There are a lot of options to sort through. Here are some tips on picking the right one: 

Summer seems to start earlier every year. Temperatures of 90+ degrees are common as early as April and as late as Halloween these days. Having a reliable and effective air conditioning system has always been a big part of living comfortably in Paso Robles, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to be changing anytime soon.

If your old air conditioner has conked out on you, you’re probably trying to decide on a replacement for it. The marketplace is flooded with different brands, models and styles, and it can be easy to let yourself feel overwhelmed by it all. 

The best way to stop that is by educating yourself. And lucky for you, there’s plenty of information out there. We know this brief guide doesn’t have all the answers – but we hope it gets you started in the right direction.

Start at the beginning:

 Assessing your needs Your air conditioning needs are going to depend – at least in part – on some of the details of your home. 

Specifically, you’ll need to consider things like: 

Where you live:

• The average summer highs and winter lows have an enormous influence on how you’ll use your system
• The type of home you live in:. Is it a mobile home? A freestanding single-family home? A condominium?
• The size of your home: How many square feet? How many stories?

The most important question: 

• What’s your standard of comfort? 
• How cold or warm do you want it to be inside your home? 

Just answering these questions can go a long way toward narrowing the field. 

That’s just a starting point. Pinpointing the best AC system for you takes a good bit of work & specialized knowledge, In fact, it’s usually best

Breaking it down: The Split AC system  

We recommend a split A/C system for most of our customers. They cool (or heat) the entire home evenly and quickly, and can easily handle larger spaces. 

Because of the way they’re designed, they tend to be more efficient – some customers have saved hundreds of dollars per month on their electric bills. 

Most of them include anti-allergy filtration and UV light bacteria-killing technology, which minimizes up to 99.9% of air pathogens. It’s true that these systems can seem a little pricey at first glance. And they’re certainly more expensive than a window unit. But when you factor in the long-range cost of ownership (which naturally includes your monthly energy bills) and the high level of comfort these systems can provide, the split systems become a very compelling option. 

What is a Mini Split Air Conditioner?

Mini-splits: Ideal cooling solutions for flat-roofed rooms:

Rooms with flat roofs, closed-in patios, Cali Sun rooms or rooms that have been added onto a house usually don’t have a connected attic. That can make it really hard to run central air conditioning to these rooms, since that’s where the ductwork would usually go. Used to be, the only solution was to fit the room with a window unit. But those are awkward, they often leak through the seals around the edges, and they’re usually not energy-efficient at all.

These days, there’s a better solution: a mini-split.

A mini-split is a standalone unit that has many of the advantages of central AC, with none of the drawbacks of a window unit. Mini-splits have their own separate condensing units and air handlers, which enables you to actually cool the room with central air conditioning without ducting in the attic. 

What’s more, they even have remote control capabilities so you can adjust the temperature from your easy chair.

Mitsubishi’s line of mini-splits have a great reputation, particularly the Mr. Slim model.