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Australian homes run several quite different systems, and the right one depends on your climate zone, your house and how many rooms you actually want conditioned. The Australian Government's Energy Rating programme notes that reverse cycle air conditioners are generally the most energy-efficient combined heating and cooling system available to households.

The Australian Refrigeration Council administers refrigerant handling licences on behalf of the Australian Government. A refrigerant handling licence must be held by any person who carries out work in relation to refrigeration and air conditioning equipment, and that covers installing, commissioning, servicing, maintaining and decommissioning as well as decanting refrigerant. The ARC is explicit that handling fluorocarbon refrigerant without the appropriate licence is a strict liability offence, which means it is an offence regardless of what the person intended.

The licence is national and it is checkable. The ARC publishes a search so you can confirm that a technician or a business holds a current licence or refrigerant trading authorisation before you let them start, and it audits licence holders as part of running the scheme. Ask for the ARCtick number and look it up yourself rather than relying on a logo on a van.

Refrigerant is not the whole job. The electrical connection is electrical work and must be done by a licensed electrical worker, and if the installation touches a gas appliance or gas line, that is separate licensed gasfitting work. A single contractor may hold or subcontract all three, but somebody licensed has to be responsible for each part.

Australian and New Zealand air conditioners carry the Zoned Energy Rating Label, which improves on a single national star rating by reporting seasonal efficiency separately for three climate zones: hot, average and cold. A unit that performs beautifully in a mild coastal climate may lose efficiency where summers are extreme or where winter nights are genuinely cold, and the zoned label is designed to expose exactly that.

The label gives star ratings on a scale of one to ten, with more stars meaning better efficiency compared with similar models. It shows cooling figures and heating figures separately, alongside estimated annual energy use in kilowatt hours for each zone, and it includes a noise indicator in decibels for the indoor and outdoor units, which matters more than most buyers expect on a small suburban block. In stores the label is mandatory on single-phase, non-ducted, unitary and single-split air conditioners up to 30 kW; on ducted systems it is voluntary, so not every product will display one.

Efficiency only pays off if the unit is the right size. The Energy Rating programme advises that choosing a suitably sized unit is the first and most important step, and that the right capacity depends on the space, the wall material, the insulation, the windows and the climate, so professional advice is worth getting before you settle on a capacity in kilowatts.

Most of the easy efficiency in a split system sits in the filters. The Australian Government advises cleaning air conditioner filters with a brush, hose or vacuum every two weeks during periods of use, and wiping down vents, filters and louvres without harsh cleaning fluids. Dust around the indoor and outdoor units also costs airflow, and airflow is what the machine trades on.

Set-point discipline saves more than most upgrades. The advice for Australian households is to set heating thermostats between 18 and 20 degrees Celsius in winter and cooling thermostats between 25 and 27 degrees in summer, because each additional degree of heating or cooling increases energy use by somewhere between 5 and 10 per cent. Cooling only the rooms in use, and closing doors to the rest, does the same job from the other direction.

Beyond that, book a service by a licensed technician. Checking refrigerant charge, pressures and the sealed circuit is licensed work, not homeowner work, and the same visit is when worn contactors, blocked drains and failing capacitors get caught before they become a summer breakdown.

Seasons here run the opposite way to the northern hemisphere, and so does the service calendar. The peak cooling load arrives with summer in December, January and February, which means the sensible time to book an air conditioning service is late spring, before the first serious heatwave and before every technician in your postcode is booked out. The general guidance is to arrange a service inspection ahead of peak use rather than during it.

Heating runs on the opposite schedule. Winter is June, July and August, so gas heating and reverse cycle heating are worth checking in autumn. For gas appliances this matters for safety, not only comfort: Energy Safe Victoria recommends having gas heaters serviced every two years by a qualified gasfitter endorsed to service Type A appliances, and that service includes testing for carbon monoxide spillage with a CO analyser. Carbon monoxide has no smell, and an open-flued heater in a home with strong extraction fans can be drawn into negative pressure, so this is a check worth putting in the calendar.

Tropical and subtropical households have a third season to plan around. Where the wet season brings humidity rather than cold, dehumidification and drainage matter more than heating, and a blocked condensate drain shows up as water damage rather than as a cold room.

Support for efficient heating and cooling in Australia is mostly run by the states rather than nationally, so what is available depends on your postcode. Victoria runs the Victorian Energy Upgrades programme, under which households can receive a discount on an approved high-efficiency reverse cycle air conditioner that provides both heating and cooling, with larger discounts where a ducted gas heater is being replaced. The discount is applied to the quote by an accredited provider rather than claimed back afterwards, which changes how you should compare quotes.

Other states and territories run their own schemes, and the Australian Government maintains a consolidated list of rebates and assistance that is the sensible place to start. Programmes open, close and change eligibility rules regularly, so confirm the current terms before committing, check whether the installer must be accredited under the scheme, and keep the paperwork.