What Marion's houses are made of
By the 1950s Adelaide's suburbs had swallowed Marion, and much of what was built was austerity housing: basic three and four bedroom homes on quarter-acre (1000 m2) blocks, many for the South Australian Housing Trust. Walls were cavity construction and roofs were tiled.
For a split system, a cavity brick wall means coring through two skins for the pipe run, so the installer will want to choose the wall carefully. For ducted, the indoor unit and every duct run sit up in the roof space under those tiles. Ask how they'll get the unit up there, and how they'll protect the ceiling.
Marion at a glance
An early township
William Light and B. T. Finniss laid Marion out in 1838. It's around 10 km south-west of the city centre, in the City of Marion.
Infill is changing the streets
Many austerity homes remain, but infill is replacing some, with two or three homes where there was one. 30.7% of Marion's occupied homes in 2021 were semis, row houses or townhouses.
Who lives here
At the 2021 Census, 67.7% of homes were separate houses, with an average of 2.9 bedrooms. 33.9% were owned outright and 24.8% rented.
The jobs most likely in Marion
A split for the living room of a post-war house. The usual first step. See split system installation in Adelaide.
Ducted in a full-size house. A three or four bedroom home with roof space suits ducted reverse cycle, especially if you're replacing an old gas ducted heater. The ACT Government's guide says old gas ducts are too narrow for reverse cycle, so expect new ducting.
Infill units. In a new two-storey unit, the upstairs bedroom often gets its own split, and the outdoor unit needs a spot that won't sit under the neighbour's window. South Australian law can treat aircon noise that reaches a neighbour's habitable room or outdoor area as a local nuisance.
In the roof space
Ceilings are easy to fall through. WorkSafe Victoria warns that workers have fallen through plaster ceilings in roof spaces, and says not to step on ceiling materials and to use crawl boards across the joists. Leave roof work to the installer, and if your ceiling has any old insulation you're unsure of, say so before anyone goes up.
What we'd do
What we'd do
In a Marion post-war house we'd put a reverse cycle split on the living room's inside wall first, with the shortest sensible pipe run through the cavity. If the old gas ducted heater is near the end of its life, we'd get a ducted reverse cycle quote with new, insulated ducts at the same time, so you can compare the two properly.
Send the job and your postcode. Licence-checked installers in Adelaide's south who do that kind of work can see it, and only the one who takes it gets your contact details. If no one near Marion takes it within 48 hours, the job may be shown to installers elsewhere in South Australia.
