Split Air con

[HungryHippos]

@HungryHippos That is handy your TV is right behind that wall. Yeah you could go straight through the wall there then and not need to remove skirting at all. It might be a little fiddly trying to fish the cable from the lounge side to the back wall of the cupboard though but my install was all fiddly as I was doing it on my own. If you made a back box size hole on each wall you could have someone shine a torch and maybe reach in to grab the cable rod or cable. My cable rods have a magnet you can attach to one end which is really handy with some of the other gadgets in the set.

With regards to getting the cable to the loft, that is a good idea to run it externally like that. Most of it will be completely hidden too. I think I understand what you want. A switch in the loft that takes its power from the ethernet cable itself? You can get such a device but I must say I don't know much about them so hopefully someone else can chip in and answer that (or you might need to ask outside this thread). I think a netgear GS105PE is the device you need but I am not 100% sure.

I have a switch with 4x poe ports that can power devices such as my AP in my office. My switch needs power though but if you could get power in your loft you could just use that to power your wireless AP.

I am not sure if it's within regs to do but you could take power from a light pendant from one of the bedrooms and put a single plug socket in the loft. It's not like the switch is going to be going above the 6A light circuit. I am sure someone will correct me shortly

*edit* Actually on second thoughts you should be able to use a switch like mine to power a switch over POE. Maybe the one I mentioned (GS105PE ) is such a switch that can be powered that way. I will have a read up.

Getting power into the loft would be a goal anyway I think, I have an old decommissioned electric shower that was in the en-suite upstairs (it's own fuse in the fusebox as well). That is now a normal mixer shower, but the cables that went to the box in the ceiling should still be around.

This power source should hopefully allow me to add some power for a switch stationed in the loft rafters, and maybe let me add a socket in the bedroom whilst I am at it? I want to add a TV point to the wall opposite the bed with power + Ethernet.

Regarding power I was interested to see what the aircon was using, so I dug out my old SMETS1 in home display which tells me current power draw. Even with no aircon units on and just the PC running I am using 400w's basically all the time.

Might need to do a bit of digging into what is eating my power up slowly, as that equates to 9.6kwh's of power a day just having my desktop PC operational, plus other stuff not actively in use like my NAS.

 

[fobose]

I would be comfortable using that power source for the loft as you could simply wire it in to a socket up there and mark it at the consumer unit. My only worry about having another bedroom socket added with that is a future owner might not realize this and get a nasty shock when they thought they had isolated their sockets in the bedroom. I personally always put my meter on any plugs I am going to be working on to check I have voltage (you never know if your leads are broken - happened to me once), then I check again when I have isolated. You could get a quote and query the electrician to see what they would do. I would hope they would want to try and add the other socket to the upstairs ring main or spur off from one of the other sockets but that would involve a lot of upheaval (I think).

400w of useage hmm. What does it drop to if you turn your PC off? I would expect that uses about 200w. Do you have any of your amps on too?

P.S in case it isn't obvious, I made a second edit on my earlier post with some extra info.

 

[fobose]

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?

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

Apologies for not replying to this. I must have read it then got sidetrack with the networking

It could well have been that 40 mins was enough for my rooms to cool enough that it was no longer taxing for the external unit. Next time we have a hot day I will test it again. It has been louder in the past but the sun had directly been on it for quite some hours and I really do not think that helps at all!

With regards to modifying your trunking for the master bedroom, I forgot you had the gas pipes going up in to the loft like that. That totally makes sense why they did that. It might look better if they finished it off in black trunking there instead but as one of the other members mentioned you could paint the black condense line at a later date if it really bothers you. Do you happen to know what color and brand of paint was used for the render?

 

[HungryHippos]

I would be comfortable using that power source for the loft as you could simply wire it in to a socket up there and mark it at the consumer unit. My only worry about having another bedroom socket added with that is a future owner might not realize this and get a nasty shock when they thought they had isolated their sockets in the bedroom. I personally always put my meter on any plugs I am going to be working on to check I have voltage (you never know if your leads are broken - happened to me once), then I check again when I have isolated. You could get a quote and query the electrician to see what they would do. I would hope they would want to try and add the other socket to the upstairs ring main or spur off from one of the other sockets but that would involve a lot of upheaval (I think).

