Unfortunately, customers understand price, but not value.
Uninformed ones don't understand value and the ones that ignore good information end up being bad ones anyway. It is too bad that most people bid in two lines of print with the usual boiler plate stuff at the bottom of the bid. An informed customer was always my best customer.
We are talking about a precharged, flare connected mini split here.
My personal experience installing the first of two I purchased.
Fri night stopped in at Home Depot and picked up electrical materials.
Sat a.m. Unpacked the inside unit, mounted the hanger plate, drilled and prepared the hole. Prepped the inside unit and mounted it on mounting plate after connecting the inside to outside 14/3 romex wire. Drilled hole in storage room floor and trim skirt outside for line set prepped and ran line set and inside to outside wire. Fished the 12/2 romex power wire from the panel up the wall across the attic down the wall and to the service disconnect. Snapped in dual pole 15 amp breaker, buttoned up the panel and tagged it with a lockout Cut and capped lines to length and called it a day. 6 hours.
Sunday, ate too much breakfast and slogged around the house until 11:00 a.m. playing with the kids and soaking up a pot of coffee. Unpacked outside unit, prepped the pad nice and level and set unit on pad. Very carefully made flare connections by the book. Set up gauge set and vacuum pump and connected to low side. Let it run for 3 hours while I did the electrical connections, ran the condensate line in PVC, mowed the lawn and ate lunch. Isolated and then shut off vac pump and let everything sit for 20 min while I cleaned up and put away the tools that were not going to be needed any more. No change in vacuum, released a small amount of charge out of the outside unit to pressurize the lines to 100 PSI. Did a leak test on all four flare connections and found none. Opened both service valves fully and did a second now full pressure leak test. Finished the insulation on the line set where the connections are and after looking everything over inside and out snapped the breaker and started the unit at 6:00 p.m. 7 hours, 0 issues.
It took me slightly less than 2 full 8 hour days to install and I was not hustling at all. My install would be a one man one day install if the service power were already there as in a replacement job and I hustled even a little. Add in an hour to and from H.D. and an hour at the HVAC supply shop picking up the units and shooting the breeze with the counter guys and you are looking at a solid 13 to 15 man hours spent and carefully done to the letter of the detailed instructions and then some as well. Not a hack job by a HVAC co. that uses the F.N.G. to do the “easy” installs or a slam in by a low bidder.
15000 BTU name brand heat pump $1600. line set $90 (or less, I was lazy and got a made up set and only used 10 feet of a 25 foot set). Roll of good insulation tape for line set $7.00. Electrical needs, power, inside to outside wire and 15 amp two post breaker, service disconnect, pre made pigtail, some 2 hole clamps and some romex connectors around $50.00 Stick of PVC pipe for condensate line $2.00. Pad if you don’t feel like making one $30. Lets call it $1800.00 and a handy man’s weekend days spent. I can replace the $700.00 condensing unit, compressor and all twice and still not get my cost near the $6500.00 in the first post. Out of curiosity I also called some local residential HVAC service companies and asked if they would do an evacuation and leak check on a self install and was told by 2 of 3 called that they would but they would only cover the work done. With this in mind a handy man could, for a quarter to perhaps 1/2 of the bid price get a unit installed in his shop and have plenty of money to self warrant the system. The warranty is crappy at best anyway. Parts one year, compressor for 5 and no labor from day 1. A Regular Guy is going to get killed on labor replacing a covered compressor. As was said you normally have to do something wrong to kill a package unit.
Is this something that anyone can do? NO. He!! NO. I recommend that you download the instructions before even thinking about it. If you are not sure of your skills after reading the instructions don’t do it yourself or line up skilled and equipped help in advance. On the other hand this type of work is not rocket science that requires years of instruction and training. Some people are not too stupid to follow the included and very detailed instructions and some are.
