Overall a very neat install. I would be really happy with that. I don't think the master bedrooms condense looks too bad, and it is on the side of your house out of sight for the most part of your patio (it's not like most people naturally look up that high either). Is the white bit of trunking above the black condense pipe just for condense too? If so it is a shame it could not have just been the smaller black pipe for the whole run IMO.
The only slight negative I would have to say about your install is the feet the unit are sitting on. Are they anti vibration do you know? The ones I was quoted to have would have raised the unit 100mm off the ground which I think helps aid air flow but I could be talking rubbish.
With regards to what is best on how to run the units, I am not sure tbh. It is an inverter so it should only use what power it needs to keep on top of the cooling and not just be running flat out all the time. The last 3 days I have left mine running a lot but I turn the downstairs off when I go to bed and only run the master bedroom. I turn that off when I wake up as it's normally a bit cooler outside and I can open the windows downstairs to drop the temp.
I left work at 3pm yesterday and I set the master bedroom (top of my house with bedroom door open) to come on 30 mins before. When I got home I turned on both the other two rooms, but leaving all rooms doors open to attempt to combat the heat throughout the house. I took a video about 4pm (40mins of running at this point) and it sounds really quiet, I was standing about 1m away. I've put up a bit of shade by my unit as its in the sun from 1pm.
https://imgur.com/a/PJi6AxX
*edit* not sure how to get sound through imgur. The file on my desktop plays sound, that link is not playing sound for me though. if I save the imgur file to my desktop there is no sound on that. Weird. Any pointers... ?
double edit.. figured it out. Had to create a 'post' then it let me chose to 'keep audio'. That above link should now work.
Good stuff matey!
For the bit on the side of the house, the trunking is connecting the loft refrigerant + power in the top hole, and then feeding those down into the unit below via the hole lower down (top and bottom connecting parts of the trunking shown). The condensate pipe needs to follow gravity for the escape, so the plan with that was always to have the condensate part connect like it is the pic.
The bit that changed a bit from original spec was my request not to feed the master bedroom unit via trunking in the room. I didn't quite realise this but their original plan was to chop a hole into my ceiling in the master bedroom, and have the trunking be internal into the roof space. That would have worked, but the trade off would be having to look at the internal trunking vs that trunking on the external side wall above my garage I have now. I still think avoiding internal trunking was the better choice.
That outside bit might have looked a bit neater though if the colour of the condensate pipe was matching the trunking, although doing so would mismatch the guttering/down pipe, or even if the trunking just branched horizontally to carry it around the corner there, bit overkill but perhaps would look a bit more consistent.
It's possible I could ask them to do something with it, either to carry the trunking on to extend it, or to change the colour of the condensate pipe to better match the trunking?
Your unit sounds a bit quieter than mine at full tilt, I could do your experiment by trying to tax the units by setting them all to like 16 degrees and getting a recording in. Does your noise increase if you set them all to stupidly low values to make them work harder? think you can set the internal fan speed to faster or slower as well, what settings are your units normally on?
They have put mine on anti-vibration pads, but they are certainly not 100mm high, more like 10mm. Original plan was to wall mount but low down, I think being floor mounted was the right choice, but they didn't buy the larger floor feet mounts as a result. Instead looks like they used what would have originally been a larger pad, but cut down to fit under the feet. Using the pads they have done at least keeps the unit lower down on the floor.
I wonder if having thicker anti-vibration feet would really make any difference, or indeed if it would be just as loud on the wall if I'd done that, and it's got more to do with load and occasional differences in how these compressors work/mine hasn't been "worn in" yet?
For your location of the unit I'd definitely have been wall mounting like you did though, floor mounting is a bit of a pain for changing other stuff, eventually I will want to do something with this patio but it will be a while away I suspect.
I'd say that's a good result
@HungryHippos you have 3x as much AC compared to 99% of houses, and the compressor is very discrete for its size, wall mounting it would have been a bit too conspicuous in that situation.
The mismatch of white trunking and black condensate pipe is an odd choice by the installers though, seems like a case of that's all they had on the van?
I'm going to be making a start on my install tomorrow mounting the evaporator and core drilling a route for the line set.
@fobose could I pose a question to you, do you know if the evaporator in your master bedroom did the installers connect that via flare nuts or did they braze the lines (hotter version of soldering)?
Yep I agree that wall mounting mine there would have been a mistake for sure.
As above in response to
@fobose is it worth asking them to modify at all, or is it just a case of live with it is fine? I don't want to appear unreasonable
