Still need to finish wrapping the lines and tidy up the cables a bit, though.
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I wish I would be able to do it myself. But in Sweden you have to hire someone to do it. Costs about as much as a low to mid range pump.
Costs about as much as a low to mid range pump.
At least the costs are more reasonable… Around these parts, DIY is the only reasonable way to do it, because installation could easily cost 5-10x the price of a low to mid range pump. For some reason, HVAC technicians in the US have decided that mini-splits are strange, alien technology that requires 10x more expertise (and 10x more money) to install or work on than regular air conditioners … even though they basically are regular air conditioners. They’ve decided that mini-splits are high-end specialty work, and price it accordingly.
You could easily buy a low-end minisplit online for ~$300, but professional installation could cost $3000.
Even with the prefilled quick connect ones?
Haven’t seen those around here. How do you solve the vacuum with those? Only monoblocks is available to the consumer.
https://mrcooldiydirect.com/collections/diy-pre-charged-hvac-systems
They come pre charged, iirc the qd uses a gas vial to purge the connector as the connection is made.
“More pumping, more now”
Heat pumps are the best. Nice work
Nice. I did this last year and posted it here, too!
You should be using liquid-tite conduit for exterior wiring and to keep the kids from hanging from it.
You should be using liquid-tite conduit for exterior wiring
Heh… The exterior wiring is probably the sketchiest part of all of this. Because I cheaped out bigtime. Some time ago, my girlfriend happened to find a heavy duty extension cord that had fallen off a truck and been run over a few times. The insulation was damaged in some places, but it was a very big and heavy cord, worth saving. I spliced the longest undamaged parts of it together into a nice working extension cord that’s a bit shorter now. But I was also able to save another piece of around 12ft that hadn’t been damaged, but wasn’t worth making another joint in the cord to incorporate it. Kept that around … and now I’ve finally put (most of) that extra section to use, connecting my heat pump to wall power.
Don’t worry – it’s 12ga wire, the same as what’s feeding the thing inside the wall, and should theoretically be good up to 25 amps, while this heat pump should only pull 17 amps. But since it’s not Romex, it doesn’t have paper parts to its insulation and won’t be as sensitive to moisture. It’s also already sheathed in a thick, weather-resistant outer lining. I will be wrapping it in weather-resistant tape for additional long-term protection, though, and I’ll keep an eye on it from time to time to make sure it’s not degrading. No big deal to replace it if I need to sometime in the future, but at least for now, it should be fine, and I’m willing to see how long it lasts.
But, hey, can’t turn down free wiring, right?
and to keep the kids from hanging from it
No kids, thankfully, and none planned. Good thing too, because they’d probably want to climb all over this.
I’ve considered doing this. How difficult is it for someone with no background in HVAC?
Everything is pre-charged. It’s easy if you’re not an idiot. Hardest part is routing the lines through the house from where you want the head unit. Also, electrical if you aren’t familiar with that. Site your outdoor unit to make that as easy as possible.
Everything is pre-charged.
Not on this one, lol!
But charging it is actually not that difficult or complicated, and I was able to borrow the necessary tools (vacuum pump and refrigerant gauge set) from a brother in law. All you have to do is use a vacuum pump to suck all the air out of the lines. Then wait to ensure it holds a vacuum, so you can be sure there’s no leaks. Then disconnect the vacuum pump and turn the valves to open the system up, letting the refrigerant into the lines and the inside unit.
Those ones are nicer for getting the lineset the actual length you want instead of having to coil up the excess somewhere, if you have or can get hold of the equipment.
Price of vac pumps and gauges is much better than when I bought them to deal with our farm equipment. If your choice was to pay someone or buy the stuff to do it yourself, it’s no question it’s cheaper to do it yourself. Every job I do on a tractor would pay for the tools all over again, every job was $1000 before that.
That’s pre-charged bud. Otherwise there wouldn’t be refrigerant included
Some come with lines that are vacuumed or something out of the box. Aren’t most compressors pre charged?
Oh, I thought there were ones with pre-charged lines and everything, where you could just hook it up and go.
There are, and that’s the way the average joe is supposed to do one of these. Technically speaking you can’t even hook up a refrigerant manifold to a system legally without an EPA 608 cert (assuming you’re in the US). Of course the EPA doesn’t exactly have the funding or support to enforce anything right now. Even if they did, they have far bigger fish to fry than a homeowner doing their own HVAC work.
Of course, if you do want to work with refrigerants more then an EPA 608 cert is prettyeasy to get. It’s a lifetime cert and I was able to get it with a week of self study and an online test. 608 type 2 is what you need for most HVAC but really it’s not that much harder to just get the universal cert.
I have no background in HVAC, and I did it.
This youtube video was a great resource.
Hardest (or at least the most nerve-wracking) part of it was unrolling and placing the long, fragile copper tubes. They have to be handled very carefully because if they bend too sharply or too much, they can kink or crack, and then you need a whole new set of lines.
I’ve thought about getting one, but I hear they have major mold and mildew issues.
How would they be any different than a standard AC coil in that regard?
Regular use of Coil cleaner is the key here.
This unit supposedly has a ‘sanitize’ setting that will use cycles of extreme hot and cold to automatically kill anything growing in the inside unit. Haven’t tried that out yet, but it sounds promising.
And if that doesn’t work, I guess I’ll just manually clean it and maybe spray some bleach inside if it starts getting bad.
There is a dehumidify setting, and we mainly use that because it uses less energy than the AC setting, plus we live in an area of high humidity so it cools down our place amazingly.
The only time I’ve seen mold issues is in flats that were converted from big old houses (big!) With zero ventilation (plenty of examples where our kid lives)
