Air Con Install

[alexbartman]

I have bought a split unit air-con uinit for my bedroom - which i

undoubtably the very hottest room in the house.....

Thing is, the only sensible place to site the inddor unit is directl above the window. The instructions call for a 70mm hole for th connecting pipes to go througn to the outdoor unit. Thing is, it bein an outside wall, Im sure there's got to be some kind of lintel above th windows and i fear its going to be right in the way of the propose hole. Can I rpesume that trying to use a croe drill to go through a stee lintel is a) very difficult and more importantly b) going to weaken th structure of the house?!

Shame is that all the rest of the install is pretty strightforward, bu I just dont know where to begin with the most elementary issue...

Grateful for advice pls

thanks

Ale

-- alexbartman

[Andrew Gabriel]

Yes on both counts.

Can you bring the umbilical out the side of the unit and run it along the wall far enough to clear the end of the lintel? You'll need to make sure the condensate pipe slopes down slightly. You could use some large plastic electrical trunking to make the pipework look neater.

Outdoors, I have used square gutter downpipe for this purpose (matching the gutter downpipes). I cut a 2" slot in the back to allow it to be clipped over the umbilical, and then held in place with standard downpipe clips. Indoors, you could probably get away with something smaller.

[Mike Dodd]

Hey!, great minds, and all that.

Except I just ran the old circular saw near one corner of the square section downpipe - there was enough flex in the plastic of the downpipe (best not trying this on a freezing cold day?) to feed the umbilical through this with only the minimum blood-loss from myself.

[alexbartman]

Thanks - I thought that was the best solution but it means a 90deg ben to get the pipe to the outside wall -on these DIY fit machines is tha possible?? - as there would have to be another 90deg bend to go dow the wall to the outdoor unit...... the set up would be pipe coming out from side of indoor unit (not a problem as there ar blanks on the unit to allow left,right or rear pipework) bend to go t through wall to the side of the lintel, then bend to go down outside o wall....is that possible....

-- alexbartman

[Andrew Gabriel]

I put my hole through the wall at an angle of 45º. In your case, you want it 45º to both horizontal and vertical imagingary lines drawn on the wall.

[Nick]

Was this one of those ? Airforce? ones from B and Q ? Are they alright as I was thinking of getting one for us ? Thanks, Nick

[Andrew Gabriel]

I fitted one of the 12000 BTU split ones last year for my parents, and I was so impressed I fitted another one for myself. I have also decoded the IR remote control signal, so I control mine from my home automation computer.

I use it for heating too, useful if you only need that room heated. These units should only have 5% VAT, but B&Q were charging full 17.5%. Many other places do charge only 5% VAT for them, but they were still more expensive than B&Q last year when they had them £100 off.

Note that there are 2 ranges -- professional install which they do online, and DIY install which they do in-store. I saw some in Wickes too, but they were significantly lower efficiency than the B&Q ones.

Oh, and I like these pictures from

[Nick]

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for the reply - I will have a good look at them then - my wife suffers badly from the heat and it would be good to have a cooler room for her on the worst days - I didn't realise they could act as heaters as well... is this in heat pump form or does it just have a heater element in the inside unit ?

Thanks again,

Nick

[Andrew Gabriel]

It's in heat pump form. They don't work for heating when outside temperature gets lower than around 5C, as the outside unit will keep icing up and have to go through a defrost cycle.

[stevelup]

The 5% VAT rate is only supposed to apply if the units are professionally installed.

Have a look at

They are cheaper than B&Q and do proper inverter models which are A rated as well as dual units which run two indoor units of a single outdoor unit.

Regards,

Steve

[Andrew Gabriel]

5% VAT applies to heating appliances using heat pump technology in residential and some charity premises. There's no restriction on it requiring professional installation.

I did look at their products, which even at only 5% VAT were significantly more expensive than B&Q last year when B&Q had £100 off. That may not be true any more. The B&Q units I looked at were all A or B rated when I was looking, although I noticed the units in Wickes this year are significantly lower efficiency. For occational home use (e.g. 10-20 days/year), I personally wouldn't pay extra for inverter models. I was however impressed with Global Cooling's forum, and they looked like they would be nice people to do business with.