400w of useage hmm. What does it drop to if you turn your PC off? I would expect that uses about 200w. Do you have any of your amps on too?

P.S in case it isn't obvious, I made a second edit on my earlier post with some extra info.

I may have to have a bit of a runaround turning things off and seeing what the drops are, from memory PC does about 100w maybe, with amp and TV going into standby (they must use a little bit of juice). I'll see if I can get a stable read without the PC on and go from there.

Regarding the noise I thought the same as you @fobose about waiting for a hot day, but actually loading it up was pretty easy. I just set all 3 internal units to 16 degrees C and fan speed 4.

This is my result, you can also see the pads they used on the bottom:

https://i.imgur.com/HlMsGjm.mp4

Power draw at full tilt was actually about 2kw on top of my baseline.

I then totally switched off 1 unit, load dropped a little but noise was similar.

Switching a 2nd one off, with 1 unit under load it was quieter, more like your unit video earlier on.

You up for trying the same thing?

 

[fobose]

Ok I will give it a test now unless my wife tells me my steak is ready My master bedroom is 24c and office is 25.9c atm. I will set them to 16c though. I will edit the post when I have got the vid sorted.

P.S I normally leave my fan on fan speed 3 out of 5, I find anything higher then the unit in the rooms just shuts off completely, fires up for a few mins and then shuts off again. This way it just constantly blows a steady amount of cool air.

 

[HungryHippos]

Ok I will give it a test now unless my wife tells me my steak is ready My master bedroom is 24c and office is 25.9c atm. I will set them to 16c though. I will edit the post when I have got the vid sorted.

P.S I normally leave my fan on fan speed 3 out of 5, I find anything higher then the unit in the rooms just shuts off completely, fires up for a few mins and then shuts off again. This way it just constantly blows a steady amount of cool air.

Nice one let me know!

I have silent mode, fan speed 1, 2, 3, 4, then auto mode. Ours must be similarish, are you counting the silent mode as speed 1, which would make your speed 3 bar speed 2?

Ours may differ a bit but I'd hope we have some similarities in them.

 

[fobose]

Mine is the same as yours @HungryHippos, with the silent mode, then speed bars 1, 2, 3 and 4. When I say 3/5 I mean speed bar 2 on the remote (but setting 3 in the app - so confusing Mitsubishi, thanks a bunch )

I forgot I had only left all my units running on my normal setting so I re did the video with all 3 units running at full speed, set at 16c.

Here it is. It did sound louder than when I tested it before although the wind on the recording hides it a little.

https://imgur.com/a/ggxrEJW

 

[HungryHippos]

Mine is the same as yours @HungryHippos, with the silent mode, then speed bars 1, 2, 3 and 4. When I say 3/5 I mean speed bar 2 on the remote (but setting 3 in the app - so confusing Mitsubishi, thanks a bunch )

I forgot I had only left all my units running on my normal setting so I re did the video with all 3 units running at full speed, set at 16c.

Here it is. It did sound louder than when I tested it before although the wind on the recording hides it a little.

https://imgur.com/a/ggxrEJW

Yeah getting a fair bit of windy noise here as well to be honest! live near a road so you can probably hear the cars going by, although I would say that the cars and extra background noise do help when installing a system like this as it masks the sound a bit.

I did another one at speed 3 using the same target temp, and I must say it's definitely quieter. Draw on my in home display at Speed 5 is like 2.2-2.4kw in total (all house stuff not just AC). Doing speed 3 was more like 1.85kw, so it uses a few hundred w's less, and is quieter (inside + out).

https://i.imgur.com/HlMsGjm.mp4 - 16C speed 5
https://i.imgur.com/1HBPlBl.mp4 - 16C speed 3

Probably the best approach, slow the units down a bit but keep the noise and power draw consistent

 

[fobose]

Ah yes, quite a difference in noise. I never feel the need to have mine any higher than speed 3 as the room has reached my set temperature within about 10-15 mins (5-10 mins for my little office). My wife sometimes puts the master bedroom on speed 5 if she wants to cool quickly after a shower and the AC hasn't been on.

