Monthly Archives: February 2021

This morning, when you left the house for work, all was well. Your split AC was on and humming away and the house felt cool. When you came home, you walked into a nightmare. Your living room or another part of your house was covered in water. You connected the dots and attributed the leak to your split AC. What is going on here?

The cause of a split AC leak can be one of many things. Let’s go over these issues now so you can quickly get the problem patched up!

Lack of Refrigerant

If it’s been a while since you’ve added refrigerant to your split AC, you could have indirectly caused the water leakage. How, you ask? Well, without enough refrigerant (usually caused by a refrigerant leak), the evaporator coil gets cold, sometimes to the point of freezing. The coil will eventually thaw, sending a lot more water than expected to your drain pan. This water leaks all

An air conditioning unit like a ductless mini split system has a variable refrigerant flow or VRF. The criteria for a unit to be a VRF is having several indoor air-handling units and one outdoor condenser or compressor. In VRF systems they call it diversity factor.  That means that if you have a 10 ton condenser unit with 13 indoor units each 1 ton, then your diversity factor is 130%.  That means that you have 30% more capacity in evaporation than condensation. VRF systems can use water cooling or include a three-piped heat recovery system or a two-piped heat pump.

No matter the VRF system, understanding your refrigerant flow allows you to gauge how effectively your air conditioner or heater uses the refrigerant that travels to the evaporators in each indoor air-handling unit. The better the VRF, the more control you have over each cooling zone, allowing you to set your home or

In our last post, we discussed variable refrigerant flow or VRF in relation to air conditioners, but heat recovery systems can be VRF systems as well. With the proper flow of refrigerant, a heat recovery system can send heat towards the rooms in a home or commercial building that need it most. For more open spaces especially, this method of heating is appreciated, as from corner to corner, the area is evenly warmed.

Heat recovery VRF systems can also sometimes heat and cool a space at the same time, and all from one condensing unit. We’ve discussed this on the blog before, but it never gets less amazing. Instead of having a separate air conditioner and heater, you can get all your cooling needs from the heat recovery VRF system. You could save on the cost of the unit as well as maintenance, as you only need to take care of the VRF system, not two units.

There’s a difference between heat recovery VRF and heat pump VRF systems, so we wanted to take the time to discuss these

You try to budget for your bills ahead of time so you can effectively manage your finances every month. The water bill and phone bill are about the same from month to month, but your electric bill is always a wildcard. It’s either high or really high and you’re sick of it.

You decided to be more efficient in your electricity usage around the house. That helped reduce the bill to a degree, but not as much as you would have wanted. You had the thought recently that perhaps your HVAC units are driving up your electricity too much.

You’ve been meaning to replace your rickety old air conditioner anyway. A friend has had a lot of good to say about a split AC system, but you’re not too familiar with this method of cooling. If you switch to a mini split AC, will you really reduce electricity and thus lower your monthly bills?

Absolutely! As long as your increasing your SEER efficiency as well, more info here: energy