Flutterby™! : Any of you home improvement type people

Next unread comment / Catchup all unread comments User Account Info | Logout | XML/Pilot/etc versions | Long version (with comments) | Weblog archives | Site Map | | Browse Topics

Any of you home improvement type people

2016-01-24 20:55:09.244855+00 by Dan Lyke 6 comments

Any of you home improvement type people have opinions on a multi-head mini split heat pump vs forced air for a <1k sq.ft. home?

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: Any of you home improvement type people made: 2016-01-25 15:53:55.583591+00 by: TheSHAD0W

The mini pumps are very popular; they tend to be reliable, and don't take extra cubic footage for air ducts. What sort of price difference are you seeing?

#Comment Re: Any of you home improvement type people made: 2016-01-25 16:33:04.013133+00 by: Dan Lyke

We've been quoted $10-12k for forced air in our house. A 4 head mini-split is $2.5k (Gree) to $4.5k (Mitsubishi), plus hoses and installation. And the Gree actually looks like the nicest unit.

I'm not quite sure how to coordinate charging the lines, but it's gotta be less to vacuum and charge lines than $5.5k+, right? Hell, I could buy the vacuum pump and get certified for that price.

#Comment Re: Any of you home improvement type people made: 2016-01-25 19:59:00.624826+00 by: meuon

I won't say it on Facebook, but getting certified is only important if you get caught doing HVAC/Refer work elsewhere, and for the warranty. I went whole hog, bought a new vacuum pump. freon (R410a) and a good gauge set. Option B that is popular is to put the whole system in, and pay a professional a service call to pull vacuum, check everything and turn it on. Seems $500 is a going rate.

#Comment Re: Any of you home improvement type people made: 2016-01-26 01:01:28.138798+00 by: Dan Lyke

$500 seems like about what the cost of the pump and such is, and since I'm unlikely to do it twice, seems like a totally reasonable price. Need to find a vendor to do the line charging, then.

#Comment Re: Any of you home improvement type people made: 2016-01-26 17:04:05.60744+00 by: meuon

Yeah. my math was different because I have a lot of units I could maintain with the right tools, and plan on some future upgrades. The "pay a vendor to do the test and charge" also makes your warranty valid. You do the grunt work, electrical, etc..

#Comment Re: Any of you home improvement type people made: 2016-02-06 22:52:57.622985+00 by: meuon

I got one of the Pioneer units completely hooked up and running today. Followed the good directions well, pulled vacuum for 30 minutes, monitored for 15. Pressure tested. etc.. all went perfectly. Turned power on. It had about a 10 minute delay for some reason (mentioned it in manual as well) and then heat came on. Nice warm gentle heat, with good airflow. Completely freakingly silent. all you hear is the air moving. Even the outside unit is very quiet. Next to the traditional units also on the building with noisy compressors, this thing is amazing. If it lasts a few years (and it looks like it should), this is a clear winner.

Add your own comment:

(If anyone ever actually uses Webmention/indie-action to post here, please email me)




Format with:

(You should probably use "Text" mode: URLs will be mostly recognized and linked, _underscore quoted_ text is looked up in a glossary, _underscore quoted_ (http://xyz.pdq) becomes a link, without the link in the parenthesis it becomes a <cite> tag. All <cite>ed text will point to the Flutterby knowledge base. Two enters (ie: a blank line) gets you a new paragraph, special treatment for paragraphs that are manually indented or start with "#" (as in "#include" or "#!/usr/bin/perl"), "/* " or ">" (as in a quoted message) or look like lists, or within a paragraph you can use a number of HTML tags:

p, img, br, hr, a, sub, sup, tt, i, b, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, cite, em, strong, code, samp, kbd, pre, blockquote, address, ol, dl, ul, dt, dd, li, dir, menu, table, tr, td, th

Comment policy

We will not edit your comments. However, we may delete your comments, or cause them to be hidden behind another link, if we feel they detract from the conversation. Commercial plugs are fine, if they are relevant to the conversation, and if you don't try to pretend to be a consumer. Annoying endorsements will be deleted if you're lucky, if you're not a whole bunch of people smarter and more articulate than you will ridicule you, and we will leave such ridicule in place.


Flutterby™ is a trademark claimed by

Dan Lyke
for the web publications at www.flutterby.com and www.flutterby.net.