Split Air con

Soldato
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Cambridge, UK.
So... it starts.

Both my rear bedrooms (one used as my office) have been core drilled and units fitted (both look identical). Before they can fit the master bedroom unit, scaffolding needs to go up above my garage so they can safely drill through (its very high up).

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Close up of the hole. Walls look well insulated :D

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I wont bother posting a pic of the rear of the house until everything is finished but it looks very neat so far. Things didn't go to plan with the outside trunking due to where the core drilled holes had to be but despite that still very happy.
 
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I had mine installed end of January. "Midea Blanc"
I was very skeptical of the brand but it came with a 5 year warranty and has been flawless (as you would expect) the past few months.

Course, due to the weather it has been used for heating and well, the amount of heat they throw out is just insane.
If it cools half as good as it heats, summer this year will be most comfortable :)
 
Soldato
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It will be very handy to only heat rooms that I am in without having the gas boiler heating up the whole house so I look forward to that too!

Did you just have the one unit installed in your hallway? The back of my house gets the sun all day without any shade, eventually warming up the rest of the house. That's why I opted for my 2 rear rooms and my master bedroom.
 
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Yes I had just the one unit installed as described in the OP.
With the doors left open the entire upstairs is very warm, very quickly.

The only issue, is that due to it's location "on a landing" the indoor unit reads the air temp as much higher than it is, in any given upstairs room, make sense? (the landing is quite a small enclosed space)
So I have to use the follow me mode, where the indoor unit ignores the air temp of where the unit is, and instead takes the reading from where ever the remote control is.

Pop the remote in a corner of a bedroom, and the entire upstairs will be 20c fast and cheaply. Also has wifi so you can switch it on and off from where ever with the App.

Note about noise.
The indoor unit is just silent, no problems there. The outdoor unit, whilst being inverter tech. Well I legitimately thought a helicopter was landing in the back garden, one time. Was quite shocked when it turned out to be the outdoor unit.
Lets just say it has a lot of power to draw on if it ever needs it to cool, but 99% of the time you can't hear it, it's just the starting up from cold where it warms the gas up and will run at full tilt for a few minutes, so don't be too alarmed if at 1st switch on it sounds like it will annoy the neighbors, it won't spin like that for long.

When it gets the room to where it needs to be, it will idle quietly and cheaply, around 300w I would say, looking at the smart meter display. Not bad to heat an entire floor.
Has some great ECO options for the summer too, where you can force the power usage to be 100% 75% or 50% of max, also has a silent mode for the outdoor unit.
Then you can press it should it get a little rowdy in the summer nights when the neighbors have windows open. Course cooling/heating capacity is greatly reduced as it forces the compressor to run at a very low rpm.

So yeah, super chuffed with it, and looking forward to some cold summer nights.
 
Soldato
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That is very interesting. Although the only thing with doing that is the hall way will be a lot cooler than your bedrooms no doubt. Perhaps it being in the hall will also help cool the downstairs too.

Silent mode option for the outside unit sounds ideal to stop neighbors complaining. I live in a semi detached property so I only have one neighbour who might hear it, but it's going to be mounted low down with a normal size fence next to it. It probably helps my neighbors keep their windows shut even throughout the summer :O
 
Soldato
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I had my install finished today. Very happy. Internal units are very quiet, easily controllable by either the remote, or by the app over wifi (loads of options for setting times for it to come on etc). The external unit also seems quiet too when all 3 of my rooms was fired up at once.

Master bedroom unit - no longer needed a condense pump as behind the wall it is on there is a drain in my cupboard for my water tanks overflow. Very handy. The gas pipes go up in to the loft, out the gable end of my house and down to the back of the house.

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Inside the cupboard directly behind the master bedroom AC unit.
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I forgot to take any finished pictures of the outside unit whilst it was daylight. I'll add tomorrow or when the scaffold has gone.
 

RJC

RJC

Don
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That was handy having the condensate going with the water tank :D

if you can add the condensing the condensing unit tomorrow, be nice to check the pipe work.
 
Soldato
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Hehe yup. Hopefully saved myself a headache of a condense pump malfunctioning.

Here is a pic of the back of my house this morning. I originally wanted the trunking below the windows to be high above to make them less obvious, but this wasn't possible due to not enough ceiling height in the rooms to allow this. Both back rooms exit points are approx 50mm below the tops of the windows, they trunked right up to the top for a cleaner look I think.


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External unit close up:
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Side view:
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Anyway, hopefully the pics are useful for someone else thinking about getting a split system and what is involved.
 
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Nice clean install all round.
Put mine into cold mode for the first time since owning it, seems to use considerably less electricity to cool than it does to heat.
Guess I can get rid of my 18,000! BTU portable A/C now.

How did he supply power to yours? Took a spur off a plug socket?
 
Soldato
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Do you have a smart meter to monitor how much energy your using?

Yup he spurred off a plug socket in my kitchen (other side of the wall). Kinda wish he didn't blob so much clear sealant around the socket. I should have said I would do this myself as I am pretty neat at doing it (can also see a few gaps in the sealant so I will touch those up anyway). I think he said the ring needs to be a minimum of 20A, mine are all rated at 32A though.
 
