Split Air con

uncle_rufus said:
It makes the whole house comfortable, of course I'm sure having a unit in every room would be better from a control perspective but since our aim really is just to have the house not hit 30, 35+ whenever we have a hot spell it does that amazingly.. Have never run the units above fan level 2 (of 5) where they are still pretty quiet but can tell there's a lot more cooling power there if you really wanted it. The middle floor gets the least benefit but still way better than but having it, so yeah very happy overall
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Going to get a second company in and see what they suggest. I must say the price for the 8kw single unit is damn competitive, I know a split system will come in at around 1k more most likely and then only cover the 3 rooms.
 
What stops you opening the doors of those three rooms and still trying to cool the whole house?

Having a single unit trying to cool the whole house is the least ideal solution and one I would avoid, I guess they want to install that because it requires significantly less effort and cost.
 
Firestar_3x said:
What stops you opening the doors of those three rooms and still trying to cool the whole house?

Having a single unit trying to cool the whole house is the least ideal solution and one I would avoid, I guess they want to install that because it requires significantly less effort and cost.
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This mainly. The quote is priced accordingly which is why I am considering it.

Will see what the second company suggest and come in at. My preference is more likely to be the 3 lots of ducts to the bedrooms
 
kindai said:
Just had a guy come to look, our house had a large central stairwell which basically every room connects to.

Hes suggested instead of individual units in each room (was planning ducted through ceiling to the 3 bedrooms), to have one larger unit in the stairwell (8kw) to cover the entire house.

It does kind of make sense, and also means we get the downstairs cooled as well, aside from the running cost what other negatives? The actual cost installed being a single unit is cheaper...
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I have a similar setup. We have a larger unit at the top of the stairs (3 bed detached).

It works extremely well for us. If we’re away for a few days and the house gets to 30°C+ internally then it’ll only rapidly cool upstairs, and only take the edge off downstairs. But if we’re home we leave it on 24/7 set to 22°C (it throttles down and goes silent overnight, it doesn’t draw as much electricity as you might expect) then it easily cools the whole house. Including a kitchen extension downstairs. At that setting upstairs (all rooms) stay at 22 and downstairs doesn’t exceed 24, even on the hottest 35°C days outside, which is fine for us. Especially when it’s also reducing humidity making it more comfortable throughout the house. We can get downstairs cooler, but it involves setting upstairs to 19, which is too cold.

Yes, you lose room control, but it’s a non issue for us. Open door when warm, close when cold. If the bedroom doors are open in the day they can be shut at night and the rooms have lost enough temperature they stay cool with the sun down all night (all the bedding and furniture stays cool to touch for a very long time).

The only issue is when the house needs cooling rapidly as it doesn’t quite have enough power to quickly cool downstairs, but we can still cool the bedrooms very quickly and this is where we wanted it most.

Heat rises at the end of the day, it just needs enough time for that to happen enough to be effective downstairs. It’s amazing when you open you open the bathroom door after a hot shower and all the condensation instantly vanishes, with the sound of the aircon throttling up for a few mins before going back to idle.

Ours seems to draw 500-800w electricity in a steady state, less at night. Yesterday evening it was 24°C outside but the compressor actually switched off by 6pm as the sun was behind clouds and it was drawing barely any power at all. The installation was also super simple. The internal unit is less subtle than say a 2.5kw unit, but as it’s in the hallway we’re less bothered about aesthetics.

Our original intention was to put a second unit downstairs in an open plan living area, but after using just the upstairs unit we haven’t seen any need. I only remain tempted to do this for the cheap heating benefits in cooler weather.
 
Good write up above, sounds just like our system only we do have the extra unit downstairs which does help to cool the house a bit faster when needed - worth saying it uses a lot less power if you anticipate a hot day and have the AC running from the morning before the house has a chance to gain too much heat; if you turn it on in the middle of the day it uses a lot of power as it fights against the already established hot temperature
 
Do people find it's cheaper to have air con installed during what I'd assume are quieter months (Autumn / Winter)?

