Upfront, so you can weigh what follows: we install conventional aircon, and we also service centralised cooling fan coil units. We do not install or sell the centralised system itself, and only the contractor appointed under the HDB scheme may dismantle it. If you choose a conventional system we might get the installation, so read the rest knowing that.
We work in Tengah often enough that owners ask us this constantly. Here is the comparison as straight as we can make it, including the parts that do not suit us.
Worth knowing first: you decide earlier than most people expect. This is not a choice you make a few weeks before key collection. The sign up window is tied to your lease signing, reported as within six months of that date, which for most buyers means deciding years before moving in. You can still subscribe later, including after collecting your keys, but early subscribers were reported to get a rate around 20 per cent lower. Terms vary by precinct and have changed over time, so check the paperwork for your own project rather than relying on this or on what a neighbour tells you.
What the system actually is
Central chillers sit at the development and pipe chilled water into each flat, where fan coil units blow cooled air into your rooms. There is no outdoor condenser and no compressor in your home, because the cooling is produced centrally.
You subscribe rather than buy. You pay an installation charge for the equipment in your flat and then a usage rate for the cooling you consume.
One thing worth knowing because most online discussion predates it: HDB awarded the contract to Keppel, for three Tengah projects in September 2024 and nine more in April 2026, covering roughly 14,000 households across 12 projects. The earlier pilot was run by SP Group. A lot of the complaints you will find in forum threads relate to that pilot and its handover problems, which SP attributed largely to workmanship under a compressed timeline. Useful context when you are reading someone’s bad experience from 2023.
The genuine advantages
These are real and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
- No condenser on your ledge. No outdoor unit, no noise outside the bedroom window, and the ledge stays free. For some owners that alone decides it.
- Far less to maintain. No compressor, no refrigerant gas top ups, no condenser coil washing, no outdoor PCB to fail. Those are the items that cost conventional owners money over the years.
- Nothing to replace. A conventional system is yours to replace at the end of its life, which is a real cost every ten to fifteen years. With a subscription, that is not your problem.
- Lower cost to start. You are not buying a full system outright on top of everything else a new flat demands.
- HDB says it can use up to 30 per cent less energy than conventional air conditioning. We cannot independently verify that, but it is the published figure and the engineering logic behind district cooling is sound.
- Servicing is scheduled for you, booked through the operator’s app, rather than you remembering to arrange it.
The trade-offs
Equally real.
- The trunking runs through your living space. This is the objection we hear most, and it is worth being precise about it because the usual complaint misses the point. SP Group told CNA the trunking is about 10cm wide, roughly 2.5cm more than conventional split trunking, because of the thicker insulation needed to stop condensation. Two and a half centimetres is not the problem. The route is. A conventional split runs pipes outward from each indoor unit to the condenser on your ledge, so they hug exterior and service walls and stay mostly out of your eyeline. Centralised cooling brings one main pipe in from the common corridor above your front door, then branches it inward to every room, which means it crosses the inside of your flat to get there. SP told CNA that section above the front door is up to 30cm wide, as it carries the main pipe for the whole flat. Owners interviewed by CNA described it cutting through the living room and running to bedrooms along the exterior walls. Boxing it in to hide it is possible, at your cost, and as one owner put it, boxing it up enlarges it further.
- One provider for everything. Servicing goes through the operator. Only the contractor appointed under the HDB scheme may dismantle the units if you change your mind. Customers have told us they were charged $600 for removal, though we have not seen a published price list. The point is less the figure than the absence of a second quote to compare it against, which is unlike every other aircon job in your flat.
- You do not control the rate. The usage rate is reviewed periodically. Under SP it was S$0.132 per kilowatt hour refrigeration from January 2024 and was later reduced to S$0.122, excluding GST. Rates move in both directions, but they are not yours to fix.
- Cancelling changed. The pilot had a 30 day cooling off period, then 35 per cent of the installation charge before installation and the full charge afterwards. That cooling off period no longer applies to agreements signed on or after 3 October 2025. Read your own agreement rather than relying on what a neighbour told you.
- It is a long commitment. Keppel’s contract runs twenty years. Subscribing suits some households and not others, and that is a preference rather than a fault.
Two things people get wrong
Both of these run in the system’s favour, and we would rather correct them than let them spread.
“You pay for water on top of electricity.” We hear this often and could find nothing supporting it. What is billed is the cooling, charged per kilowatt hour refrigeration. Our guess is that the phrase chilled water on the bill is what creates the impression. If your bill says otherwise we would like to see it, but we are not repeating this as fact.
“It is Daikin equipment.” It was, under the SP pilot, where Daikin supplied the chillers, pumps and fan coil units. Neither HDB nor Keppel has published an equipment manufacturer for the newer contracts. So if you are in one of the twelve Keppel projects, nobody has said what is going in, and you should not assume either way.
A small thing you can check yourself
Centralised cooling needs no outdoor condenser, but HDB fitted an aircon ledge to every Tengah flat regardless. So a ledge with a condenser on it is a flat running its own split system, and you can see that from the ground.
Walk around your block and you will get a sense of which way your neighbours went. Treat it as a rough impression rather than a count. An empty ledge might just be an empty or unrenovated flat, and new blocks fill up over many months. As far as we can tell, nobody publishes the actual take up rate.
Who each option suits
Centralised cooling suits you if you would rather not own or maintain equipment, you dislike the idea of a condenser outside, you are comfortable with a subscription for the long term, and having one provider handle everything sounds like a relief rather than a constraint.
Your own system suits you if you want to own the equipment, choose the brand, pick who services it and get competing quotes, keep the trunking as slim as possible, and control your own running costs.
Neither answer is wrong. They are different arrangements, and the right one depends on how you prefer to run your home.
If you want the conventional option priced
Your flat already has the ledge, so nothing needs changing to go that way. Most Tengah layouts we do are a System 2 or System 3 depending on how many rooms you want cooled, and we quote the equipment and installation as one price with no surprises at the door.
WhatsApp us at +65 8818 5781 with your block and flat type and we will give you the conventional figure, so you have a real number to put beside the subscription. If you look at both and the subscription wins, take it. We would rather you chose properly than chose us.
