I am in the process of researching mini splits and have settled on Pioneer brand. It is a middle of the road unit with good energy ratings. They are one of few that honors the warranty (parts only like most)even if self-installed completely and qualifies for tax credits and utility rebates. I read a bunch of reviews and although the brand gets overall good reviews I do find a recurring complaint with all the Chinese makes, once a major part needs replacing, even if covered by the warranty it becomes cost prohibited to pay the labor to hire an AC tech to install the part. Sometimes it happens early in the life of the unit making your investment worthless.
I was wondering if anyone can relate their experiences with mini splits. How old is your unit. What brand do you have and do you use yours all winter.
Thanks jeff51 for your input earlier in another thread.
pennzy,
As I’ve mentioned in the other thread, mine’s a Mitsubishi. Less than a year old.
The coolest temp I can set for winter is 65F with the dumb remote that came with the system. If I could I’d probably set to to 60F.
But at least it turns off the fan when not running and set to auto. It’s really nice out there in the winter (all 3 or 4 weeks of it we have here - snark).
On mine one of the options is vent positioning. It can be set to blow at various vertical angles or wobble up and down - which I do in the winter. Really distributes the air through the room.
After the doors have been open, it ramps up and warms things up fairly quickly. But everything is already warm in there.
Beats the heck out of the two 1200w electric space heaters I was using. Bet it uses less electrons too over the long run.
I’ll have to look it up but pretty sure mine came with a parts and labor warranty for several years.
All the Best,
Jeff
I’m not very knowledgable but I got a single head Daikin installed ~2yrs ago. I was using BB heaters so this was a considerable upgrade as it includes the AC advantage. It includes a remote, is day-to-day programable, oscillates L/R and U/D. I live in a mild environment and I have a lot of shade on my house but it seems to save about 25% in the winter and I don’t think I use too much for the AC in the summer :not sure: I have a small (800+sf), old house with poor insulation so I received no rebates. I have 9’+ ceilings so the head is not obtrusive and while not as quiet as BB heat the sound level is not bad and is somewhat controllable. Overall I am very satisfied 8-9/10. I paid 4k but they left the BB heaters installed…ugh. This is what they installed - DAIKIN:
DHPI Model: FTXS15LVJU
DHPO Model: RXS15LVJU
Mitsubishi and Daiken are usually high on the quality list from what I’m seeing. The louvers moving up/down and right/left is a nice feature. Unfortunately neither will honor the warranty if self-installed. (looks like parts only for both) Also it looks like the federal tax credit was not extended into 2022. There still is a utility rebate here though.
we install Lg and mitsubishis all the time and customers love them no complaints even with users that have had them for 8+ years. only thing that needs to be done to keep up high end units may be recharging them with refrigerant if they start to loose their cooling/heating capabilities. Can’t go wrong with either brand in my opinion.
I have a Fujitsu 9rls3y that I installed myself, bought it from a surplus store so there was no warranty anyway. It has been excellent. Been running for 3 years now. Doesn’t see much use in the winter though as I use a woodburner.
The store had 4 of them, if I had it to do over I would have bought 2. It’s a 33 seer unit and is really cheap to run. Definitely worth it.
Base models work great down to about –3 but if you are in a even colder climate you need the hyper heat models which work down to about –15 I think, might be lower haven’t installed them yet