What Mini-Split did you use, and Why?

[1201]

I know. But I'd rather spend the money on more solar stuff! Like the chargeverter I just ordered a few minutes ago. It never ends.

Massive house, maybe a little bit. It's all perspective but yeah, it's fairly large at around 3400 sf. But the upstairs is on a separate unit and it's still on the grid so really only doing about 2400 sf with 10 ft ceilings. Extremely well insulated with six inches of blown on everywhere, even in the detached garage.

I dunno - it sure seems like it made a difference. Doesn't matter I guess because it's more comfortable and I know it's saving at least some on consumption. When the sun shines all day I don't care but it's been so cloudy lately I noticed it.

Chargeverter for what?

 

[EastTexCowboy]

Chargeverter for what?

I have to have a reason?

To give me an alternative way to charge batteries in a grid down and cloudy day situation.

 

[1201]

I have to have a reason?

To give me an alternative way to charge batteries in a grid down and cloudy day situation.

Ok please explain like I'm 5 ?.

If grid is down don't you already have chargers in your inverter?

If it's cloudy why not just have the inverter transfer back to grid?

 

[Cheap 4-life]

I'm running a Pioneer 24000 btu 208-230v-60HZ mini split to cool or heat. I only start it when needed on sunny days and other loads are at a min.
Using a Growatt LF 6k split phase inverter. Starts every time and handles it. Not using any soft start. Mini is rated at 15 amps not including start up. Inverter is rated at 25 amps on 220v / 50amps 120v.I installed mine in the center of my home, that is about 1500 sq ft. Its a wall mounted unit with lines going out side to
mini inverter.

Does your pioneers fan stay running constantly when it’s on? Even when the rooms at set temp and fan is on auto the fan never shuts off…

 

[Cheap 4-life]

I used the dry mode on my Pioneer 12k earlier this week. I was amazed at the amount of water coming out. It would fluctuate from a constant drip drip drip to a steady stream. I never observed this much condensate in auto mode, actually I only put it in dry mode because I noticed rh was creeping up and worried I crushed the drain line during install.

Does your pioneers fan ever shut off?

 

[1201]

Does your pioneers fan stay running constantly when it’s on? Even when the rooms at set temp and fan is on auto the fan never shuts off…

I think pioneer is rebranded midea? In cool mode my midea fan never shuts off. In heat mode it does

 

[Farm Boy]

My Pioneer 24k out side unit will shut off and on weather it's in hot or cold mode at times. The inside part will stay running all the time depending on how you have it programed.

 

[42OhmsPA]

Does your pioneers fan ever shut off?

I've only used dry mode and auto. In dry mode I haven't noticed it shut off.
I have noticed it shuts off in auto mode but I don't know if it's heating or cooling when it does.
Ps the turbo mode works great. I turned on the dry mode before I left for today, set at 68F. It was cold when inside when I got home around 5, felt colder because it's cooler outside compared to what it's been. The thermostat in the kitchen showed 67.8F. The thermostat in the bedroom with the pioneer was 61.7, frigid ?. I put it in auto, set the thermostat to 75 and hit the turbo button. Within 5 minutes the air coming out was so hot I didn't want to stand in front of it for to long. Kitchen is currently 73.4. I'm going to be dropping the temp down to about 67F shortly for my nightly hibernation. Have I mentioned how much I like this thing yet...

The bigger peaks are the dehumidifier in the basement cycling.

 

[42OhmsPA]

My Pioneer 24k out side unit will shut off and on weather it's in hot or cold mode at times. The inside part will stay running all the time depending on how you have it programed.

Forgot the outside unit, thanks.
I've seen mine off multiple times, I can only turn by the fan blade not spinning unless I'm near it because it's so quiet.
I'll pay closer attention to the indoor but I'm 99% certain it's been off (not moving air) in auto.

 

[Crowz]

Thats the one annoying thing on my ramsond too with the dryer mode. It works. Works VERY good.

The problem is it wont stop working. Once you set it to dryer mode it just runs and runs and gets colder and colder. I wish it would stop once it reached a certain temp.

 

[EastTexCowboy]

Ok please explain like I'm 5 ?.

If grid is down don't you already have chargers in your inverter?

If it's cloudy why not just have the inverter transfer back to grid?

I didn't get it at first either. I couldn't see the logic. Then wife and I got to talking and she's the one who pointed out the potential.

Regular day to day, yep, just let it switch to grid and charge the batteries. But we're close enough to the gulf to still get considerable hurricane damage. We also get the occasional ice storm or Texas freeze. You always know when those are coming (although you'd never know it by the people who wait until the last minute then cry because there's nothing left at the store). With hurricanes, and maybe with ice storms, the day before is usually overcast so batteries get low then along comes the storm and the grid goes down and your batteries are already low and now night is coming and 12 to 24 hours of howling winds and dark skies. I've been through a few hurricanes and that's pretty much how it went other than I didn't have solar or batteries. So with the chargeverter, which is essentially just a 48v 100a charger, if I see bad weather coming all I do is turn it on and top off the batteries, if needed. Then if it's an extended outage and rainy or low production like in winter I can run the charger with a fairly small generator and charge up again periodically. We've got a 27kw Generac but that thing is expensive to run, but if I'm running it anyway for the few things that are still on the grid I may as well charge the batteries while it's running. If not I have a couple of 10k gennies that will work just fine.

