Installing Air Conditioning unit

[Marronnier]

Does anyone have experience of installing a 'two part' (internal and external parts) air con system. Is this a job for a competent (?!) DIYer using the available prefilled connection tubes, or is it best left to the pros?

[Gluestick]

You may well find the usual split units purport to have sealed snap connectors and are pre-filled with refrigerant.

Unfortunately, it usually proves impossible to create a viable connection without suffering an escape of refrigerant: and the ingress of air.

And the cost of an evacuation and re-charge is rather steep.

Now the reason is I found on checking, that any servicing or repairs of refrigerators and AC are now covered by stringent Euro-regulation: part of which is the capture and recycling or environmental disposal of refrigerant gas: plus the operator must be approved and certified (As with so much).

The system must be drained of gas: checked and tested: a solid vacuum established: and thereafter once all checks are ticked as passing, the new gas led in.

The equipment for all this is not cheap either!

Hence the apparently high cost.

Might pay to obtain a Devis or two from local AC engineers for the whole job: and balance this cost against a self-fit + the service visit.

 

[Marronnier]

Thank you very much for your swift and useful reply; it seems like very sound advice. I thought it all sounded a bit too easy! Thanks again

[Frank]

Hi, I have had 5 units, one of which is a bi-split unit installed and charged etc by a company in Saintes who, after having a lot of devis, offered the best quote ( for me!) and can highly recommend them. PM me if you want their details,

Regards

Jetlag

[Frank]

Hi, have sent PM!

[krusty]

I fitted two units last year , an easy job . I did not have them vacuumed down and they have worked ok for heating through the winter , and cooling these past few days.

I did not pay the above prices , I got mine on French ebay.

[Gluestick]

[quote user="krusty"]

I did not pay the above prices , I got mine on French ebay.

[/quote]

Above prices??

[8-)]

What above prices??

[8-)]

[krusty]

The price which appears when you click the blue text .

[Baz]

The pre gassed split units are easy to install, in fact the hole in the wall is possibly the difficult part. The one I installed a few years ago has worked without problems in the summer and heats very well in the winter if required. The units are available on Ebay for around £250 and I think at that price it is money well spent, do not consider the portable air-conditioners which are pretty hopeless.

Baz

[PaulT]

At the end of last summer B&Q were having their normal clearout and we bought two split units and 2 self-contained floor units for £550 which I thought excellent value for money - just need to fit them now.

Paul

[gyn_paul]

I bought 3 of the split packs from Brico Depot 3 years ago. I installed 2 of them in bedrooms and the 3rd is still sitting in the barn awaiting the completion of another room.#

Being mirror images of each other, the o/s stone walls of the bedrooms are where the blower units are mounted. So one was dead easy, while the other required the piping to be 'persuaded' through 180 degrees and then offered through the hole in the wall. I was convinced I had creased one of the pipes during its torture, but, no, it has worked faultlessly ever since. The plain-sailing installation next door, however, has developed a leak and over the course of the last summer became less and less efficient. Odd that, eh?  So that one awaits the arrival of an engineer.

These were the type with the over-gassed compressor. The excess being used to flush the air out of the pipes once connected. The hardest part of the installation, to my mind, was carrying the compressor unit up a ladder to mount it on the wall bracket!

If the units you bought were designed to be installed DIY, then go for it. If, however, the kit/box/instructions are festooned with dire warnings about the installation and commissioning being undertaken only by a refrigorationiste, then obviously you need to get a man in! 

I've never used the pre-filled pipes with the snap coupling, but I can't imagine they are much different to air-lines, lorry brake pipes, or hydraulic lines. All of those just need a firm hand.

p 

p

[gyn_paul]

Further to the last post....

 

What sort of cost are we actually talking about for an engineer site visit to re-gas an aircon? Does it quickly reach the point (rather like ink carts for cheap printers) where it gets dangerously close to the cost of a whole new unit.

Anyone been down this road yet?

I've also got a very hot car because I can't bring myself to spend E2000 for Renault to replace the a/c compressor, so I'm steeled to expect a big number!

p

[Chancer]

Anecdotally I have been told €350 + but I couldnt actually get a frigorist to even give me an idea of the price, they just didnt seem interested, yet another example of where an enterprising, and I hate to say this but UK person would clean up. I have a pal that does this as a secondary business in the UK and he charges around £50 IIRC.

