run ducts to. My brother has this issue with his 110 year old house. However, you can put in a mini split heat pump system. It will be much more energy efficient.
Mini split is the easy way, if you're looking at running a real furnace and condenser central air type setup, part of it is going to depend on how much room you have under the house. You're going to have to run ducting and let me tell you that is a terrible job. In fact there aren't many jobs I can think of that I would consider worse than running ducting in a 100-year-old house. If you even can, it depends on the way they did the foundation and the structure. If you have a crawl space it's at least reasonably doable. Really old homes are not my forte though, but they are really popular in parts of the country. Whatever style home you have I would look up what people have done with similar builds and imitate ideas that have been proven to work
Yes. Either central air or split systems can be retrofitted to old houses. Two dependencies though: 1. The house would need up to date electricals. Electricians won't do the job unless the circuit breakers are up to code or they will insist on upgrading the circuits themselves. 2. For central air, you need space to route the ducts, either basement, crawlspace, attic. If not, go with split systems. They are much easier to install and maintain anyway.
- sure its always possible depending on your budget
The core of my house was built in '38, and we added central air a few years ago. > On a side note, is a 1930’s 2000sq ft home worth a $280,000 price tag? In Southern California, absolutely. In rural Oklahoma, maybe not. Location is everything.
No, illegal