Mini Split - 3 Things I Wish I Knew Before Installing

If the U-Tube had Academy Awards for best video this would be a contender. No fancy 30 second graphic introduction followed by another 30 seconds of "I'm going to tell you what I'm going to tell you in the video." No out of focus, juggling camera angles. Perfect. Good Job!

I researched ductless mini splits for months when I was looking at replacing my RUUD central air. If you have a smart electric meter on your home go look at your KWH usage for an entire year. You will see that your heat-pump was sucking electricity all winter as well as summer. We live in FL so winters are not bad but the heat-pump was still running up the electric bill in winter. My electric averaged $300 month all year. Long story short I installed an 18K ductless in the living room / kitchen area, a 12K in the master bedroom and a 9K in the guest bedroom, all separate units and all inverters. I did all the work myself for less than $3K. This is for a 1650 sq. ft. house and those 3 mini splits are cooling the house better than the central air ever did. The best part is we can turn off the units that we are not using. At night when we go to bed we turn off the 18K in the living room and close the bedroom door. My electric bill has gone down from $10 - $16 a day to $4 -$6 a day even in August. I cannot report on winter yet because we just installed them this summer. The smaller units are using about $22 a month in electric and the bigger 18K is using about $25 month. Ductless mini splits are the best thing I could have done to this house. My old RUUD R-22 system is turned off but I kept it in case we need it for an emergency back-up system. Something I learned: Ductless mini splits are subject to damage from surges and local utility outages so I put a "whole house" surge arrestor in my main panel to help protect them. BTW good video!

Very no-nonsense, good writing and delivery. Practical, low-key yet still professional direction and editing with a touch of a sense of humour. Thanks for the informative vid!

As an HVAC installer in primarily mini and multi splits, this is one of the best reviews and intros to high efficiency heat pumps yet…and he didn’t even mention most mini splits today(2023) use half the power of a window unit and three times less than a central ducted system.

I installed a 18K Mr. Cool unit 2 years ago in my garage shop. I couldn't be happier and now spend more time in the garage than in the house. Even when it's 100 degrees outside, I can maintain low 70's in the garage (***note: garage has insulated walls, ceiling, and doors). As for pros and cons......here are 3 I wish I knew before installing Pros: 1) Adding the unit actually made me much more productive. Not only can I spend more time in the woodshop, but also have the perfect place now for car repair or home repair projects. 2) The mini split unit uses very little electricity. I run it all the time, and my electric bill is maybe only 10-20% higher than normal. 3) The heating function is almost as nice as the cooling function. I had almost bought a unit that just cools to save some money. Glad I didn't. In the winter when it's 30 degrees outside, I am able to hold the shop at......you guessed it.....low 70's. Cons: 1) The most difficult part of the whole installation was shaping the copper lineset against the wall and inside the lineset cover. I kinked mine and had to get it repaired. 2) The condensate line can be a bit of a nuisance if you have no place good to drain it. Having it constantly leak over a concrete slab leads to algae build up. 3) Unless you spend more money to get a multihead unit, the cooling and heating can be uneven if your shop has an odd shape. I have to run a small fan to get the air to equalize to the far side of the garage.

You are my kind of guy. You people help us educate ourselves and I appreciate your effort very much. Thank you for that. I also bought all tools and learned to do all the job. I even have nitrogen tank and brazing equipment. For comparison: My neighbour installed 12kW heat pump and it cost him around 13.000€. I bought two 7kW inverter air condition units, 850€ each, copper pipes for exchanger (around 450€), nitrogen cylinder with regulators and brazing torch (about 250€). I invested some time in researching how to do it and connected it to an existing 2000 liter buffer tank. So it cost me approximately 2.500€ for 14kW heat pump. That is some real saving. But that's not all yet. Since I bought two split systems, I had two surplus internal units, since I only used the electronics from them. Then I got the idea... If I let water thru and start the fan, it should heat. So I installed one unit in my workshop and connected it to existing central heating. And it not only works, it works beyond my expectations. Also you can buy a "Smart Wi-fi remote control" for 10€ and control all your IR devices with it. This thing is so under-priced and useful, I can recommend it. I'm here to help if anyone is interested. Stay safe and warm. 💖

