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Installing a reverse cycle air conditioner in your home is an incredibly efficient and effective way to cool and heat your home, but like all quality climate control systems they don't come cheap. Since you're making such a substantial investment, you may be reticent to choose any optional extras or special features on offer.

However, while some optional extras for reverse cycle air conditioners are only useful in certain circumstances, there are a wide range of optional features for these air conditioners that are well worth the extra expense. When having your reverse cycle system fitted, consider having the following extra features installed to further increase the effectiveness of your system:

Inverters

Conventional reverse cycle air conditioning has three basic settings -- hot, cold, and off. While this does not make these air conditioners any less effective at cooling and heating your home, it can lead to substantially higher energy bills --  whether the temperature needs to be adjusted a lot or a little, your air conditioner's compressors will work at a fixed speed.

Reverse cycle air conditioners fitted with inverters are far more efficient, as the are capable of modifying the speed and power of the compressors depending on the level of temperature change you desire. This prevents your compressors from running at full power when you only want to modify your home temperature by one or two degrees, leading to substantial energy savings in the long run.

Air filters

An optional extra offered by most good reverse cycle air conditioning manufacturers, these air filters are integrated into the ducts of your conditioning system and are very effective at removing dust, airborne particles, pollution and other contaminants from your home's air columns.

They are particularly useful when used in urban homes subjected to high levels of air pollution, or homes used by people suffering from respiratory conditions (such as asthma) which can be aggravated by badly contaminated air. For the best results, choose HEPA (High Efficiency Particle Arrestance) filters if they are offered to you -- these filters used incredibly fine, randomly-arranged webs of fibres to catch even microscopic particles.

Multiple-room controls

If you are installing reverse cycle air conditioning in a larger home with many rooms, a single sensor and thermostat might not cut it when it comes to achieving perfect temperature in every room. This is where multiple room controls come into play, allowing you to adjust internal temperatures on a room-by-room basis. Extra controls can be fitted to several rooms, but for ultimate convenience you may wish to invest in a wireless master controller, capable of controlling the temperature of all rooms from a single console.