Mini-Split heat in the Northeast winter? My experience so far.

[Music] hey everybody how's it going my name is charles and i'm not wearing this because i'm cold i'm wearing this because we're going to go outside in a minute and then we're going to be cold but in the meantime i want to just kind of give a midwinter review of my innovator mini split ac heat pump system that i put in oh back a little before christmas so going on a month and a half now i think well i purchased this because i am in my shed all right now this particular shed is a 12 by 28 foot pre-built shed that i have gone through i've thrown some insulation in and i've put some drywall up and some lights and it's basically what you would term a man cave at this point i also use a mini office space to do my work from home so i've got a couple of gaming things and i've got a tv and i've got a futon and all the typical man cavey type things or he sheds or whatever you want to call it but heating was going to be an issue come winter time because well it was a shed so electric has been run obviously and i have been using a couple electric space heaters now the problem with those is they run 1500 watts at full tilt on every one you're running and if you do the math conversion that means basically every 15 amp circuit can have one heater on it well i have four circuits pre-installed all right i ran the electric and i put four circuits in one for my office desk area for work one for my computers over here to game on one outside outlet one outdoor outlet and another one that runs the wall that's actually behind you and covering the lights well i have computers working at work so i can't very well plug a massive heater drawing almost the entire circuit's worth of electricity there the wall behind you luckily has outlets for a tv and whatnot but it's not really being used so that one i can run a heater at a space heater and then the other one where the other computer is well if i don't play any games i can turn that one off and i can plug a heater in over there so generally i could run two electric space heaters at full tilt and then a smaller one under my desk and the reason i have to do that or had to do that is because i live in the northeast i live up in upstate new york and in the wintertime it gets cold so doing that meant that i could keep it above 65 degrees in here while i was working at the cost of money because you're using effectively 30 amps worth of juice all the time safety now that's kind of a questionable one because generally space heaters aren't the most unsafe thing in the world certainly not more than say a kerosene space heater from 1983 but so when i would go to bed at night when i'd leave my office i would turn all the heaters down to low because at least that way it wasn't drawing max amperage the wiring wouldn't get warm or anything nothing really got warm anyway if anything was going to happen it would happen during the day as well but you have safety in there with that and you also have noise and convenience and all those fun things so one of the space heaters i have kept now and it's a little fireplace heater and it looks kind of fun but come christmas time i put in this innovare mini split now this is a 12 000 btu 115 volt or you know 110 120 whatever you want to call it mini split ac unit with a heat pump in it which means that it can put out heat heat is a good thing in the winter time now that said this is kind of a long way of saying this is my review of how it is held up up here in the northeast so far when we've had temperatures that have gotten down into the negative double digits fahrenheit so let's get into that so behind me is my mini split now this thing went in pretty easily now i did run a an electric line over here dedicated for it pre-wired because i knew i was going to put this here so the well actually doesn't run over here runs over to that wall but basically i had an extra circuit run dedicated to for this unit which now free up all the other units so i don't have to have plugged in i have seen people that have actually run this off of a wire and just ran the electric code down plugged it into an outlet this thing as i understand i haven't done the calculations i don't run a kilowatt meter on it i haven't hooked up a a sense meter in the panel but most of the reviews i've read for something on the size say you know maximum even heat about 10 amps at full tilt and usually not even close to that well that's less than one of the space heaters i was using and it does this job all on its own but they have limitations so in this particular case i live in upstate new york now a lot of these units are rated down to about five maybe zero and i think the lowest i've seen is minus five degrees fahrenheit before they've just lost efficiency to the point where it's no longer viable as a single heating solution they recommend that at that point you have a supplemental heating solution be it force hot air electric baseboard electric space heaters something else to help keep up the slack when these things start dying out and it's not because there's a problem with the unit it's not because they suck it's not because of any reason like that it's just because there's no more heat outside for the heat pump to extract and pump into the building now this has been working fairly well now right now it is 20 degrees outside we had a small squall blow over yesterday with some sleet and stuff so it's about my it's about 20 degrees outside and it's putting out plenty of heat uh it on itself has kept it in here even overnight 66 degrees no problem now i do have my other little space heater in here but i do have it turned on but the thermostat down to the point where it only kicks on if it drops below about 64-ish or so ideally some days it's a little bit more temperamental than others but that's kind of the idea so it doesn't really need to run unless it's so cold in here that this thing is not efficient enough to keep up with the entire space now installation in here four inches in the wall six inches in the ceiling two by four studs so that's kind of a determining factor and again this is more of a shed slash office gaming space not so much a living quarters so how's it working well it's working great um i have no issues with it the only um drawbacks i'll call one i had to reach out to the company and ask them for a bracket for the the remote i don't know why they didn't include it but they sent me one free of charge they said here you go don't worry about it cool so that was awesome the installation kit is not the greatest one in the world but it certainly serves its purpose i was able to do one i bought a little mini vacuum pump and had everything up and running and probably about uh if