I have two mini-splits now. The first was a Mr. Cool, but the second one is a Senville 9,000 BTU unit. I saved quite a bit over the Mr. Cool model, and was able to do a no-hassle self install, thanks to watching your very thorough installation video! I even found a perfectly operating, professional-grade line-gauge set just lying in the middle of the street prior to buying the Senville unit. I was vacillating on whether or not to buy another Mr. Cool, but took the discovery of the line-gauge set as divine guidance to move forward with the self install.

I put in two pioneer units in last year and just noticed yesterday that one wasn't blowing air like it should so I shined a light and it was totally clogged with dust and mildew. I never thought to look at the blower drum because i wash the filters pretty regular, but keep an eye on that. After cleaning it, it made a huge difference.

I think something else to keep in mind is the vacuum pump and gauges are the same equipment you need to work on your cars AC so it can be something worth having around. We did two mini-splits on our house this spring in Arizona and are loving them. I plan to install more after the summer for next year. Its so much nicer being able to cool the rooms we want to use vs the whole house when its this hot out.

We have a sunroom that is very difficult to heat and cool. We tried numerous solutions and none really worked. Finally had a mini split installed and it works great.

One other thing to consider is the warranty. I purchased a Senville 9000 btu mini split and it was $800 and I also purchased a 3rd gen Mr. Cool DIY version. The Senville is supposed to be installed by a license HVAC contractor but I purchased the vacuum pump to do it myself. By doing this it voided my warranty. Both of my mini splits failed and the Mr. Cool was the only one that was covered under warranty. If you don’t use the DIY version, I would also recommend that you redo the flare to ensure a proper seal.

Bout to be doing this myself. Building a 16x12 shop from scratch. Finished the subfloor today and starting framing my walls tomorrow. I've been a project manager for the last couple years so it's not exactly fresh on my mind. Pretty sure it'll all come back to me as I go. My wife is telling me just to do a window unit but like you said, the mini split is so much better and quiet and with a line set cover, it looks pretty too. I'll check out your other videos so it'll be fresh on my mind when I tackle that. Thanks for posting this brother I appreciate it

Simple, clear, and to the point. I’m installing a mini split next week and watching many videos. Yours has been very helpful. Thanks for sharing.

I live in Canada and picked up a 24,000 BTU Senville concealed duct unit made in Montreal. Almost everything you showed applied to my unit as well and I found it clear, informative, practical and a damn fine video. Thanks a bunch.

I installed one recently and it's the biggest quality of life upgrade I've ever made. I bought a cheap vacuum kit and a line flaring tool and cut my lines to length & made new flares, drew the vacuum and connected everything up - you can get it done in a day pretty easily. Probably just a few hours if you plan properly. Hardest part for me was finding the right place to put the condenser.

It's worth noting at this juncture there are a lot of 12kw 115v plug in mini splits these days. So for a single room system, you absolutely can just plug it into a standard outlet now, if that will provide for your needs.

We had a mini split installed in our Master bedroom. At night we turned it on to our comfort sleep temp. While the rest of our home stayed the same night time set point. No muss, no fuss. Lower electricity bills overall. We calculated the maintainence and electricical savings to "go ahead" and get the mini split.

For our shop we run the table saw, compressor and small shaper (which we sold) off of 220v. Those units just run much better than 110v devices. I'm always surprised how many home shops don't have 220v available.

Brilliant, brilliant video! Thank for saving me thousands and the diagram to show the wife to break down the process. I was curious why the hvac guy barely mentioned these units and tried to sell me a $8k ducked unit. 2 week wait, 2 hvac visits, 2 service charges, nights of draining the portable ac unit water bucket, and i finally found this.

I installed 2 cooper hunter mini splits in my home 6 years ago. We have had no problems with them and saved big $ over the window units we used before. We love then and so simple to install.