Is it possible to combine a heat pump heating system with air conditioning?

Hello everyone,

is there a sensible way to combine a heat pump heating system with an air conditioning system in a multi-family house?
Assuming you are building a multi-family house for rental and want to install an air conditioning system.
A central air conditioning unit provides heat and cooling, which is then distributed to each apartment via a duct unit. The duct unit works as air heating and cooling.

How would the billing of a central air conditioning/heating system work?

Are there cooling/heat meters that can be installed in front of each duct unit to determine the exact consumption?
This way, you could save the underfloor heating. Hot water can be simply provided via a tankless water heater, which in turn saves this billing because each tenant gets their own electricity meter.

In a modern insulated building, there should be no problem with the heating load. The annual performance factor should also be high enough not to produce a money pit.

Does anyone perhaps have a better idea? Am I wrong in my assumptions?

I am open to all tips.

Air is fundamentally not a particularly good heat transfer medium. However, if the building is properly insulated, one can consider heating with an air conditioning unit. They are basically just heat pumps as well.

But before you spend so much time dealing with the billing, you should first consider whether:

a) The occupants would even like/accept an air-based heating solution (it’s not everyone’s thing)
b) Do they all have the same heating/cooling needs?

If b) cannot be answered with yes, and you are also thinking about more than about 2 apartments with 2 climate zones each, then you will quickly end up with a VRF/VRV system. It also works perfectly fine but is priced accordingly...

We have solar panels on the roof, with which we operate the heat pump for heating in winter and the air conditioning units in summer - which I of course run during the day so that the walls do not heat up. At night, I turn off the unit in the bedroom.

The following problems / costs: - Billing (measuring/counting is nearly impossible or unknown to me) - Hygiene/maintenance - extended fire protection measures - never seen in practice (I myself supervise developers, etc.) - air heating unpopular due to airflow - different user behavior hardly controllable - one user needs cooling while another wants heat (transition periods, suitable orientation of the apartments, e.g.) I can't think of a single reason to combine something like this. P.S. Is the rent so high or the location so sought after that air conditioning would be worthwhile given the effort? In my experience, radiant heating is state of the art for high-quality residential space plus separate air conditioning. I do not expect a "cheap combined variant" when I already spend a lot of money as a tenant.

I also see a noise problem there. The apartments are then connected via the ventilation ducts. This could lead to disturbing noise transmission.

Hello everyone,

thanks for the input.
Then I will think it over.
Underfloor heating plus split air conditioners is probably easier.
Best regards