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hey everybody welcome back to trial and
error in this video I'm gonna show you
how to install a mini split air
conditioner or heat pump a / air
conditioner the particular unit I ended
up going with is from mr. cool and
that's because I'm mr. cheap they had
the best pricing and as it turns out now
that I have it installed I actually like
it better than the Mitsubishi one that I
have installed in the house and actually
we have three different Mitsubishi units
in in house but this one as you can see
is gonna be going into the garage and
will work for heating and cooling and I
didn't know much about HVAC before I
endeavored on this process so that's why
I'm calling this video for dummies you
don't take it personally I'm a dummy
myself but as you will see this though
it can be or feel intimidating it really
shouldn't be this is actually a very
straightforward process and I think
anybody that can turn a screwdriver
could absolutely install one of these
systems themselves and save a small
fortune so here we go okay so as far as
the mounting location goes get a unique
situation right now because I'm about
partway through sheathing the inside of
the shop so what I've done is I left one
babe open with no insulation right now
because this is the one we're gonna run
our refrigerant lines and the electrical
down through I have one piece of four by
a cheating here which is actually where
we're gonna mount the indoor unit so I
wanted this piece up so that had
something to mount it to but I wanted
access above and below it
just in case we've got to do something
funky with the refrigeration lines I
want to make it nice and easy to run
through so I thought that was a good way
of doing it
staggering them like you normally would
but I get access above and below and I
have a solid place to mount it because
this is being used for heat and air
conditioning recommended height on this
is about eight feet I'm gonna be
mounting mine right at the very top of
this top piece here which is about eight
feet and six inches or so so you
about perfect to where it is now I've
got 12 12 and a half foot ceilings in
here and there is no sense in mounting
it all the way up there it's just gonna
work twice as hard to cool that air in
the summer and it'll help just make it
tougher to force the heat down in the
winter so that's where we're going to go
for the mounting location and we're
going to start by drilling a pilot hole
through somewhere where's my finger here
we go that's what she said
that's why does that even make sense now
so we're gonna drill a pilot hole down
here somewhere
and then I'll come through the hole saw
on the outside to make our first hold
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so because I didn't drill it straight
through and actually drilled it a well
at this sort of an angle so in the event
that we do get some rainwater anything
like that it's gonna have to travel
uphill to go anywhere so but that also
means my bits too shallow to to drill
through in one shot so we're just gonna
find it on this side which is right
about here and drill back down at that
angle and there we go alright so now I'm
gonna take a measurement basically from
this side of the hole to the first stud
is proud five-and-a-half google on the
other side now mark our studs 16 on
center so that we can put our bracket
three up on the outside
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[Applause]
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so when connecting the indoor unit to
the outdoor unit you will notice that
they have conveniently color-coded the
wires but numerically coded the
terminals so it doesn't even make any
sense but as long as you connect the
number one to the number one the number
two to the number two and the number
three to the number three and the ground
obviously to the ground it doesn't
matter what color you choose to be one
two three or even ground for that matter
but the terminal does matter on the
ground so that's an easy one but just
make sure you're consistent and that
those three numbers are connected to the
same conductors
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okay for this portion I'm gonna preface
it by saying you don't have to do this
part I'm choosing to do this because I
happen to have the flaring toolkit to do
it but I could very easily bury the
excess amount of this tubing in the wall
and the only cautionary tale I have for
you there is do not coil it I see it
done in videos all over the place where
people are coiling the tubes up usually
outside and there's two things wrong
with that one
you're coiling up your refrigerant lines
in an air conditioned space or in the
winter obviously you're putting them in
the cold area when you're trying to keep
these things warm and two when you coil
it in they stack it vertically you
create oil traps at the bottom which is
not a good thing so if you do have
excess pipe my recommendation is in a
wall like this would be to come out of
that unit run it up all the way and then
come down rather than to leave a coil so
that you don't end up with an oil trap
the other option is to kind of zigzag it
in the wall cavity to eat up that excess
pipe but as I said in my case I have the
flaring tool so I'm going to cut the
lines to length and put my own ends on
it when you're reusing the ends that
come with the kit here we're just gonna
slide those guys off and just reuse them
here but they actually supply you with a
couple of extra ends and I'm not sure
why but it's a nice thing to have I
guess in the package but we're just
gonna cut this to the exact length we
need and go from there
and there is a slight benefit to doing
this although it is extremely slight the
shorter your line set the more efficient
the system will run but it's really
negligible we're going to be chopping
off maybe seven or eight feet of pipe
here it the difference you would never
never even notice it but
certainly doesn't hurt to have a shorter
line set assuming you don't have more
freon or for 10a in the system based on
the length of pipe that it thought you
were going to have but we have a gauge
that we can measure that and adjust if
needed but cutting off a few feet isn't
going to hurt anything for sure
okay we'll get to cutting
all right so now back at the outdoor
unit we're ready to make the connections
here permanently so we're gonna need a
couple of things one of which is the