My Airton unit (one that was overcharged for the user to bleed through the connecting pipes) doesnt carry a guarantee unless I paid for one of their technicians to do a mise en service visit, this cost €287 plus €70 for the deplacement plus €60 for the refrigerant several years ago.

A bit of a no brainer really on a unit that cost me €129, 3 years on and it still has charge although every year when I switch from heating to inuse for a couple of months and then to climatisation it seems to dissapear up its own backside and will only start cooling if I reboot the thing using the commutateur de secours, I think that the unit can fall out of sync with what is displayed on the telecommand.

[AnOther]

[quote user="gyn_paul"]I've also got a very hot car because I can't bring myself to spend E2000 for Renault to replace the a/c compressor, so I'm steeled to expect a big number![/quote]Off topic but are you sure exactly what the problem is, everybody seems to automatically assume they need either a regas or a new compressor with their being nothing inbetween, when there are any number of other things which can go wrong, hub's coming off clutches for instance - repair cost 1x 8mm nut and an hour of my time !

Replacement compressors, new or recon, can be got for anything from £200 - £350 and fitting is not such a big or long job. Also it will almost certainly be a Sandon7V16 of one type or another as this seems to be the standard for the vast majority of European cars so a good chance of finding one in a breakers.

If however the compressor has gone big style and pumped debris around the system then you could indeed be looking at that sort of money for a proper repair [:(]

[PaulT]

[quote user="gyn_paul"]

I've also got a very hot car because I can't bring myself to spend E2000 for Renault to replace the a/c compressor, so I'm steeled to expect a big number!

p

[/quote]

You must have one of the very rare models with a solid gold compressor - have you tried eBay etc?

[gyn_paul]

[quote user="P2"][quote user="gyn_paul"]

I've also got a very hot car because I can't bring myself to spend E2000 for Renault to replace the a/c compressor, so I'm steeled to expect a big number!

p

[/quote]

You must have one of the very rare models with a solid gold compressor - have you tried eBay etc?

[/quote]

It's a pretty long shot, but you don't think my having the word "sucker" tatooed on my forehead might have had something to do with it?

[gyn_paul]

Chancer - have emailed you..

p

[Chancer]

[quote user="gyn_paul"]

Chancer - have emailed you..

p

[/quote]

Not recieved!

[gyn_paul]

[quote user="Chancer"][quote user="gyn_paul"]

Chancer - have emailed you..

p

[/quote]

Not recieved!

[/quote]

Bummer... now I've got to try to remember what I wrote! Hopeless system. Let me try a PM....

[Swissie]

Do you have any neighbours anywhere near where you want to install them?

[krusty]

[quote user="Swissie"]Do you have any neighbours anywhere near where you want to install them?
[/quote]

Why ? do you think they might want some as well and he could do a roaring trade installing them .[;-)]

[Chancer]

My outside unit makes less noise than my kitchen fridge, luckily there are no immediate neighbours because any noise can be too much for some people.

I had a complaint about my VMC in the UK from a neighbour that lives 100m away, even if he were to sit at the extreme of his garden he would be seperated by two massive overgrown 4m high dense hedges and a car width footpath. I however sleep quite peacefully with the unit a few feet above my head.

It turned out that he had heard it whilst up a stepladder trimming back my hedge to allow access for his car [:-))]

[Chancer]

I have replied to your PM Gyn Paul, still no e-mail.

[gyn_paul]

Chancer,

thanks for taking the time and trouble to reply.  My model (which I can't see unless I go hunt for some reading glasses) differs from yours in that having opened it up, there is only a single switch on the rh side labelled 'auto'. Nothing by the LEDs as far as I can see other than a small flat cable connector.

Firing it up with the auto switch and then reverting to your instructions didn't do the trick, I'm afraid.

Brico Depot here I come.

Also can anyone explain why a DC Inverter aircon is more efficient/more expensive. Is it worth the extra?

 

p

[gyn_paul]

The gentle thrum of my neighbour's two heating (and presumably cooling) condenser units is (subjectively, walking by with the dog) about half as noisy as the next neighbour's oil boiler firing up to heat his DHW ballon. If I were bothered by either - which I'm not - it would be the latter as it starts and stops.

Both these sources of noise are, however, as nought compared to the bloody racket from the pack of hunting dogs being bred in cages at the far end of one of their fields (best part of 200yds away). One dog mindlessly barking ALL NIGHT is far harder to tune out frankly.

 

p