Even cooling from a chilled ceiling

The structural flaw of a point unit

A split unit is a single point where cold is produced. In front of it the temperature drops quickly and the air moves. Away from it, nothing happens. The room divides into zones, and the occupants arrange themselves according to those zones rather than according to what the room is for.

What a surface changes

A chilled ceiling exchanges across its whole area at once. There is therefore no coldest point and no furthest point. The temperature reads the same in the middle of the room and in the corners, which is the very definition of evenness.

Why the ceiling and not the floor

The floor is cluttered with furniture and rugs, which masks a large part of its area. The ceiling is clear. For cooling it has the further advantage of facing the warm masses in the room, which are the exposed walls and the people.

The absence of draught

With no blowing there is no cold sensation on the neck and no local drying. That is what most clearly separates the two approaches in use, more even than the temperature obtained.

What to check beforehand

Ambient humidity decides the lowest ceiling temperature that is acceptable. In a very humid space, a commercial kitchen or a pool hall, that point has to be studied before anything else, failing which the ceiling will condense.

How it all works is described on the page about building a cooling ceiling, and the system on the eClim page.