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.
Refer tech here. The issue is nobody wants to waranty or maintain heatpumps. They seem really similar but they are wildly different from a standard central air system.
HVAC and refer techs tend to be fans of controls which are big dumb and mostly if not entirely mechanical. Heat pumps are very much not that. Everything is electronically controlled. They use electronic pressure sensors and electeonic temp sensors to electronically control the speed of a variable speed compressor and variable speed fans. Nothing on a heatpump runs at a steady state and it makes the already fairly complex mechanics of the refrigeration cycle harder for techs with a less intuitive understanding of it.
Theres also the fact that debugging circuit boards is not something HVAC techs do. Generally they find the bad board and replace it but heatpumps have so many interacting boards that it is difficult for even the equipment manufacturers to tell which one is causing the issue. I’ve literally had mitsubishi (the gold standard for heat pumps if anyone is wondering) tech support tell me “well we’ve narrowed it down to one of 2 boards so just replace one and if that doesn’t fix it then replace the other one” like they weren’t talking about $600 parts.
Plus you also have a lot of manufacturers that are still just plain bad at building the equipment. I remember one cooper and hunter indoor unit where I was struggling to figure out how I was supposed to get to the fan motor to replace it so I looked at the manufactures info to see what they recommended. Their instructions were to literally bed the STILL CHARGED indoor coil outwards to make room to remove the motor. Yes, physically bending a charged refrigeration coil was the only way to replace a pretty standard wear component.
Along with all of that, all of the components are proprietary. In a standard AC system you can find all sorts of generic components to replace whatever you need to. With heatpumps the components are only available through that manufacturer and only for as long as the choose to keep selling them.
That’s not to say heatpumps aren’t great. They are great. I recommend them to customers all the time. But they definitely have their issues and I can understand why a lot of outfits want absolutely nothing to do with them. They also have places where they should 100% not be used (ie whoever sold a heatpump the the fucking flour mill I’ve been working in needs to be shot).
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.
Refer tech here. The issue is nobody wants to waranty or maintain heatpumps. They seem really similar but they are wildly different from a standard central air system.
HVAC and refer techs tend to be fans of controls which are big dumb and mostly if not entirely mechanical. Heat pumps are very much not that. Everything is electronically controlled. They use electronic pressure sensors and electeonic temp sensors to electronically control the speed of a variable speed compressor and variable speed fans. Nothing on a heatpump runs at a steady state and it makes the already fairly complex mechanics of the refrigeration cycle harder for techs with a less intuitive understanding of it.
Theres also the fact that debugging circuit boards is not something HVAC techs do. Generally they find the bad board and replace it but heatpumps have so many interacting boards that it is difficult for even the equipment manufacturers to tell which one is causing the issue. I’ve literally had mitsubishi (the gold standard for heat pumps if anyone is wondering) tech support tell me “well we’ve narrowed it down to one of 2 boards so just replace one and if that doesn’t fix it then replace the other one” like they weren’t talking about $600 parts.
Plus you also have a lot of manufacturers that are still just plain bad at building the equipment. I remember one cooper and hunter indoor unit where I was struggling to figure out how I was supposed to get to the fan motor to replace it so I looked at the manufactures info to see what they recommended. Their instructions were to literally bed the STILL CHARGED indoor coil outwards to make room to remove the motor. Yes, physically bending a charged refrigeration coil was the only way to replace a pretty standard wear component.
Along with all of that, all of the components are proprietary. In a standard AC system you can find all sorts of generic components to replace whatever you need to. With heatpumps the components are only available through that manufacturer and only for as long as the choose to keep selling them.
That’s not to say heatpumps aren’t great. They are great. I recommend them to customers all the time. But they definitely have their issues and I can understand why a lot of outfits want absolutely nothing to do with them. They also have places where they should 100% not be used (ie whoever sold a heatpump the the fucking flour mill I’ve been working in needs to be shot).