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Posted: August 31, 2022Categories: Ductless Mini Splits
Read more »You’ve heard so many things about ductless mini splits, and your neighbor recently got one installed and hasn’t stopped raving about it.
That said, for as long as you’ve owned a house, you’ve always used traditional HVAC systems such as a heater or furnace or a central air conditioner (or maybe even window units). A ductless mini split would be a big change, and you’re reluctant to make the jump.
Are mini splits really a good idea?
They most certainly are, so let’s talk about the benefits of ductless mini splits now.
Energy Efficiency
Everyone is all too aware of their carbon footprint these days. You try to reduce your carbon footprint whenever you can by recycling and not wasting water, but there’s more you could be doing.
Your HVAC units are sucking up so much more energy than you realize. By upgrading to a ductless mini split system, you’re making an eco-friendly decision you can feel good about
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Posted: August 24, 2022Categories: Ductless Mini Splits
Read more »The last you checked, your ductless mini split system was supposed to both heat or cool your home. The heat function is working fine, but the cooling? It’s just not happening.
You hear your mini split turn on, and you feel some air coming out, but the air feels lukewarm at best. What’s going on?
This is many times do to a refrigerant leak but could also be due to a 4-way valve, a wire problem, and many other issues.
Refrigerant, which is also known as freon, is a common fluid in air conditioning systems, including your mini split cooling system.
Here’s how refrigerant should work. The refrigerant travels throughout your mini split system and absorbs the heat from your home. During this time, the refrigerant transforms into a low-pressure gas.
The gas becomes compressed, which increases its pressure as well as its temperature. The refrigerant, still in its gas form, travels throughout the mini split’s coils.
As the refrigerant’s temperatu
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Posted: August 17, 2022Categories: Ductless Mini Splits
Read more »Your ductless mini split needs a vacuum pump for its installation, a device that can pull gas and air molecules into a sealed area. Most vacuum pumps have two jobs, sealing and cleaning.
In the case of the mini split vacuum pump, it will recover refrigerant gases, which you’re often legally mandated to do.
Even if your state or city doesn’t have any sort of such legislation, you shouldn’t want refrigerant remaining in your mini split system. The refrigerant, when left to linger too long, can mix with moisture and begin to corrode. That corrosion can spread to other parts of your mini split system as well, causing real trouble.
You want a functioning vacuum pump for your mini split system, but you have no idea what size pump is the most appropriate.
To answer that, you first need to know the cubic feet per minute or CFM. The vacuum pump CFM is the capac
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Posted: August 10, 2022Categories: Ductless Mini Splits
Read more »You were sure you were going to get a multi split for your home’s heating and cooling needs, then you became familiar with ductless mini splits. Now you feel torn.
Both solutions seem to offer excellent cooling and heating potential, but what are the differences between a mini split and a multi split?
Let’s explore!
Mini Splits 101
A mini split is part of a ductless mini split system that includes two main components. They are the compressor aka the condenser and the indoor air-handling unit(s).
The compressor goes outside on your lawn. It’s positioned on a slab of concrete and away from direct sunlight and other weather exposure.
Linking the compressor to the air-handling unit is copper tubes.
Each time you turn your mini split on to heat or cool your home, refrigerant within the compressor will travel through the copper tubes to the air-handling unit to either warm or cool the air to the appropriate degree.
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Posted: August 03, 2022Categories: Ductless Mini Splits
Read more »One of the greatest advantages that a ductless mini split system has over traditional HVAC is its heating and cooling efficiency. In today’s post, we want to introduce you to dual-zoned mini splits.
What Is a Dual-Zoned Mini Split?
Ductless mini split systems heat or cool according to zones.
A zone is defined as an area of a home or commercial building that needs specialized cooling or heating.
For example, if a section of your home had old windows, that room would be especially chilly in the winter since the drafty windows allowed cold air in. In the summer, the area would be hotter.
That might be one zone of your home of several.
A zone can be an entire room, half a room, or a corner of a room. With a ductless mini split system, you have the kind of freedom to customize your heating or cooling approximation.
Now that you understand how zones work, we can talk about dual-zoned mini splits.
