Split Air con

RJC said:
Don’t forget to put the fire nut on before doing the flare!
Lost count amount of times I have done this :(

Do you own a vac pump?

I really need to put one in my living room / dining room - I might cheat and get some one to do the installation.
Click to expand...

I will forget, just you wait.

Not got a Vac pump, probably going to rent a good quality one instead of buying a cheap unit.

Do you usually put anything on the thread / flare joint?
 
Firestar_3x said:
I will forget, just you wait.

Not got a Vac pump, probably going to rent a good quality one instead of buying a cheap unit.

Do you usually put anything on the thread / flare joint?
Click to expand...

Not usually, I have in the past put locktite 577 on the threads.

Make sure you do them nice and tight, do you have OFN?
 
RJC said:
Not usually, I have in the past put locktite 577 on the threads.

Make sure you do them nice and tight, do you have OFN?
Click to expand...

Thanks, was thinking about using 577 or 567.

My plan is to flare and connect all lines, vac test for a duration and make sure it holds, then part pressurise with refrigerant to a low level and check each joint again with soap and water.

No OFN, but then i'm not an installer.
 
Firestar_3x said:
Thanks, was thinking about using 577 or 567.

My plan is to flare and connect all lines, vac test for a duration and make sure it holds, then part pressurise with refrigerant to a low level and check each joint again with soap and water.

No OFN, but then i'm not an installer.
Click to expand...

Do you have a torr gauge to check the vacuum as gauges only go down to certain level also do you have the correct gauge lines and connection fitting.
 
Firestar_3x said:
@HungryHippos hows the install looking?
Click to expand...

Not bad, on top of the images I posted earlier, all of the internal units have been mounted, and their pipework going through the wall etc.

The main bedroom one has forced some creative thinking, a lot of time has been spent in the loft to run the cables to the other side of the property. I can't imagine what fresh hell being in my loft in this weather has been, with no boarding or anything even, and it's quite cramped as the eaves start lower down.

Can see the current basics of the trunking they are going to run, along with where both the lounge and the study units are located. Going into the soffit just above the study hole near the top.

1alSeZuh.jpg

On the other side of the house, the loft cabling that goes into the soffit above comes out in the uppermost hole shown below.

The lower hole is the unit in the master bedroom.

So there will be some more trunking there, which will run from the upper hole to the lower one, then horizontally across to the right, around the brickwork, finally letting the condensation out via the guttering downpipe there.

Hopefully that all makes sense, I am not in the building trade so it's possible I've misused some words :D

7mvr4gQh.jpg
 
Looking really good, should be a tidy job, two days to do or will they finish today?

That double hole in the last picture is exactly what i will be doing, pipe run along the length of the loft into one room, out that hole and meet with the lower hole in a common bit of trunking to go down the wall.
 
Firestar_3x said:
Looking really good, should be a tidy job, two days to do or will they finish today?

That double hole in the last picture is exactly what i will be doing, pipe run along the length of the loft into one room, out that hole and meet with the lower hole in a common bit of trunking to go down the wall.
Click to expand...

They're coming back tomorrow to finish off, think it's a 2 day job and was planned as such as well.

They were originally talking about having the loft feed into the main bedroom being internal in trunking above the unit, but I wanted to keep the inside looking fresh, hence punching through the wall then back in again slightly lower down :)

Mind you all the loft work is done and the units are in place, so tomorrow should be easier (and cooler in temp as well). They just need to run remaining trunking, wire it all up, gas the system, test it out. Just in time for the end of the mini heat wave! :D

I wanted to keep external trunking as minimal as I could, some is unavoidable though.
 
I've had all 3 of my units on all day set at 23c. Room actual temp is 22c though. No idea how much power its drawing but the unit outside is spinning quietly. My kitchen which has had direct sunlight on it since about 2pm is 25.5c atm.

HungryHippos said:
Not sure how best to tackle my ethernet situation. Fibre connection comes in to the cupboard under the stairs, ideally I'd like to run it so that it has ports in my lounge near the TV, and then at least some more near to my PC in the office upstairs, some more to the master bedroom where I would like to put a TV, and maybe more for some kind of wireless AP.

This has somewhat come about because I can get 900mbit fibre now, but my powerline caps out at about 250mbps :D
Click to expand...

I missed this earlier. Do you have full access to under your stairs from your cupboard so that you could run a cable how I have indicated on the below? I am not sure where abouts your TV is in your living room but you could either do the whole remove the skirting board like I did and then fit a proper network point on the wall (not as bad as it sounds IMO). Or you could just tack white network cable to the top of the skirting.

For your second floor, I would be tempted to do what I did with my stair case and get a cable (or one for each room) to run from under the stair case, up the wall and in to the loft. Then maybe try to drop them down in to the internal stud walls of the 3 bedrooms which would give you better access I think.

