This was MUCH harder than I expected... DIY Air Conditioning Pt 1

[nicklmg]

 

Buy air conditioners on Amazon (PAID LINK): https://geni.us/wa5iOQL

[lewdicrous]

Always great when Brian is in a video.

[Void Master]

12 minutes ago, lewdicrous said:

Always great when Brian is in a video.

This came to my mind directly after i read your post.

[soldier_ph]

Yay, finally a long awaited video gets released. But when is the review of the LG OLED48CX8LC coming ? @LinusTech @nicklmg 

[dwrecks]

Out of interest, how does something like this work for tax purposes payment etc? Not asking about specifics in the case of LMG, just in general. 

Like doing some work to your house, but it making content for a company at the same time. Would you have to pay the company you own to film it? or can you just have them do it and just pay for parts?

[sub68]

@BrianTheElectrician is being useful again

[sub68]

the wall mounted Air Conditioners are used a lot in japan seen in anime and real life

[Dutch_Master]

Quote

I don't think you could have done any better.

 

That's the problem.

Yvonne Sebastian, 2020

 

Legendary!

[Escapenz]

Man makes me wanna replace my 2 wall mount units and do something like this in my house.

[waka324]

Oh man... mistakes you're gonna regret:

1) Cheap mini split system. Should have stuck to LG, Mitsubishi, Daikin or Fujitsu. Much more reliable, and you can get proper accessories like dry contact adapters to talk with your smart thermostats. Senville is a re-baged China manufactured brand.
2) No basepan heater. You're gonna need to go out with a blow-torch during spring/winter/fall to defrost your unit.
3) WAY too close to the ground. At the very minimum, get a riser for your system. Ideally, it should be above your snow line if you are going to rely on it for heat.

4) You probably want to install a surge protector so some rouge lighting or power surge doesn't kill your brand new unit.
5) Hope you used nylog on the flare connections.
6) I doubt that the cheap unit is going to provide enough heat in cold winters. You'll want the electric baseboards as a backup.

 

Can't wait for part 2.

[Psittac]

I work HVAC for a living in Colorado, I'll try to be nice.  We install a new furnace and A/C for $8k usd so you went to the wrong companies for a quote.  Unless that was to install a mini-split because you have baseboard heat or a boiler.  Heating with electricity while 100% efficient is not the best idea due to the cost of a btu of electricity vs gas.  Higher seer AC is only cost effective in places like Texas or Phoenix where it's running 350 day's a year.  Higher efficiency can mean higher complexity which equates to a shorter life span and more frequent and more expensive repairs which automatically negates any saving's on your utility.  Heat pump's are only effective in a certain range of outdoor conditions and again, heating with electricity is generally not recommended.  Here in CO we've had customers ask us to remove their not so old heat pumps that were broken and extremely complicated because they spent weeks looking for someone that even knew how to fix them and gave up.  But I don't know much about the specifics of mini-split's because we don't do them, have enough work that we don't know what to do with on the standard systems.  Your mini-split didn't look to complicated from what I could tell.  Oh and a pound of R-410A is about $10 usd wholesale so if you ever get a leak don't trust the companies charging $300/lb.

 

One minor laugh was the concrete, which is good but un-necessary because they make styrofoam core concrete covered pads that'll do the trick at a much lower cost.

 

But, no one said mini-split's were cheap or easy to install.

 

All in you've done well all the hazing aside, there's just more cost effective ways to do it unless you require a mini-split, in which case you didn't do anything wrong.

 

Oh and I'd look into some sort of liquid line drier (can see it in my pic)

 

But here is some recent handy work I did with a bender

 

 

[pinkyandthebrain]

wife: ummmm.... yea.. an A. I don't see how you could do it better.

 

non professional, not women translation: I have a mixed of emotions of "now I have 6 things climbing up the outside wall but unless you want to take apart the walls, this is the best" .

 

 

[ordinary_jello]

2 hours ago, Psittac said:

Linus appears to have baseboard heating.

His location is temperate and allows a heat pump to work well.

Location also gets electricity from dams which makes it cheap and "carbon-free"

Heat pump "efficiency" is in the 200% to 300% range: thus are cost-effective.

Also, that water heater exhaust and Y-ducting with the furnace says it all.

 

I'd upgrade the Linus unit to one with a distribution box inside the house in the attic so that external line set isn't crazy (it could've been ONE conduit!), but first quit the entire project and go with a unit with the absolute longest warranty possible which likely requires a licensed installer.

[Loote]

6 hours ago, waka324 said:

Oh man... mistakes you're gonna regret:

I bet Linus is going to upgrade it 3 times before winter, most likely submerging the house in mineral oil in the end.

