I'm Nick. Ducted is a bigger job than a cassette or a wall unit, and in a business that means several days of work above your ceiling. I plan it in stages, hand your space back in usable pieces, and tell you before I quote whether your building will even take it.
One central unit does the work. From there, insulated ducts run through your ceiling space and feed vents across the tenancy, with return air drawn back to the unit and a controller deciding which areas get what. Everything you can see is a slim vent in the ceiling. Everything you can hear is close to nothing.
In a business, three things change. The system runs for eight, ten, twelve hours a day instead of a few hours a night, so it gets sized for that rather than for a quiet house. The load moves with your customers, not your family, and a shop full of people on a Saturday is a different job to the same room empty on a Tuesday. And the plant usually ends up on the roof rather than tucked in a roof space, which brings penetrations, access and weatherproofing into the job in a way a house never does.
Plenty of Gold Coast tenancies can't take a ducted system, and you deserve to hear that from me before you're deep into a quote. Ducted needs somewhere to put the ductwork, somewhere to put the plant, and a building that will let you do both.
Ducts need room above the grid, and they need it in a straight enough run to reach the far end of the tenancy without choking the airflow. Older strip retail, heritage shopfronts and anything with an exposed or raked ceiling often has nowhere for it to go.
The outdoor unit has to live somewhere sensible, be reachable for servicing, and get there without a crane bill nobody budgeted for. Penetrations have to be done properly, because a roof leak above a trading floor costs far more than the job did.
In a leased tenancy or a strata building, roof plant and penetrations usually need sign-off, and that takes longer than the install does. Better to start it now than three weeks in.
If the answer is no, I'll say so and point you at what will work. Ceiling cassettes handle most open retail and office floors on their own, and they don't need a metre of ceiling void to hide in. Check my commercial split systems service.
Most ducted zoning is explained as though you're picking which bedrooms run overnight. Your building doesn't work like that, so here's the business version.
Zones let you run the shopfront hard from open to close while the storeroom sits idle. They let the staff room come on at seven and go off at three. They let you condition one tenancy on a Sunday without paying to cool a whole floor for two people doing stocktake. And when the cleaners are in at nine at night, you're running one zone instead of the lot.
I fit AirTouch 5 on ducted systems, so whoever runs the place can set zones, timers and temperatures from a wall tablet or a phone. That matters more in a business than at home, because the person who set it up usually isn't the person locking up.
The practical upshot is the power bill. A ducted system that's zoned properly and set up around your actual trading hours costs meaningfully less to run than the same system left on one setting all day, and that gap compounds across a summer.
Ducted isn't automatically the right answer, and I'll tell you when it isn't.
When it is, this is why.
A ducted install is days of work, not hours. Most commercial jobs I do run two to four days, and a bigger floor or a long duct run can go past that. Anyone quoting you a single afternoon hasn't looked properly.
That length is the whole problem, and it's the thing nobody mentions until the ceiling is open and your customers are walking around a drop sheet. So I stage the work. We agree up front which part of the tenancy is out of action on which day, and you get each area back as it's finished rather than at the end of the week.
The heavy and dirty parts happen out of trading hours. Ceiling access, duct runs, coring and anything that makes a mess gets done in the evening, on a weekend or before you open, and there's no premium on scheduled out-of-hours work. Dust gets contained rather than spread, and the space is swept, wiped and ready before your first customer walks in.
You'll also get a straight answer on the parts I can't stage. Commissioning needs the system running, and there's a day where the power comes off. I'll tell you which day that is when I quote, not when I turn up.
If your existing system dies mid-job or mid-summer, after-hours call-outs are available. That one carries a higher fee, and I'll tell you what it is on the phone before I leave the yard.
If you're running the fit-out rather than the business, the job you want done is the boring one: turn up when the program says, don't hold up the ceiling fixer, and don't disappear between rough-in and commissioning.
I work off your drawings and I'll flag a problem while it's still cheap, which is usually before the ceiling grid goes in. Rough-in, fit-off and commissioning get booked against your program, and if the program slips I'd rather you told me than worked around me.
The difference on my jobs is that the person on site is the same person every day, and it's the same person who priced it. Nobody arrives on Thursday needing the last three days explained. My mobile is the site contact, not a scheduling desk.
I take on single tenancies and small floors. Base-build and multi-storey work belongs with a company that has crews for it, and I'll tell you that early rather than tie up your program finding out.
On a job this size the usual arrangement falls apart faster. A salesperson prices it, a crew you've never met installs it over four days, and the questions you have on day three go to whoever answers the phone.
I price it, I'm there every day of it, and I'm the one back on site for the first service. Nothing gets lost between people because there aren't any other people.
