The furnace was in the basement, connected to the baseboards with a series of heat registers, which would not be useful for an A/C system
When my grandmother passed away she bequeathed the old family cabin to me. This was a big deal, because the cabin was amazing, and it sat on three hundred acres worth of wild forest land. This area was lush and thick of wildlife, perfect for any hunter or fishing fanatic. I remember going to the cabin during the summers when I was kid, and how much fun it was exploring the woods of the foothills. I also remember how incredibly hot it got in the place, because it was so old it had no air conditioning in it. The problem was that the cabin was so expansive that it would take an industrial sized HVAC system to manage the whole place. I went to the cabin with an HVAC expert to do a walkthrough and a cursory inspection. The guy wasn’t there to work on the heating system, just to evaluate the state of the house and what it would take to get it air conditioned. The final report was disheartening, to say the least. Since the cabin was not built with central AC in mind there was no existing ductwork. The furnace was in the basement, connected to the baseboards with a series of heat registers, which would not be useful for an A/C system. It would be possible to install small air ducts on the ceiling of the house, but this would be obtrusive and ugly. Instead, the HVAC expert suggested I buy a small, ductless air conditioner, which wouldn’t be enough to cool down the whole house, but would be better than nothing at all.