mini split heat pump install in wi.

72puma

is there any problem of putting the outdoor condenser inside an attached uninsulated garage on my house? the reason being here in wi.mainly would be used in the heating mode.all sides of my house are exposed to a lot of wind and not only snow but wind driven drifting snow that gets into everything.

inside the garage is the only place that i could see where the coils and fan would be sheltered and not get get pluged with snow during our frequent snow storms and drifting snow, plus the garage is usually 10-15 degres warmer.

 i'm not so concerned about summertime cooling because some summers we hardly even use the air conditioner plus i can always open the garage windows and doors  for ventilation.

Harvey Ramer

Very bad idea.

Just don't do it. Don't even think about it anymore. They are made for the great outdoors and they have optional wind baffles you can install if you are in a high wind area.



That's where you should put it, outdoors.





Harvey

Jack

check out Airtec

mini-split brackets. I have two wall hung and one roof mount at my home. You can wall mount them to get them off the ground. You should elevate them to avoid the drifting snow. Also, while you think it will be used primarily for heating, which I get, you will also be using it quite a bit for the dehumidification. They can work indoors, but you need very large spaces (warehouse) to do it properly.

Unknown

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Jack

Well....

I just installed a Fujitsu 15RLS in my newly remodeled kitchen which opens into living room, dining room. It was 15* the day I turned it on and it was blowing 130* air. I also sold several thousand of these in ME, NH & VT. They might not be the sole source of heat, but my pitch on them was don't change your system, add! A friend of mine in a big old VT farmhouse overlooking Lake Champlain run his multi mini split down to 20* and only then does he fire up his oil radiant. Dollar for dollar reductions of 70%. That is a very common application in the north.



They work very nicely N of the MD line. You have to understand the specs of the individual model/manuf of the product, but there are models running well at -15* too.

SWEI

VRF changes everything

Most of the well understood limits have turned into sliding curves.  I'm still trying to understand the possibilities.

Jack

"Sliding Curves"

SWEI, that is actually a really god way to look at it and describe it. If you don't mind, I'm going to use that phrase...with attribution of course. The 410A inverters have altered the landscape. Back in the R22 single stage days if one of my customers said he was going to buy a heat pump in the New England area I would say, "What are you, nuts?" Today if someone says they are not going to buy a heat pump I have to say, "What are you nuts?" It is rare that you see such a profound change in technology.

SWEI

I'm waiting with baited breath

for the inverter compressors to invade commercial refrigeration.

TonyS

David...I hate to tell you this but

These 410 inverters work great at 0 degrees. I work in Reading Pa and our design day is 15. We hit alot of design days this year and much lower, below 0.

These mini spits worked great. I was called in to repair a steam system in town, when I got there the owner of the little bodega was heating with a heat pump I installed for A/C a year ago. I walked under it and it was blowing very warm air on me. I stood there in amazement, I couldnt believe it. It was below 0 when I got there.

Most people think heat pumps stop putting out heat at some number usually 32 degrees but this is not the case. The truth is in the past heat pumps were sized to the cooling load, of course they were otherwise they would have been to big to dehumidify.

Without looking I would assume somewhere below the Mason Dixon is where the the heat gain and loss are pretty much equal. Today we are no longer bound by these rules, we can size the heat pumps for heat load on design day and in the summer they will just modulate down to the proper size for dehumidification. Daiken even makes a unit , the Quaternity that turns the top half of the evaporator into the tail end of the condenser so dehumidification can take place without temperature change.

Of course for many of us warm water aficionados the ideal system is a air to water heat pump, they just are having a real problem releasing those systems here.

Daiken has the Altherma but Fujitsu and Mitsubisi plus several other are making and selling these things all over Europe. I believe one of the biggest problems is they usually stop at 130 degrees which makes them only suitable for low temp radiant systems or revamped low temp baseboard systems, something we dont have enough of to make it profitable. Just Google water to air heat pump and you will see them all as your directed to a European site.

I personally have come to the conclusion that these are the future, after being fooled again with the promise of cheap fossil fuel...Propane and after feeling the wrath of some of my customers who are now paying 4 dollars a gallon because of some fake shortage. Only electric heat can be created by the end consumer using photovoltaic and with the newest microinverter panels it can be done reasonably over time.

Harvey Ramer

Tony

I would like to interject something here.

Daikin does not condone sizing a HP based on the heating load as you were describing. This does cause problems on the AC side. In short the evaporator is way to large and even though the compressor slows down, the sensible and latent cooling will not be operating at desired levels. In fact you will be satisfying the load almost entirely with sensible cooling.

I have heard some horror stories about units that were sized this way. Caused a lot of damage in some instances.

It would be possible to do this in more arid climates.

I live in Cumberland county PA so we are basically looking at the same air designs.



Perhaps the Professor would like to weigh in on this.



Harvey

TonyS

I agree

Would be much better to run a multi unit for the heat load and only use half the units for a/c.  Also I would like to correct my last post. Google air to water heat pump not vise versa.