Our Mini-Split

Last summer we bought a DIY Perfect Aire 12,000 BTU mini-split which Scott installed in June in our bedroom. We used to be able to keep our windows open at night and not use A/C in the summer, but then the traffic and drag racing on McCarran (the ring road near our house) got so loud we had to close our windows and use the main A/C unit to stay cool. This resulted in our using about 750 kWh more electricity in the summer months, plus we could still hear some of the really loud cars through the closed window! We decided to try a mini-split heat pump system for just our bedroom and see if it would keep us cool and provide some soft, white noise.

Success! We are happy to report that we stayed nice and cool during the heat of the summer and couldn’t hear the McCarran Motor Speedway! We also saved 500 kWh of electricity due to the efficiency of this little mini-split and not having to use our main A/C unit at night. And it’s cute!

Mini-splits are heat pumps and here’s how they work:

Installation

Scott found the Perfect Aire very easy to install and just needed a little help from an electrician friend to hook it up to our electrical panel. Here’ s some photos of the installation process:

Installing the bracket that holds the unit in place.
Fishing the line sets through the walls. The condenser is around the corner on the side of the house. The bottom line set was pulled through the crawl space under the house.
Connecting the line sets.
The finished look with the line set cover installed.
The condenser unit on the side of the house.
Video of the mini-split in action. You may have to turn up the sound to hear it, it’s so quiet! It does provide the soft, white noise we were wanting.
Heat pump alley–mini-split condenser in the foreground and the Trane heat pump in the background behind the wheelbarrow. We’re happy we can place all our condensers out of site on the side of the house.

We use the Trane to air condition the house during the day (77 degrees) and the mini-split to cool our bedroom at night. To accomplish this, we turn the Trane’s thermostat up to 82 degrees at night and crack our bedroom door so we can keep the cool in our bedroom. Then we set the mini-split to 77 degrees. The Trane never comes on at night anymore, which is what saves the 500 kWh of electricity. There’s no need to cool the whole house when we are only in one room. We are finding that using zone cooling and heating is saving both electricity and gas.

Cost

Because it was a Do-It-Yourself installation with help from an electrician friend of Scott’s, it was not that expensive. We were happy to get a 30% federal tax credit for installing this energy efficient unit!