My AC guy did say not to run only 1 unit on silent mode, have it on at least number 2. Not sure why that is, maybe not good for the compressor? He said two rooms on speed 1 is fine though. He probably did tell me why but I was no doubt too excited about the AC being on.

I don't think you will get any noise complaints about yours. Your wall will deflect from the road and people walking past wont be worrying about a slight humming noise that they no doubt cant hear. I think your neighbors property was quite far away too. Do they have bedroom windows that are facing your external unit?

 

[HungryHippos]

Ah yes, quite a difference in noise. I never feel the need to have mine any higher than speed 3 as the room has reached my set temperature within about 10-15 mins (5-10 mins for my little office). My wife sometimes puts the master bedroom on speed 5 if she wants to cool quickly after a shower and the AC hasn't been on.

My AC guy did say not to run only 1 unit on silent mode, have it on at least number 2. Not sure why that is, maybe not good for the compressor? He said two rooms on speed 1 is fine though. He probably did tell me why but I was no doubt too excited about the AC being on.

I don't think you will get any noise complaints about yours. Your wall will deflect from the road and people walking past wont be worrying about a slight humming noise that they no doubt cant hear. I think your neighbors property was quite far away too. Do they have bedroom windows that are facing your external unit?

Road noise seems OK even on full whack, guess a combination of the wall + facing the other direction.

The main concern is the house that is beyond my fence, it's higher up than mine at it's base level, their garden is a good few feet above mine and my fenced area acts like a retaining wall for it.

That fence line is a good 7 or so metres from the unit though, noise will drop off, but it has direct LOS with some of their upper windows, and it's a 3 story house. I just want to avoid annoying them too much if I can

Their house is of course the 7 metres or so + their garden, then the house, so not exactly close by as such, acoustics can be weird though.

I really need there to be a hotter day where I can turn it on in all day long as the slower speed and see how it keeps up, how the power draw is over time etc. Looks like I just missed the chance to do that in the recent weather!

 

[fobose]

It sounds like they are too far away to hear it at all tbh. When you have 3 rooms running it will no doubt be day time and the neighbors will be generating their own noise. At night time you will likely only have your office or your bedroom on so it'll just be ticking over and be super quiet. Keep your bedroom or office doors shut at night so you are only cooling those rooms, that will mean the outside unit runs as minimal as possible.

 

[HungryHippos]

It sounds like they are too far away to hear it at all tbh. When you have 3 rooms running it will no doubt be day time and the neighbors will be generating their own noise. At night time you will likely only have your office or your bedroom on so it'll just be ticking over and be super quiet. Keep your bedroom or office doors shut at night so you are only cooling those rooms, that will mean the outside unit runs as minimal as possible.

Hope so matey, so far so good not had any complaints, but not running at capacity on a hot day!

Had my downstairs one on speed 2 a bit today in the lounge as the temps outside are OK but hayfever is wrecking me a bit, so keeping the windows closed + ac on a bit.

Wanted to revisit a couple of previous things you mentioned recently regarding the networking now I've sat down for a few mins;

I will do my best to get the power into the loft, and I think I'll need to run something there using the old electric shower cabling instead of using another socket in the master bedroom as the sockets are all pretty far away (other side of the room). Should be OK to get a socket for the switch, could use a regular switch and run the wireless AP off the same loft sockets, just got to label it well and keep it above the insane volumes of insulation in the loft as much as I can.

I'll have to label the sockets and things somehow so anyone doing work in the house doesn't get too badly shocked if they think they've powered them off

I will see if I can get a couple of quotes in from some nearby electricians to sort it, shouldn't be insanely expensive to get done as not having to really tunnel through any internals too badly.

Might wall mount the TV in the main bedroom so could put power + ethernet on the wall where the bracket for the TV would go.

 

[fobose]

Fingers crossed!

My hay fever is not too bad in the day time thankfully, normally just the night or early morning. I take the once a day loratadine tablets.

Keep me posted on your network install (and the power) be interesting to know how it goes Feel free to PM me if you don't want to post on here. Will you tackle any of the work yourself?