I've got a portable unit which we use significantly through the Summer (moving about to the room required) but it would be handy to do 3 of the bedrooms now and then the downstairs once we do an extension in a few years. For those of you who have had it installed, what was the rough cost to do 3 bedrooms? Based in SE if that makes any difference.
 
Peerzy said:
Do people find it's cheaper to have air con installed during what I'd assume are quieter months (Autumn / Winter)?

I've got a portable unit which we use significantly through the Summer (moving about to the room required) but it would be handy to do 3 of the bedrooms now and then the downstairs once we do an extension in a few years. For those of you who have had it installed, what was the rough cost to do 3 bedrooms? Based in SE if that makes any difference.
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Might be worth you looking in a loft unit, it wasn't something i was aware of when i wanted to install aircon but Sub FM recommended it over single units. The only difference i noticed is that the loft unit is not as powerful and takes more time to cool all 3 bedrooms. However, it definately better than individual units in each room, i find that on the lowest temp and fan it still gets too cold after 20 mins.
 
Peerzy said:
Do people find it's cheaper to have air con installed during what I'd assume are quieter months (Autumn / Winter)?
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Cheaper, maybe depending on the company. Easier to actually find a company that have time to do it - absolutely, that's the harder part to my mind; these places will be fully booked all summer
 
The final air con install started yesterday and will mostly be done by the end of today. My gaming room unit is up, although not running yet. I’ll post some external shots when they are finished. Fortunately they’ve been able to use some of the same trunking as the main bedroom, kitchen and lounge units that were installed last year.



Daikin have a newer model out, but it doesn’t add much and I wanted all of the units to match.

Outside is really neat, this is the new addition (on the side of the house we don’t use, this one is just for the gaming room ):


 
Well the first guy has come to survey. Looks like he's put the kibosh on the ducted loft idea - says the hatch is too small to even get the unit up there.

Of course, I'm not ruling out the idea of having the hatch enlarged (I'd been thinking about it anyway).

I asked him to quote based on what approaches he thought were best, so we'll see what he comes back with.
 
bazzabear said:
Well the first guy has come to survey. Looks like he's put the kibosh on the ducted loft idea - says the hatch is too small to even get the unit up there.

Of course, I'm not ruling out the idea of having the hatch enlarged (I'd been thinking about it anyway).

I asked him to quote based on what approaches he thought were best, so we'll see what he comes back with.
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How's big do the hatches need to be?
 
I'll have to measure my loft hatch. 200x640 give me an idea of one will fit.

Though it wouldn't be that much work to make a hole in the bathroom ceiling then stick a new plaster board up
 
I have just had a chap come to my house he is going to install me a split system for the master bedroom a 2.5kw mitsubishi system, the main condenser and the internal wall unit will be mitsubishi, I have also purchased a pregassed system from somewhere else, I’m tempted to fit the pregassed system in another room upstairs myself this will give me a good comparison of the cheaper system at the side of the professional system, the reason I’m going for the mitsubishi system is the warranty I’ll keep this updated when it’s done.
 
Craigius said:
I have just had a chap come to my house he is going to install me a split system for the master bedroom a 2.5kw mitsubishi system, the main condenser and the internal wall unit will be mitsubishi, I have also purchased a pregassed system from somewhere else, I’m tempted to fit the pregassed system in another room upstairs myself this will give me a good comparison of the cheaper system at the side of the professional system, the reason I’m going for the mitsubishi system is the warranty I’ll keep this updated when it’s done.
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Why have you gone for this rather than a multi-split?
 
This has been mentioned before but lost in the thread, with lots of new readers recently.

Strictly speaking, you need to apply for planning permission to have more than one external unit. Only one is covered under the permitted development rules. If you don’t get along with your neighbours and they report it to the local planning department you’re at risk of having to take one out.
 
happy_2008 said:
Maybe if they're on different sides of the house?
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Yes it’s on the opposite side of the house that’s the issue and reading about it it would require a lot of work with pipes being routed through the loft etc

I get on well with the neighbours to be fair I wasn’t aware of any planning issues related to air con units attached to your own wall of your house?

Why is planning required?
 
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