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Ain't gonna lie... Massively jealous! That looks like a brilliant install, every year I say I will get A/C as I only have one of the big units that you vent out the window, which do work, but really you don't want to be carrying them round the house as they are pretty bulky! What is the max length of the pipes ? As I could have the outdoor unit pretty much just like yours there, but our bedroom is the other side of the house (front side) I am guessing they would go up, and through the roof/into the loft?
And of course being a 1970's house, there is the asbestos in artex risk whenever holes are drilled, but it's been plastered over, so would imagine dust would be minimal risk from that tbf.
 
Soldato
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It was simply amazing when they turned the units on yesterday and feeling the cool breeze. My office was around 25c at the time and it dropped to 19c in not long at all (it's a small room).

I think on my warranty it says 50m pipe length for my master bedroom (longest lengths) but I seriously doubt it is that long. Ideally you don't want the pipes to have to go up as you will then need to pump the condense with a pump which (AC guy said they are quiet) a lot of people complain they are noisy and it is something else to go wrong. If the internal unit can go on an outside wall of your house, that would be the best option as gravity will do all the work to remove the condense. Could the external unit go on a wall on the side of your house or are you mid terrace?

If all your bedrooms are on the same floor, you could have a ducted unit that supplies all of your bedrooms. That unit goes in the loft, then is piped out side your house so that might work for you.

P.S it took quite a while to install. 3 guys on the first day working hard for about 6 hours each, then 4 guys on the last day working for about 6.5 hours.

Oh @RJC, I asked the air con guy why he did not recommend a ducted unit for my master bedroom and he said my loft hatch was too small (I thought it was quite big TBH). Also, I think he said he would only use a panasonic unit in the loft which would mean I would have needed a panasonic external unit so would have been more expensive to have both, unless I changed all my internal units to panasonic.
 

RJC

RJC

Don
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That's a reasonable response, luckily you managed to the condensate away :)

That install does look good, I need to-d0 my down stairs in the summer (if I have the spare cash)
 
Soldato
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Do you install it yourself? I think I saw on another post that you do? I had a quote for my other bedroom (front of house, middle floor) and my living room. Was a bit too much than I wanted to spend to get it all done this year. Will also see how what we have had install goes.

Option 2 Requirements (all Mitsubishi electric)
Living Room- 3.5kw Wall Mount to be installed on the Left
Front Guest Bedroom 2-2.5kw Wall Mount to be installed on the left wall
Outdoor unit to be a 4.5kw 2 port Multi installed to the Left garage wall above head height, on ant vibrational brackets
To upgrade any wall mount to flag ship Zen amounts to £101.00 ex 5% Vat

Quote: £2818.00 ex 5% Vat
 
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Do you have a smart meter to monitor how much energy your using?

Yup he spurred off a plug socket in my kitchen (other side of the wall). Kinda wish he didn't blob so much clear sealant around the socket. I should have said I would do this myself as I am pretty neat at doing it (can also see a few gaps in the sealant so I will touch those up anyway). I think he said the ring needs to be a minimum of 20A, mine are all rated at 32A though.

Yeah have one of those smart meter displays so easy to see. I'm also on PAYG so cost to run was a big concern.
Luckily my outdoor unit landed right next to my consumer unit so it takes power straight from that.
Isolated twice, one inside the consumer unit cabinet and again next to the outdoor unit.

Just looked and the house will idle @ 250watt.
With the A/C on and set to 18C the whole house consumption is 500watt but it's not having to work very hard, not adsactly in high summer yet.

Compared to the monstrous portable unit I was using the last few years that would use 1.7KW!! 24/7 as it would just fight it's self to cool the room down and never get cool enough to switch it's self off, the amount of heat it threw out the back was just insane and a complete was of time and money (luckily I got the unit free)

Just popped my head outside to see if the outdoor unit was even on as the power is so low, and who would have thought, it's bloody warm out there today :p
Please don't break down!
 

RJC

RJC

Don
Joined
29 May 2005
Posts
29,009
Location
Kent
Do you install it yourself? I think I saw on another post that you do? I had a quote for my other bedroom (front of house, middle floor) and my living room. Was a bit too much than I wanted to spend to get it all done this year. Will also see how what we have had install goes.

Option 2 Requirements (all Mitsubishi electric)
Living Room- 3.5kw Wall Mount to be installed on the Left
Front Guest Bedroom 2-2.5kw Wall Mount to be installed on the left wall
Outdoor unit to be a 4.5kw 2 port Multi installed to the Left garage wall above head height, on ant vibrational brackets
To upgrade any wall mount to flag ship Zen amounts to £101.00 ex 5% Vat

Quote: £2818.00 ex 5% Vat

That's right I did install my self, I bought form France about 8 years ago and got round to install 3 years ago, this was a semi self install kit but its a bit rubbish, for some reason it does not want ramp up to full speed in cooling.

The one I want to install in the dinning room would be a Mitsubishi or Daikin - really to purchase soon before the warm weather arrives.
 
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