If a single-zone m
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Posted: July 27, 2022Categories: Ductless Mini Splits
Read more »You’re moving into a home that lacks ductwork. The house also doesn’t have a very efficient air conditioning system, so you were thinking it’s time for an upgrade.
The issue, though, is that this will be your first time purchasing a ductless air conditioning system. What are your options?
Well, you have several options, actually! They include portable air conditioners scattered throughout the house, window air conditioners, high-velocity systems, variable refrigerant flow or VRF systems, multi-pipe systems, multi-head systems, or ductless mini split systems.
While those options are viable enough on their own, of the five, ductless mini splits are our most recommended cooling solution by far.
Here’s how a ductless mini split system works. In your backyard, a technician will install a compressor. The compressor is connected via copper tubing to an indoor air-handling unit.
Between the two units runs refrigerant that can provide cooling all spring and sum
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Posted: July 20, 2022Categories: Ductless Mini Splits
Read more »Your old air conditioner is finally on its way out. You’ve known this moment was going to come for a while now, but it doesn’t mean you have to be happy about it.
You’ve done some cursory research into a new cooling system, and a ductless mini split seems like it could offer more of what you’re looking for. You could have more cooling efficiency, plus no more ducts. That's always nice!
However, before you make up your mind, you need to know how much a ductless mini split air conditioner costs to get installed.
According to home remodel planning website Modernize, the cost of installing a ductless mini split system is between $1,500 and $8,500. The average price is $5,000, which is right in the sweet spot.
Why such a huge price discrepancy, you ask? Well, installation costs are dictated by factors such as how many ductless air conditioners you need.
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Posted: July 13, 2022Categories: Ductless Mini Splits
Read more »You’re about to retire your air conditioner since it’s old and its energy efficiency could be a lot better. You were thinking of upgrading to a ductless mini split system, but you’re wondering if a mini split will cause an accumulation of condensation as well. If so, how much?
Mini splits will produce condensation and thus require a drain pipe installed with the indoor air-handling unit. The drain pipe should be routed to a plumbing pipe so the water can seamlessly exit.
The drain pipe is integral to a mini split, as an included gravity flow inlet sends condensate water to the nearest outlet.
When a mini split technician comes to your house to install the components, they’ll make a hole for both the drain pipe and the refrigerant line. This will mean drilling holes into your home’s interior walls, but the indoor air-handling unit hides the holes so they’re never noticeable.
One of the biggest benefits of ductless mini splits is that they can both heat or coo
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Posted: July 06, 2022Categories: Ductless Mini Splits
Read more »Although your mini split technician will visit your home to clean the mini split components you can’t (and shouldn’t) reach, you can take care of some basic maintenance jobs yourself in the meantime.
One such job that you can safely do is clean your mini split coils. This quick guide will tell you everything you need to know.
First, before you touch anything, you must power down your ductless mini split system and unplug it. Give the parts adequate time to come to room temperature before you begin cleaning.
Both the indoor air-handling unit and the outdoor compressor have coils you can clean. We’ll start by telling you how to clean the air-handling unit’s coils.
To do that, you’ll have to take the cabinet off. With that out of the way, it’s finally time to start cleaning.
We recommend using a soft, clean microfiber cloth. You’ll also need a coil cleaner product of choice.
Following the product instructions, apply some of the coil cleaner
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Posted: June 29, 2022Categories: Ductless Mini Splits
Read more »One of the things you most liked about your traditional HVAC systems was how hidden out of sight they were.
Your furnace was down in the basement where you never saw it except a few times a week when doing laundry. Your air conditioner’s main unit was out in your backyard tucked up against the house.
Sure, you could see it, but it wasn’t a huge eyesore.
You hate how inefficient your traditional HVAC units have become though. You’ve since sought a replacement.
You really like the idea of a ductless mini split system, but one area that’s giving you pause is the sight of the indoor air-handling units. You don’t want them standing out like a sore thumb in rooms that you painstakingly decorated.
Well, the good news is that you can hide the air-handling units if that’s what you want. By having a team of mini split technicians install the air-handling unit in the