That's my use case. Probably not enough justification but it was more the wife's idea so I'm not going to argue. She's after me to buy a couple more racks of batteries too, but I'm holding off on that until at least fall. This gal is as much of a solar addict as me, I swear.

 

[1201]

So , more for ease of use? Because the way I see it if a storm is coming you can switch inverters to grid and use them to charge the batteries, then if the power goes out you could still charge the batteries with the inverters from a generator but it's more cumbersome?

I didn't get it at first either. I couldn't see the logic. Then wife and I got to talking and she's the one who pointed out the potential.

Regular day to day, yep, just let it switch to grid and charge the batteries. But we're close enough to the gulf to still get considerable hurricane damage. We also get the occasional ice storm or Texas freeze. You always know when those are coming (although you'd never know it by the people who wait until the last minute then cry because there's nothing left at the store). With hurricanes, and maybe with ice storms, the day before is usually overcast so batteries get low then along comes the storm and the grid goes down and your batteries are already low and now night is coming and 12 to 24 hours of howling winds and dark skies. I've been through a few hurricanes and that's pretty much how it went other than I didn't have solar or batteries. So with the chargeverter, which is essentially just a 48v 100a charger, if I see bad weather coming all I do is turn it on and top off the batteries, if needed. Then if it's an extended outage and rainy or low production like in winter I can run the charger with a fairly small generator and charge up again periodically. We've got a 27kw Generac but that thing is expensive to run, but if I'm running it anyway for the few things that are still on the grid I may as well charge the batteries while it's running. If not I have a couple of 10k gennies that will work just fine.

That's my use case. Probably not enough justification but it was more the wife's idea so I'm not going to argue. She's after me to buy a couple more racks of batteries too, but I'm holding off on that until at least fall. This gal is as much of a solar addict as me, I swear.

 

[EastTexCowboy]

So , more for ease of use? Because the way I see it if a storm is coming you can switch inverters to grid and use them to charge the batteries, then if the power goes out you could still charge the batteries with the inverters from a generator but it's more cumbersome?

That and the inverters like clean power. The charger will handle the less clean power. But yeah, mostly convenience.

 

[Farm Boy]

Mine has a remote with it with settings I never try. I'm a simple guy, just turn it on and off. Usually use it when it is sunny as mine is getting older and using more grid power than when it was new 6 yrs ago. So I only use it off grid any more. A newer one would be nice like may be a 38 seer.

 

[JWLV]

I didn't really care which brand or model I got. The main thing was I got it from Costco. I've never put in a mini-split before. I've only watched some Youtube videos and it seems pretty easy. Well it wasn't all that easy. It took far longer than expected and some things didn't hook up as easily as I thought it would. But buying from Costco, I know that if I screw something up, Costco will allow me to return it. But it all worked out well and I'm loving my MrCool 12K BTU mini-split.

 

[Quattrohead]

She's after me to buy a couple more racks of batteries too, but I'm holding off on that until at least fall. This gal is as much of a solar addict as me, I swear.

Look Mr cowboy you are not towing the line. You are going to have to be banned and replaced by your wife as she obviously has way more sense than you do. Buy the bloody batteries boy ???

 

[Zwy]

Does your pioneers fan stay running constantly when it’s on? Even when the rooms at set temp and fan is on auto the fan never shuts off…

If the unit is on, the interior fan always runs. It doesn't draw much that I have seen when room temp is reached. If you have a shunt, monitor the draw with the fan running once temp is reached and with unit switched off. I can't even tell the difference with the house running such as fridge, freezers and electronics. A box fan draws more watts than the indoor Pioneer fan.

 

[EastTexCowboy]

Look Mr cowboy you are not towing the line. You are going to have to be banned and replaced by your wife as she obviously has way more sense than you do. Buy the bloody batteries boy ???

If I let her have her way every time she's going to start thinking she's the boss. Hmph.
?

 

[EastTexCowboy]

Look Mr cowboy you are not towing the line. You are going to have to be banned and replaced by your wife as she obviously has way more sense than you do. Buy the bloody batteries boy ???

And yeah, she does have way more sense that me. Which is counterintuitive since she's still with me.

 

[Rocksnsalt]

I didn't get it at first either. I couldn't see the logic. Then wife and I got to talking and she's the one who pointed out the potential.

