Air conditioning supply and install

[asalcedo]

I have contacted Global Cooling Ltd. for a quotation for ai

conditioning in an office and a couple of bedrooms in my house.

Total cost of about £4500.

Just to check prices a little bit and for a "second opinion", ca someone please recommend another place I could contact.

Thanks,

Antoni

-- asalcedo

[Andrew Gabriel]

This is a DIY newsgroup. We've no idea what heat pump capacity you need, but you can buy 9000-12000 BTU (2.5kW-3.5kW) units for something like £350-£450 in the likes of B&Q (can't recall exact prices). It takes about half a day to fit a split unit, and less for a single unit.

A 9000 BTU would be fine for most bedrooms* and let's guess at a small home office for which 9000 BTU would also be fine, so we're talking about just over a grand for the units and 1 to 2 days to fit them, depending on type and complexity.

If you go somewhere more specialised, you will be able to obtain split units where a single outdoor condensor can handle all the indoor units, but that's probably not going to come in self-install format.

*Make sure you have a good layer of loft insulation first.

[meow2222]

how much insulation work does this include? Have you taken all no-running-cost measures to reduce heat load first?

NT

[asalcedo]

There is no insulation work to be done.

All rooms are very well insulated already with good secondary glazin and good loft insulation in the bedrooms

Is it fair to say that the B&Q self install solutions are of inferio quality and performance than the professionally installed Daikin units I am indeed planning in a single outdoors condensor with three indoo wall units (two 3.5kW plus one 2.5kW

-- asalcedo

[Tim..]

If you are comparing the B&Q units to Daikin's then yes- they both do what they say on the box, but Daikin is renown as being the best quality kit there is. They'll also invariably be heatpumps which the B&Q units are not.

5 yrs down the line the Daikin units will still be going strong.

You do get what you pay for, however 4.5k is still alittle on the steep side, unless the installation /routing of pipes is more involved due to your particular house layout / requirements.

Tim..

[John Rumm]

I looked into doing "whole house" aircon when I had the roof off the place during the loft conversion - since it would have made for very easy access etc. However I found the killer in terms of cost was the cost of installation. The moment you get away from the systems that are designed for self install, you can end up paying two to three times the price of the hardware on the installation. The industry also seems to operate as a closed shop making it as difficult as it can to source the supplies and equipment to DIY anything other than basic installs.

[Mike Harrison]

If you can find an amenable fridge engineer, you could do all the install, pipework etc. yourself & just get them to commission.

After going through the research process on this when I had to move my Mitsubishi outdoor unit & has stupid quotes to do it, I did find some info hard to come by, but found a couple of useful sources -

for online - good for browsing for prices of stuff etc. , and who have a few branches around the country and were cheaper ( and stocked shorter coils of pipe).

I already had a vacuum pump, which is the most expensive tool, and I cut & spliced the pipes so I didn't need a flaring tool. The only tools I bought were a MAPP torch (B&Q) and a cheap manifold gauge (SRW). Even if you had to buy a vac pump and flare tool, you could recoup most of the cost of these by reselling them on ebay - as they are perceived to be 'hard to get', they sell well - maybe even at a slight profit!. Most splits come precharged so you don't need gas/charging scale etc.

[Andrew Gabriel]

I don't know about all the B&Q ones, but certainly the split ones I've installed are.

[will]

If you live in the north west area

try

.

asalcedo wrote:

[asalcedo]

I live in central London

[e-mail] Wrote:

-- asalcedo