night log and what we're gonna do we're
gonna put a little bit on the back side
of the flare connection we're gonna put
some on the face being careful not to
get it actually in the pipe itself and
you don't need much just a little bit
and then we're also going to put it on
the flared fitting just the very flared
just the tip mind you just the tip of
this and we're also gonna get it in the
threads as well next thing we're gonna
do a set of vise grips on the valve body
itself is we want to take off any load
as we're tightening the line up to it
and I'm gonna come over on the other
side of the camera here because I want
to visually make sure that my line is
coming in at the proper angle you need
to go up a little bit
and you should be able to thread this on
by hand all the way if you can't that
probably means that your pipes come in
at the wrong angle and even if you did
get it on there it's not gonna make for
an ideal mating surface the manual
specifies a specific torque for these
I'm going to ignore that because I don't
have an open-ended torque wrench and
pulling from my wealth of experience
with copper pipe we're going to Snug it
up
we're then going to back it off a little
bit and then we're gonna Snug it again
down here get a better feel for it yeah
good I'll repeat the same process on the
low pressure wine
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all right back at the indoor unit we're
ready to make that connection and on the
indoor unit don't be surprised when you
remove those caps either remove them
slowly or push the little button on the
end of it that'll allow you to release
the nitrogen which is loaded into that
coil before it's shipped so not a
dangerous amount of pressure but you do
want to back them off slowly let that
pressure come back down and then remove
the the cap
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okay so we're ready to finish up the
wiring at the outdoor compressor the
whole switch here so I did run ten three
which is not needed but it's nice to
have I don't know what I'll be doing
down the road so we'll have an extra
conductor here with the neutral on it
but we do not need to connect that to
anything at the moment so all I'm gonna
do strip a little bit off of it I'm
gonna cap it off and we'll coil it up at
the bottom of the box yeah okay so the
grounds we're gonna pull together and
they're going to tie into the ground
block that's in the center take some
loose measurements
we're just going to install the trim
plate here
and we will install the pull switch now
there's an on side and an off side put
it into the on side nice and tight all
done okay so now we're just left to tie
this into the sub panel out here in the
garage I call this the OCD sub panel you
might be able to tell why so I put in a
pair of breakers right up there okay
separator we'll do the ground line first
you'll try to make it match everything
else going on in here
looks nice next we're going to grab the
neutral keep that out mover and there we
go
okay we'll start by removing the service
caps
you know these are these are technically
these are the valve caps
we'll pull those guys off and then this
is the surface port okay for the service
port you are going to need an adapter
this is a service port adapter for a
split and I believe this is a five five
sixteenths connection with the Schrader
valve purge piece in the center there to
connect to your low pressure hose
and I closed up the valves here I'm
gonna fire up the pump
so after letting the vacuum pump draw
the system down for 15 minutes I closed
the valve on the low side and shut off
the pump and then we waited and we
waited to see if it would hold that
vacuum for another 15 minutes
so I'm still getting the same reading on
the gauge so the next step is to open up
the high-pressure port and we're gonna
open it up just about a quarter of a
turn and only for about five seconds or
so just enough so that I get enough
refrigerant in the line to go from a
negative and slightly pressurize the
system
I'm starting to move up
enough
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past zero now and we'll put stop it at
about two pounds at about sorry not two
pounds that's it yeah we good yeah where
am I
so that's one two three four so let's go
up to go up to one pound and we'll stop
it there so here again we're gonna stop
and I'm gonna let it sit for another
five ten minutes or so and we'll come
back and check and make sure that that
one pound that is now in the system
hasn't gone anywhere there's the second
reason we want to do it this way one is
to double check that obviously our
system isn't leaking under small amount
of pressure but the other reason is
we're going to release our service port
here before we completely release all of
the refrigerant in the system because
this Schrader valve does cause you to
lose a little bit in the process of
unscrewing this so if you do it when
there's only one pound in the system
you're losing a minuscule amount if you
do it when the system is fully
pressurized losing considerably more
okay another five minutes later and we
are holding strong so going to go ahead
and disconnect our service port
connection
and you hear that air coming out you can
imagine what that would have been like
if we had fully release a system now
we're going to find the right sized cap
which I think I left in the other room
once again I throw a little nylon on
these and we are ready to fully open the
valve so going back to the high pressure
valve first here and we'll open this guy
up
and here the refrigerant rushing in
and you're gonna spin it until it is
open fully but don't push hard these are
all brass connections so you do have to
be kind of delicate with it and on the
low-pressure side we will open this
valve
nice and clean Oh
once again happier than a and a
miniskirt convention thing is a rip fire
he's blasting out some heat
nice and quiet too and this is running
full bore right now spitting pieces of
pine needles at me oh yeah look at that
go so with that I tightened up some of
the wiring and bundled the refrigerant
lines together and got everything ready
to drop insulation into that final Bay
but it's uh it's working it purrs like a
walrus it kept my shop at 56 degrees on
Saturday when I was doing some work in
there and it was 80 plus outside so what
a difference that can make just so you
all know again not cool enough to have
mr. cool buying you this product
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