Mini-split location for efficiency

[914wilhelm]

I have basically two places to put my mini-split outdoor units for the shop/barn. I intend to wall mount the outdoors units up and out of the way to prevent wayward tractors/children/livestock from injuring them. My choices are north or south wall. South wall (back of building) gives best esthetics when viewed from house. North wall (shaded of course) has theoretical advantage of using cooler air on north of building to do the condensing in.

Questions:
1. Is it a theoretical or a real advantage for efficiency to use the north wall?
2. If a real advantage what is the efficiency improvement expected?

Location, northern Oregon.

 

[PoorOwner]

Depends if you wanted cooling or heating more effeciently

When heating it needs to extract heat from the outdoor location. Although at night this won't matter too much.

 

[914wilhelm]

More interested in the cooling aspect. Have in floor hot water and natural gas for the winter.

 

[PoorOwner]

To me asethetics is most important, it could be in my front porch and shaded all day but I rather it be out of sight getting a bit of sun. I have seen a shade built for it but mine is in part sun and rain

 

[sands35]

You could put a small fence around it - with space for airflow of course.

 

[theoldwizard1]

The more shade the better

You could put a small fence around it - with space for airflow of course.

By "small" I assume you mean a "screen" to hide it but high enough to block most of the mid-day sun.

 

[bonneyman]

I built this shade out of wooden louvers. Prevents direct sunlight form hitting the dark coil, but allows for the free movement of air. Something like this would be easy to construct for a mini-split condenser.
Put it up in summer for shade, remove it in winter so sunlight hits the coil and adds heat.

 

[justinjoyal]

Go for aesthetics. No noticeable difference.