i were to put a time on it not counting taking some video that i took i could put in this installed in under an hour now and or at least an hour to the point of getting everything hooked up and then needing to vacuum the line set out in order to charge the lines from the pre-charged condenser unit drawbacks for me the condenser unit now this is a shed it's got t-111 walls so it's just wood on stud no and you know no barrier or anything a lot of air infiltration there's still aerial air infiltration in the the cracks and stuff nothing can be helped i can't really take all the siding off and wrap the shed so there's a little bit of air that still comes in and will be until i get the seams all buttoned up but installing this went fairly well but the bracket outside that holds the condensing unit is screwed directly to the wall now that's a bracket i purchased i live in enough area where there's plenty of snow and i wanted it up off the ground aways so i just bought a bracket well that bracket is bolted directly into studs directly through the wall and it's basically just metal on wood on wood contacts so you can hear a little bit of vibration a little bit of noise it's not very noticeable especially because most of the time this thing is not running full speed so that condenser is not spinning quite so fast and generally it doesn't really do that unless you're hearing it spool up or anything like that now that can be combated by a couple different ways and what i'm going to do i'm going to pick up some quarter inch rubber bushing washers back the bolts up just a notch slide them in between tighten it back up that'll cut down a lot performance wise though once it gets down to that you know 10 15 degree mark that's when i start to now it's only rated to five but we also have a lot of windshield and it comes from this side of the building so once it gets down to there usually with windshell it is basically just losing its ability to draw air out as efficiently and that's where the electric space heaters kick on there have been a couple nights where it has gotten down to negative double digits overnight and in here i have come out and it has been down to 50 degrees now again my little space heater my electric one i only leave it on low and turned on so when this thing just doesn't have an ability to pull out so much warm air to actually warm it in here and that little space here is only running at its 500 watt setting well it's not going to keep it that warm that said usually by morning and i've had mornings where i've come out and it's still been almost zero in the morning but usually in the morning i can bring that out turn up the space heater to high and sometimes i have another little one that i'll turn up too but the other day i came out here it was so cold it was 46 degrees in here when i came out here in the morning at 9 30. by 10 30 it was 65 so i'm really happy with it i've had no issues with it no operational issues save there was one time where i had to just repair it to the app the app it lost connection for the the phone and i had to repair it now that said there is one other thing that i needed to do for my own peace of mind when it comes outside now i'm going to talk about it and then we'll go look at it but i want to talk about it first because it's warmer in here than it is outside so the outside unit has a drain there's a little hole in the bottom it has a little drain plug that you snap in it's a little 90 degree plastic nipple goes in and it's supposed to help when the outside unit needs to dethaw defrost whatever you want to determine because if ice builds up inside it will temporarily cycle itself off heat up the coils to melt the ice which would then drain out the bottom of the unit onto wherever you have run a hose to and then it will turn back onto heating mode again so it's just designed to help keep with ice build up the problem is that little nipple is a 90 degree nipple and this is on again the windward facing side of the shed which means that all that really cold air that comes blowing through well it's coming directly at the unit and when it was so cold and fleet fleet no freezing rain and sleet same thing different words when all that would build up on it the unit would turn off to then know thaw itself out well when it would do that the sleet and freezing rain would then hit the unit it was so cold that it would freeze even on the little coated fan blades inside which would cause a little bit of not so much vibration but those little tiny droplets would freeze into these little tiny icicles stalagmites or stalactites which everyone hangs down and every time that the fan would turn back on it would start spinning all those little things would start clicking it would sound like a bicycle spoke with a playing card as it would go because it was just a tiny little icicles that are just like you know clicking against the the casing and what was happening was the little nipple would get water in it but because it was 90 degrees it's not like a 45 which would have been perfect but a 90 degree means that there's still a possibility of pooling that water and it was so cold the water was actually freezing before it could drain out and then it would back up to the point where ice would start to build up inside the unit itself that's not cool now i could easily fix that by going out with a heat gun sitting out there for five minutes thawing everything back out basically you thought the little nipple on the bottom and then it would you know let the water flow and then you just throw out the rest of the ice away you go i've pretty much solved that issue and how did i did it well i did two things i removed the nipple completely i mean it's just a little plastic fitting the water is still going to come through that hole fitting or no so now the water just drains directly down now again this is a shed it's in the middle of my yard over by my driveway and there's nothing i need to worry about with that water draining don't need to worry about ice build up there nobody's walking there or anything like that ideally i would and i don't know if i could do this with a heat gun maybe to to bend that nipple down a little bit so it's got more of a gravity fed curve or if i can just cut it off and run a hose basically down on a straight fitting i still need to work on that but right now it's working without the nipple all together so i'm just gonna wait until warmer weather to do that what i've done is i've done that which has greatly helped the thawing process the other thing i did and again this is on a side side of a building it's just mounted on the wall i did put a little tiny roof over top of it when i first put it in to help because where the roof slants it