[Evolution.]

Highly respect linus for taking on this task and encouraging those who were on the fence about doing it themselves. Contractors are a rip off. What bothered me however that he paid a couple of hundred dollars to make the concrete base for the system lol c'mon man. 

[akio123008]

When you live in North America and you need to upgrade your electrical system every time you want to plug in something that uses more power than a light bulb 

[Boomwebsearch]

12 hours ago, Psittac said:

Oh and a pound of R-410A is about $10 usd wholesale so if you ever get a leak don't trust the companies charging $300/lb.

 

Also if the company wants to charge your system with more refrigerant, ask about repairing the leak first, don't fill a leaking system since it's a waste of money, your system shouldn't need more refrigerant unless there's a leak. If you have a older A/C system that uses R-22 you can expect to pay upto $50 per pound if it ever needs a repair with a refill since the EPA is stopping production of R-22 refrigerant (it's bad for the earth's ozone and can no longer be imported/produced in the US at least). The newer R-410A refrigerants are around $10 per pound as @Psittac has stated, so don't agree to pay much higher than that for a recharge on your R-410A system.

[sub68]

14 hours ago, waka324 said:

1) Cheap mini split system. Should have stuck to LG, Mitsubishi, Daikin or Fujitsu.

are family has one and it pretty good

[waka324]

16 hours ago, Psittac said:

Oh and I'd look into some sort of liquid line drier (can see it in my pic)

Not for most mini-splits. Mini split condensers from the big brands (LG/Mitsubishi/Daikin/etc.) will have advanced oil recovery mechanisms, so you will actually void your warranty installing oil traps or driers.

 

I'm interested in how they are going to add more refrigerant as they extended the line-sets. I also hope they purge and vacuum the lines properly or they're gonna have a bad time. Minisplits are much more sensitive to contaminates than their larger counterparts. 

[waka324]

6 hours ago, PonyBoyZ_ said:

Highly respect linus for taking on this task and encouraging those who were on the fence about doing it themselves. Contractors are a rip off. What bothered me however that he paid a couple of hundred dollars to make the concrete base for the system lol c'mon man. 

I did my own system too, but I spent about 3 weeks researching everything before buying anything. Linus needs to put more time into reading documentation and comparing units. I really think he's gonna have some regrets with this setup.

[waka324]

13 hours ago, ordinary_jello said:

Linus appears to have baseboard heating.

The problem is that they said they are gonna disconnect the heaters from the panel to use it to power the mini split. 

They should add a sub-panel with a changeover switch so they have an emergency backup.
Better yet, would be to add the baseboard heat as a second heat stage to a multi stage thermostat, so it'd kick in automatically when the mini split can't keep up with the cold.

[Egg-Roll]

7 hours ago, akio123008 said:

When you live in North America and you need to upgrade your electrical system every time you want to plug in something that uses more power than a light bulb 

That's unfair and somewhat untrue.

The max draw goes based on your main breaker. Unless Linus wanted to install a second one or a new one with greater capacity this is the best option.

Afaik there is no limit on incoming power, just what the actual breaker can handle. So if Linus needs to upgrade his main breaker every time then he should just buy/rent a commercial unit to live in.

 

[Dutch_Master]

14 minutes ago, waka324 said:

I'm interested in how they are going to add more refrigerant as they extended the line-sets. I also hope they purge and vacuum the lines properly or they're gonna have a bad time. Minisplits are much more sensitive to contaminates than their larger counterparts. 

I've seen equipment in the back of Brian's van that indicate to me he's a qualified HVAC mechanic/engineer so I'd say proper installation procedures will be followed. Which includes soldering the joints with a decent nitrogen flow, followed by a pressure test, leak test, vacuum test and finally another leak test after filling the system(s) with refrigerant.

(yes, I've learned the same job )

[Dutch_Master]

8 minutes ago, Egg-Roll said:

Afaik there is no limit on incoming power, just what the actual breaker can handle.

Not quite. Power to the house is still limited due to the wire gauge from the nearest transformer to his breaker panel, as well as the power rating of the transformer itself. Besides, at what times would it be more cost-effective to switch the house over to a 3-phase 400V system to enable larger power appliances inside? Linus is a clever chap and as long as he runs his ideas by Brian, he'll stay out of trouble. At least with Yvonne

[derr12]

Hey Linus, now that you have AC, probably a good idea to put a better blankie in that attic.  DIY blown in insulation in there to r50+ is easy in that space. a lot of places give you the machine rental for free after you buy all the bags of insulation you need. A poorly insulated attic is the absolute worst for heat/cool loss in a house.