I luckily have a power socket (and a TV aerial socket) where I would put a TV in my bedroom. However, I don't need to use it as I have a TV that pops out the bottom of our bed I do prefer the style of a more traditional bed frame though but still like the look of the leather TV bed.

 

[HungryHippos]

Fingers crossed!

My hay fever is not too bad in the day time thankfully, normally just the night or early morning. I take the once a day loratadine tablets.

Keep me posted on your network install (and the power) be interesting to know how it goes Feel free to PM me if you don't want to post on here. Will you tackle any of the work yourself?

I luckily have a power socket (and a TV aerial socket) where I would put a TV in my bedroom. However, I don't need to use it as I have a TV that pops out the bottom of our bed I do prefer the style of a more traditional bed frame though but still like the look of the leather TV bed.

I shall indeed keep you posted, I'll probably either PM or make a new thread here

Probably won't be doing any of it myself, my skills for DIY are basically non-existent, I just have a good idea on the theory of certain things if not the practice of them haha.

 

[fobose]

lol. If you were not so far away I would offer to help. I would think you can't really go wrong with the network install though, especially for getting a cable to your living room. For the outside bit you will need a good ladder to drill through to your loft which unless you know someone who has one, that could be an issue. Might be a good time to learn some DIY skills. I am sure you would get lots of support from the forum members and me

@norm How is your AC install going today?

 

[RJC]

lol. If you were not so far away I would offer to help. I would think you can't really go wrong with the network install though, especially for getting a cable to your living room. For the outside bit you will need a good ladder to drill through to your loft which unless you know someone who has one, that could be an issue. Might be a good time to learn some DIY skills. I am sure you would get lots of support from the forum members and me

@norm How is your AC install going today?

norm is probably having too much fun with the vacuum pump!

 

[Dave20]

I've been quote £3000 ex VAT for supply and install of 2 x 2.5KW multisplit Mitsubishi LN's to go in upstairs bedrooms (not including installing power which have been quoted an extra £180 to install a dedicated circuit).

Quote to me seems a bit high compared to others on here.

Does anyone one know if its possible to get the reduced 5% VAT rate if I were to buy the AC units myself? As I've been recommended another installer, but the company he works for only supplies Panasonic. He has said he is willing to install another brand, but I would need to purchase it.

 

[Firestar_3x]

Why not go with Panasonic?

 

[Matthew.M]

I've been quote £3000 ex VAT for supply and install of 2 x 2.5KW multisplit Mitsubishi LN's to go in upstairs bedrooms (not including installing power which have been quoted an extra £180 to install a dedicated circuit).

Quote to me seems a bit high compared to others on here.

Does anyone one know if its possible to get the reduced 5% VAT rate if I were to buy the AC units myself? As I've been recommended another installer, but the company he works for only supplies Panasonic. He has said he is willing to install another brand, but I would need to purchase it.

That does sound a bit top heavy. Out of interest, what have you got against Panasonic?

You won’t get 5% VAT on the machines alone, unfortunately. I’m actually willing to bet a lot of people get charged 5% when they shouldn’t, thanks to an EU Directive back in October(ish). The systems are only eligible for 5% if the materials cost is less than 60% of the total. If it exceeds 60% then the reduction only applies to the labour. Looking at some of the installs in here and the rough figures quoted I can’t imagine that’s the case! A few installers will get a shock at some point.

 

[norm]

@norm How is your AC install going today?

So far so good. Got the evaporator fitted, managed to route the condensate drain into the ensuite behind through the plasterboard void, routed the copper line up into the loft.

Core drilled the hole from the garage and lined it with some 68mm pvc guttering to make routing the insulated copper lines smoother.

Got some making good to do underneath the cupboard but the single skin of plasterboard I cut out will go back no problem with some wooden batons and a coat of gyproc.

The void to the left of the picture where the radiator pipes are, extends up to the loft where I have already cut a hole to feed the lines down from, the bend should be gentle enough not to cause issue where it meets the hole to the garage, once out there I will manipulate it to track round to the exit hole to the compressor.

Fair bit of work to do but enjoying it so far.