comes directly over top of it and i didn't want ice or anything to slide off the roof and then straight down onto the unit so i built a little mini roof above it just something to deflect the snow and the ice and the rain off of the front of the unit but what i didn't consider at the time was all that wind blowing directly in right so that wind coming in well it's hitting the face of this unit the rain the snow the freezing rain the sleet all the junk is just blowing directly into this thing so what it is i built a wall now this one is kind of jank um again it was cold and i was in a hurry and i needed something to do now recently i had replaced uh repaired the front end of a 2007 mustang and i had the old hood well that'll work i took some two by fours i slapped them up basically just bolted them to the roof of the the little thing that i made and just stuck this roof in front of it this hood in front of the unit to act as a wind block now the ends are still open but it does do the job a lot better it's far enough away and at enough of an angle that the snow does not really build up inside it and you'll see when we get out there you'll see the gap but it does serve as a good wind block that way to keep all the slushy stuff away from the unit itself those two things combined have made it so i've had zero issues with icing or anything like that whatsoever the heat is still working great we're 67 degrees again no issues whatsoever space heater's not even on so even at 20 degrees it's still pumping out enough heat to keep heating the room up so that's an awesome thing outside everything is going well i do need to strap up the line set one more spot i just kind of have it temporarily in there again i put this in in december and it was already starting to get cold and it's been really cold since so i really haven't had a chance to do it but that said let's go outside real quick i'll show you what i did but then we'll come back in and i'll just give again my quick overview my final thoughts as to how i've enjoyed this for the last almost two months all right so here we are outside and just to show you i mean i've got some pretty good ice built up out here so we're walking around the back of the shed now i'm trying to do this without falling through the snow because well there's a lot of it so let me uh let me back around and i'll show you this is kind of the setup that i have now again it's a little jank you can probably hear it running but you have my little mini roof that i've put over top of it that's just to help someone like ice up here breaks off and comes down it doesn't crash directly on top of the unit itself so that's just a quick you know 2x4 a-frame with a piece of marine ply and some paper over top of it but it was still hitting the unit itself from the windward side so a couple two by fours an old scrap hood and i hate to say this is an old scrap hood but the deer was hit bens were made not savable so rip gt500 hood anyway you can see that at the base of the hood we're building up some snow right yeah but you can see underneath much more open so let's get down in here and take a peek probably can't see a whole lot so let me turn you around real quick now if we pan down under here and we look up there you can see right there well that's that little drain hole drain hole yeah that's what i'm saying so that's a little drain for it uh by taking the little nipple out now it just drains directly underneath it's not freezing up at all there's a little bit down on this side right where it's frozen up a little bit but the inside unit itself completely clear and again it's because the sides are open the snow the wind is actually coming from this way today it's actually shifted which is why this scent's got a little bit of ice built up but it's on the outside nothing's hurting it the inside everything's still completely clear everything's great which is awesome now you can see behind me these are the brackets those are the ones that i need to back out and put a little bit of a rubber bushing behind because right now they're just hard against the wall and uh once we once we put some bushings in there it'll cut down on the vibration a little bit i do need to still buy a line set kit uh one of those covers but in the meantime though so that's how it's running now this is the shed this is what it's keeping warm metal roof and all and if you know anything about these pre-built sheds you know these built-in windows they give you are absolute garbage so they are the next thing to be changed come springtime anyway back inside for some final thoughts so final thoughts well for under a thousand dollars total 700 for the unit a little under a couple hundred dollars for the gauge in the vacuum set i can't be any happier with it it's great it's not a mr cool so there is some work you know you have to vacuum out your pre-charge lines or your line set and everything because it's not pre-charged like a mr cool so it's but it's you know it's a much more budget-friendly alternative comes with a five-year warranty or is it seven something like that uh if you have somebody qualified install it if you do it yourself you kind of run that am i getting a warranty or not thing and that's the same with any of these units not particular to this one but i've had no problems with it it's doing exactly as advertised it's still running very well even considering the fact that i'm in the northeast with temperatures that get down that low it is still doing great and i'm perfectly happy with it again the only thing i have at all is a little bit of a hum in the background from when that compressor is on which will be taken care of once i put my stupid little things in so there was an oversight on my part from the beginning but what are you gonna do overall really happy with it can't complain and i'm pretty sure most of the same units or the similar units that you can buy on amazon for around this price point seven eight nine hundred dollars less than a mr cool but if you're handy enough to do it yourself or you have somebody that can do it for you take a little bit time throw one in and especially if you're in a well insulated one and not a little dr shed probably gonna be really happy with it i'm trying to find one for my bedroom now anyway thanks for watching that's my little mini review on my innova mini split from two months ago through some really cold winter weather i'm pretty happy with it take care thanks for watching

Channel: Charles Olcott

Views: 18,738

Keywords: Innovair Mini-Split, Mini-Split cold weather, Innovair cold weather, Innovair heat review, mini split winter, innovair winter

Id: G_zUb5ZZ3cU

Length: 19min 39sec (1179 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 05 2022