John, My experience too that most experts don't like small/repair jobs (unless it is on their own systems). Luckily I have a good friend who owns a small HVAC business, so we made the deal of me and my son doing all the grunt work, saving him a lot of time that he does not have as he is good and thus busy, so he came for the final installs and to repair a lineset that I damaged (like you), so he brazed on a small repair piece and everything was well again, instead of having to get a new indoor unit. And to couple two linesets and carefully add flanges to the linesets we cut, as they were all different lengths Cost of the complete 5-zone system with almost 300ft of linesets and installation material was just over 5k, so total about 6k, connected to the old airco 40 Amp circuit (even though it only required 30A as the inverter-driven motors are more efficient) and of course it was 2 nights and 1 full day of crawling under the house, pulling linesets through walls and into the garage. We ended up running all linesets in channels on outside walls except one which goes through the former furnace cabinet and laundry room, so we have no exposed lines on any of the interior walls. Just a few vertical strips on the exterior between the indoor unit and the crawlspace. Advantage of DIY is that you can spend more hours doing a nice job instead of a quick job with linesets all across the exterior of the home. I have been extremely happy with the comfort and the quality and efficiency of this system. As well as having only a single outdoor unit in place of the old airco compressor, so no questions about new permits, it is simply seen as a repair of the old (airco) system and nobody questions why it is running in winter as it is so silent. Nobody inspects it close enough to see 5 pairs of linesets connected to it. And the channels on the exterior are painted the same color as the home, so they simply look like decorative beams interrupting the siding. Cor.
On Fri, Dec 3, 2021 at 4:19 PM John Lussmyer via EV <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Fri Dec 03 16:09:16 PST 2021 [email protected] said: > >The new outdoor unit that I installed just required the unit to be > >pumped to vacuum and checked for maintaining vacuum, which tells you 2 > >things: no leaks and no foreign materials that are outgassing/boiling > >in the lines. Then it is just a matter of opening the built-in > >reservoir to release the coolant to fill the lines. But any HVAC > >maintenance person can do this for you. The big money and time layout > >is the installation of the indoor units throughout the homes, but this > >can easily be done DIY if you are careful with the lines, so then you > >only have a short visit from the HVAC person to connect the lines to > >the units, pump to vacuum, fill the refrigerant and bring the system > > It costs around $100 for the pump and gauge set to do it yourself. > > I've found that HVAC guys want to do the FULL install, otherwise they won't > even do simple service on it. > My experiences: > 1st system, 18Kbtu unit in the cabin - HVAC guy did it, really simple > install: $5000 > 2nd system, 9Kbtu unit in my shop office, did it myself. $600 for unit + > $100 for tools. Been working for 2 years. > 3rd system, 36Kbtu, 4 head unit in rental. ~$2000, did it myself, been > working fine for over a year. > 4th and 5th systems, 9K btu each in my house. Each cost about $700. I made > an error on one and screwed up a fitting and lineset. Called 5 local HVAC > guys. 4 refused to even look at it, the 5th wanted $600 for the initial > service call. > So I fiddled with it some more, did some damage, and decided to just replace > the whole unit. Another $700. > Still WAY WAY cheaper than having it installed by an HVAC guy. > > > > -- > > Bobcats and Cougars, oh my! http://john.casadelgato.com/Pets > _______________________________________________ > Address messages to [email protected] > No other addresses in TO and CC fields > UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub > ARCHIVE: http://www.evdl.org/archive/ > LIST INFO: http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org _______________________________________________ Address messages to [email protected] No other addresses in TO and CC fields UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub ARCHIVE: http://www.evdl.org/archive/ LIST INFO: http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org