Ducted has more places for a price to move than any other system I install, which is exactly why I work the job out properly before I quote it. If something genuinely unforeseeable turns up above a ceiling, I stop and talk to you rather than spend your money and tell you later.
Ducted suits some buildings and not others, and sometimes two cassettes do a better job for half the spend. Seventeen years is what you're paying for, and most of that value shows up before a tool comes out of the ute.
Brielle runs the office and I'm on the tools. Nearly all our work comes from referrals and repeat customers, which is the only way a two-person operation lasts.
For commercial ducted I usually point people at Mitsubishi Electric or Daikin. Long run hours are hard on a system, and when something does eventually need a part, you want one that's on a shelf in Brisbane rather than on a boat. Where the budget is tighter, Midea, Gree and TCL all build commercial-range ducted units I'm happy to put my name on. Control is AirTouch 5, the current generation, not the one before it. Tell me what the space has to do and what you want to spend, and I'll lay out the honest trade-offs between them.
Six steps, from the first phone call to a system still doing its job in ten years.
I come out, get above the ceiling, look at the roof, check the power and ask how and when you trade. If the building won't take ducted, you find out here, at no cost.
One number in plain English covering the unit, the ductwork, the materials and the labour. Where there's a sensible alternative, I'll price that too so you can compare.
A deposit holds your spot in the diary and the order goes in. When the supplier confirms, we map out which areas are affected on which days and lock in the out-of-hours blocks.
Ductwork, penetrations and the outdoor unit go in, mostly outside your trading hours, with the space handed back area by area.
Vents and returns go in, the system gets pressure tested and run under load, and the zones get set up around your actual hours before I sign it off.
I'll show whoever runs the place how to drive the controller, then come back for a complimentary service at around six months and set a schedule from there. A reminder arrives before each one and you just pick a time.
A ducted system fails differently to a split, and worse. When a wall unit gets neglected, one room gets uncomfortable. When a ducted system gets neglected, airflow drops across the whole tenancy at once, the unit works harder for less, and you find out on the hottest afternoon of the year with a full floor.
An agreement takes the remembering off your desk. Depending on how hard the system runs and how much dust, grease or salt air it deals with, I'll set a quarterly or six-monthly schedule and handle the reminders. A cafe kitchen and an accountant's office are not on the same cycle.
Booking it in the cooler months is the smart play. The system isn't under load, my diary is easier, and you go into summer knowing it will start.
You're handing over the keys and letting me into your ceiling, so here's what sits behind the work:
The Gold Coast is home base and I cover the coast down through Tweed Heads. Worthwhile commercial jobs pull me further afield, up to Brisbane, west to Toowoomba and Warwick, and south into the Northern Rivers. Not sure if you're in range? Ring me and I'll give you a straight answer.
Still working something out? Give me a call. You'll get an honest answer whether or not it turns into a job.
It moves with the capacity you need, the length and complexity of the duct run, how many zones you want and where the outdoor unit has to go. If you've seen prices around eight thousand dollars advertised locally, those are residential figures for a straightforward house with an accessible roof space. A commercial tenancy with roof-mounted plant, longer runs and out-of-hours work is a different job. I'll give you a fixed written quote once I've been through the building, so you're deciding on a real number.
Only if there's ceiling space for the ductwork, somewhere sensible for the outdoor unit, and permission from whoever owns the roof. Plenty of older shopfronts and heritage tenancies fail on the first one. I check all three at the site visit and tell you before you've spent anything.
In almost every case, yes. The work gets staged so you get areas back as they're finished, and the dirty parts happen outside trading hours with no premium on scheduled work. There's usually one day where power comes off for commissioning, and I'll tell you which day that is when I quote.
Two to four days for most single tenancies. A larger floor, a long duct run or awkward roof access will stretch it, and you'll get an honest number before you commit rather than after.
Ducted wins on open floors where you want nothing visible and one system to service. Cassettes win where there's no ceiling void, where the layout is broken into separate rooms with different needs, or where you'd rather one fault didn't take out the whole tenancy. I'll tell you which way I'd go once I've walked the space.
Quarterly or six-monthly, depending on run hours and the environment. Anywhere with grease, dust or salt air needs it more often. Skipping it on a ducted system costs more than skipping it on a split, because everything downstream of a blocked filter is your whole floor.
Depends on the age, what's failed and what parts still exist for it. Some systems have years left and want a proper service rather than a new unit. Others are quietly costing you more in power and downtime than a replacement would. I'll diagnose it, price both, and tell you which one I'd choose if it were my building.
Yes. I work off your drawings and book rough-in, fit-off and commissioning against your program. Single tenancies and small floors are my range. Base-build and multi-storey projects want a company with crews, and I'll say so early.
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