Regular day to day, yep, just let it switch to grid and charge the batteries. But we're close enough to the gulf to still get considerable hurricane damage. We also get the occasional ice storm or Texas freeze. You always know when those are coming (although you'd never know it by the people who wait until the last minute then cry because there's nothing left at the store). With hurricanes, and maybe with ice storms, the day before is usually overcast so batteries get low then along comes the storm and the grid goes down and your batteries are already low and now night is coming and 12 to 24 hours of howling winds and dark skies. I've been through a few hurricanes and that's pretty much how it went other than I didn't have solar or batteries. So with the chargeverter, which is essentially just a 48v 100a charger, if I see bad weather coming all I do is turn it on and top off the batteries, if needed. Then if it's an extended outage and rainy or low production like in winter I can run the charger with a fairly small generator and charge up again periodically. We've got a 27kw Generac but that thing is expensive to run, but if I'm running it anyway for the few things that are still on the grid I may as well charge the batteries while it's running. If not I have a couple of 10k gennies that will work just fine.

That's my use case. Probably not enough justification but it was more the wife's idea so I'm not going to argue. She's after me to buy a couple more racks of batteries too, but I'm holding off on that until at least fall. This gal is as much of a solar addict as me, I swear.

She sounds like a keeper!

 

[Rocksnsalt]

Mine has a remote with it with settings I never try. I'm a simple guy, just turn it on and off. Usually use it when it is sunny as mine is getting older and using more grid power than when it was new 6 yrs ago. So I only use it off grid any more. A newer one would be nice like may be a 38 seer.

38 seer? ?

Have a short list of candidates?

 

[Nan_wpg]

I looked at that ecoflow unit. Seems like a lot of money for a glorified portable.
The only thing it has over a traditional small portable is that its dual hose however you can modify many single hose portables to dual hose operation without much fuss.
Ecoflow has some customer complaints on the web that say they are useless on warranty.
If youre serious about buying one (I almost was but couldnt justify not using one of the 4 tiny portables Ive collected in storage) note that ecoflow just had a huge price hike. They now want 1800 for the unit and 900 for the battery. Ha.
Rackupgo seems legit and has it for $1000 + 700.
Still a lot of money. One of my portables + li-ion and inverter is less with twice the btu. The AC is 26x13x13" theres small ones out there.

How do you modify a single hose to dual?
what’s your setup?

 

[Nan_wpg]

My costco Midea seems to suck less. Pretty good EER.

Dual hose (of course).View attachment 153133

I’ve been running it full tilt in a high humidity environment for a few weeks. No drainage to speak of. A couple of table spoons in the bucket. Seems weird but that‘s the facts.

How much power does it draw?

 

[ericfx1984]

I've installed quite a few of them for local people

Some of them I've installed in RVs others of them in small sheds, garages, even a few in some houses

What I found is for the most part most of the 12,000 BTU units are pretty much the same barring a few minor changes to the plastic or the metal casing of the outside unit

But internally they're pretty much the same oftentimes even having exactly the same components or even times having the exact same part numbers internally

My suspicion is that the vast majority of these are produced in the same factory

One thing I will suggest is if you don't want to mess with vacuuming the unit down go with a Mr Cool

Mr Cool is already vacuumed down from the factory and the lines are vacuumed down meaning once you tighten the lines down they already have vacuum

This can be a huge time saver and definitely makes things easier for those who are not familiar with this type of equipment

 

[Subdood]

I didn't get it at first either. I couldn't see the logic. Then wife and I got to talking and she's the one who pointed out the potential.

Regular day to day, yep, just let it switch to grid and charge the batteries. But we're close enough to the gulf to still get considerable hurricane damage. We also get the occasional ice storm or Texas freeze. You always know when those are coming (although you'd never know it by the people who wait until the last minute then cry because there's nothing left at the store). With hurricanes, and maybe with ice storms, the day before is usually overcast so batteries get low then along comes the storm and the grid goes down and your batteries are already low and now night is coming and 12 to 24 hours of howling winds and dark skies. I've been through a few hurricanes and that's pretty much how it went other than I didn't have solar or batteries. So with the chargeverter, which is essentially just a 48v 100a charger, if I see bad weather coming all I do is turn it on and top off the batteries, if needed. Then if it's an extended outage and rainy or low production like in winter I can run the charger with a fairly small generator and charge up again periodically. We've got a 27kw Generac but that thing is expensive to run, but if I'm running it anyway for the few things that are still on the grid I may as well charge the batteries while it's running. If not I have a couple of 10k gennies that will work just fine.

That's my use case. Probably not enough justification but it was more the wife's idea so I'm not going to argue. She's after me to buy a couple more racks of batteries too, but I'm holding off on that until at least fall. This gal is as much of a solar addict as me, I swear.

You are a truly blessed man.

When I talk to my wife about things solar, she gets that glazed look in her eyes and multiple question marks start forming over her head..

But, that's okay, I experience the same effect when she talks about crafts.