NAOTo3B.jpg.png
 
Last edited:
fobose said:
I've had all 3 of my units on all day set at 23c. Room actual temp is 22c though. No idea how much power its drawing but the unit outside is spinning quietly.

My kitchen which has had direct sunlight on it since about 2pm is 25.5c atm.
Click to expand...

How audible is the outdoor unit from your experience? Do you think next door could hear yours when it's on?

Good job on your networking stuff btw! I read your post earlier on. I could possibly go out the wall then back in would certainly make it cheap to do if nothing else.

Definitely nicer running it internally though.

Food for thought really. My wall is rendered as well so I'd have to run external trunking, or pin the cable to the external wall to get to the 1st floor.
 
@HungryHippos The unit is really quiet in all fairness. When I fire up all 3 rooms at once you can hear the fan moving air, once the temperature is reached and it is just maintaining all 3 rooms it is just a steady low air movement noise which I can barely hear. I could hear it when I was laying on my sun lounger earlier (I was about 2m away). The neighbors have the fence deflecting the noise so I don't think they can hear it on their new patio. They have been out there today quite a bit and not mentioned anything. If anything, they make more noise as they have a 9 month old :D. They rarely open their windows too, they like it hot! I opened my middle floor window (office) and stuck my head out the other night and could not hear the unit running so there is no chance they would hear it if the windows were open.

Funny you mentioned the networking in your post as I was just editing mine earlier. I thought I'd resized that image much smaller but not sure whats wrong with it. I am very pleased I got my networking done, I had planned to do it as soon as I moved in as I was used to a hard wired connection in my last house but I just kept putting it off until I suddenly bought the wood flooring then I knew I had to sort it. I personally would run it internally if you can. It might be a bit of upheaval especially if you remove skirting boards like I did or run cables up to your loft but would be so worth it.
 
Could they hear it in the garden, absolutely.
Could they hear it in their bedroom with a window open, probably not.
It's a nice hum if you know what I mean, like white noise. Just like having a desk fan on by you.

Ditching the god awful portable was the best thing I ever did, and I swear that made more noise you could hear outside than an actual external unit!

Edit
Well mine is a bit no frills brand @fobose so maybe mine is a little louder.

https://www.mideauk.co.uk/air-conditioning/blanc/
 
Firestar_3x said:
Split AC turns up this weekend, been talking about fitting one for ages and ditching the portable unit, baking my ***** off in the home office today was the last straw.

Two 3.5kW units going in upstairs, piping to be run through the loft and to a corner of the house out of the way, was going to go Daikin, however the Mitsubishi R32 multi split caught my eye instead.

When all said and done inc the two 3.5kW indoor units, one outdoor, pipework, condensate pump, external trunking, cables, clips etc etc the price is looking to be just under 2k.

Going to be interesting fitting it all..................

If this turns out well then the main downstairs and remaining main upstairs rooms will get a 3 / 4 unit split installed when the extension gets built.
Click to expand...

Interestingly I'm planning my own install of the same line of unit too. Except I'm only doing the master bedroom so only needed the 2kW model. I didn't have much choice in the model as this and a Fujitsu one were the only ones precharged to a pipe length of 15m, when I estimate mine will sit at ~12m.

https://mhiae.com/splits/srk20zs-w-src20zs-w/

l8uvEPPl.jpg
2JJsErLl.jpg

I've got most of what I need, I've ordered a set of crow's foot wrenches today for use with my torque meter tightening the flare nuts.

I don't plan to use any thread sealant on them because there's different thoughts about the efficacy of it online and the manual does state not to use refrigeration oil on the connections.

I did contemplate hiring the vacuum rig from Saturn sales but figured if a leak was discovered, the 5 day window might not be long enough to rectify it and then they charge you £20 per day extra. So bought what appears to be a semi-decent pump/manifold off Amazon for not much more than Saturn want for the hire of theirs. Judging by other self installs online if you can hold a vacuum for however many hours going off the dial on the manifold you should be good. Obviously a micron meter would be nice but you have to limit the outlay on equipment that's realistically only going to be used once.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/BACOENG-3CFM-Vacuum-Manifold-Gauge/dp/B01MR2TWY4

My install will start with the compressor on my garage rear wall, navigate through the garage roof space which adjoins the house, then into the house, through a void underneath an internal cupboard, up a void in a plasterboard wall and into the loft across 4m or so where it meets the evaporator lines coming up and out from the bedroom below, and the drain line going down into the bathroom so no need for a condensate pump. I really wanted to avoid trunking on the exterior of the property because it's rendered, and you can't ever fix coloured render if ever decided to remove it plus it looks neater without.

Will keep thread updated on how I progress.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom