Mr. Cool Advantage Mini Split Heat pump/AC

[monster318]

Hello,
My wife is a Pastor at our local church, the church council is throwing around the idea of installing a mini split AC unit with heat pump for this upcoming season. They are looking at putting in The Mr. Cool Advantage system (not the DIY system), which is sold by home depot and lowes, because it is considerably cheaper than a Mitsubishi unit. The church council asked my opinion on it and I recommended going with a Mitsubishi or Fujitsu since Fujitsu is like Mitsubishi's generic line. They got some prices and were unhappy with both of those options. They continue to insist on Mr. Cool unit and are getting ready to put in for a vote on it this upcoming week.

Home depot and Lowes websites have very good reviews on these units but I believe in the long run they would be better off with a name brand unit for service or parts but other than that I dont really have a considerable argument for them to choose one over the other.

Does anyone have one of these Mr. Cool units installed and have any feedback about it?

 

[Lineman North Florida]

I installed a DIY 18k about a year ago at my hunting/fishing camp and I love it so far , it heats and cools the 800 square foot area easily and you barely notice it on the light bill , probably the most impressive thing is how quiet it is, even in the turbo mode with the fan wide open for quick cool down. At this point I wouldn't hesitate to buy another one , mine came from Costco as they had the best price and it really was easy to install on my own because nobody really wanted to do the job of installing an A/C unit on my camp for less than $4000.00 , I did it and only had about $1400.00 in the whole deal, I know this isn't the model you were asking about but I can attest for the quality of Mr Cool units as a whole, they aren't junk. Good luck to you guys whatever you decide on.

 

[monster318]

Thank you for your input. As long as these will be a solid unit for at least a few years I have no problem with the church going with Mr Cool. As the pastors husband though, I will be the one on the phone with tech support on the hottest Sunday of the year when/if something were to happen with it so I am trying to make sure that day hopefully would come later rather than sooner.

From what research I have done, the Advantage system vs the DIY system difference is the line set doesn’t come precharged. So I will need to vac the Lineset & evaporator down prior to releasing the refrigerant from the compressor to the lines & evaporator. Which I am capable of doing.

 

[GSVette]

I have the DIY 36k BTU unit in my 2400 SF shop building-it does a good job of heating (now that the insulation is finished). Did have an infant mortality issue with the outside unit ( at about 6 months)-unit was replaced under warranty with minimal fuss.

Overall I’m pretty happy with the Mr Cool- I have a Mitsubishi unit at my house-the Mr Cool is as quiet and cools/heats as well as the Mitsubishi unit-and has features that the Mitsubishi unit doesn’t (Freeze protection and Turbo to mention two I found important).

 

[BoylermanCT]

I helped my brother install a Mr. Cool 18K DIY unit two years ago. He's been very happy with it. He bought it for the AC, but has come to like it even more for the heat in winter. I'm looking at getting a couple for my house.

 

[Sigarms]

Hello,
My wife is a Pastor at our local church, the church council is throwing around the idea of installing a mini split AC unit with heat pump for this upcoming season. They are looking at putting in The Mr. Cool Advantage system (not the DIY system), which is sold by home depot and lowes, because it is considerably cheaper than a Mitsubishi unit. The church council asked my opinion on it and I recommended going with a Mitsubishi or Fujitsu since Fujitsu is like Mitsubishi's generic line. They got some prices and were unhappy with both of those options. They continue to insist on Mr. Cool unit and are getting ready to put in for a vote on it this upcoming week.

Home depot and Lowes websites have very good reviews on these units but I believe in the long run they would be better off with a name brand unit for service or parts but other than that I dont really have a considerable argument for them to choose one over the other.

Does anyone have one of these Mr. Cool units installed and have any feedback about it?

I consider myself pretty familiar with Mitsubishi, Fujitsu and Daikin. FYI, the Fujitsu line is more comparable to the high end Mitsubishi FH unit rather than Mitsubsihi's cheaper WR/HM line.

1 - Don't give your opinion to a church council looking at spending money, nothing good will come of it particularly if your wife is the pastor LOL

2 - Was a load calculation done for the area being serviced by the mini split or just guessing by square footage? (which leads to the question of how many people will be in the area serviced by the mini split?)

3 - Is there supplimental heating and cooling in the area that is going to be serviced by the mini split?

4 - If the asnwer is no to #3, exactly how many BTU's of heating will you require from the mini split at what outdoor temperature as well as how many BTU's of cooling will you need at what outdoor temperature?

You aren't paying for SEER rating when it comes to mini splits, but low ambient cooling and high capacity heating capabilities. A 24,000 BTU/h Mitsubishi WR series will only give you 15,462 BTU/h of heat at 23F outside air temp and only 12,903 BTU/h of heat at 14F degree outside air temp where as the Fujitsu 9RLSY 9,000 BTU/h unit will give you 15,400 BTU/h of heat at 5F outside air temp.

Generally, the nominal tonnage of the model number from the mini split manufacuturer only represents the rated cooling capacity at 95F outside air temperature at an 80F dry bulb indoor temperature.

I'd also check the warranty being it's being installed in a commercial application. It always amazes me how churches have no issue lying because then it becomes a "residential warranty" which is generally longer, at least with Mitsubishi and Fujitsu.

That said, it appears Mr. Cool has a 2 year parts warranty, 1 year compressor, so I'm guessing it doesn't matter where the unit is installed...

Advantage Limited Warranty – MRCOOL

My only concearn is if the unit is bought at Home Depot, where do you order the parts down the road if you need them? Direct from the manufacturer? I wouldn't want to think you'd want to go to home depot due to the potential aggravation.

 

[3Ts]

I did a DIY installation on an LG system because I couldn't see paying $2000 for the tech to come out and vacuum the lines and release the Freon. The installation process is not that hard. The hardest part for us was to get the 35# indoor unit's pigtail of 3 pipes thru the 3" hole in the wall. The critical factor seems to be to ensure the lines are vacuumed down to 300 um and to hold it for awhile. My system has been running several years now and has only needed to have the indoor fan replaced because the bearings went out and got to noisy for my wife. From what I've read, all the mini-splits are pretty much the same. In talking to the local HVAC contractors one will say my LG system is a good one, another will say it's crap. I selected the LG partly because the reviews seemed to be reasonably good and a local HVAC contractor carried the line and shortly after I bought it, he quit and went with another make.

I know this doesn't address your specific question about Mr. Cool, but maybe it'll help with an additional data point in the decision.

 

[Lineman North Florida]

Monster 318, If I remember correctly the warranty on the DIY series is 5 years on all parts and 7 on the compressor, but on the Advantage series it has to be installed by a licensed A/C contractor for the warranty to be honored, just happened to think about you wanting to install it yourself, double check me on that but I am pretty sure I remember it to be that way.

 

[Sigarms]

Monster 318, If I remember correctly the warranty on the DIY series is 5 years on all parts and 7 on the compressor, but on the Advantage series it has to be installed by a licensed A/C contractor for the warranty to be honored, just happened to think about you wanting to install it yourself, double check me on that but I am pretty sure I remember it to be that way.

It appears you're correct...



This however does confuse my simple mind per the DIY series warranty...



What's confusing is that it states that "State certified or licensed HVAC contractor not required for warranty on the DIY series unit". HOWEVER, it also states that the defective parts must be returned to the distributor through a registered servicing dealer for credit. The only way I can see a "registered servicing dealer" returning a part back for credit is if they are paid for their time somehow. But then who issues the credit on the part and to whom is the credit issued to? I don't know, do you have to buy the warranty part up front first?

 

[GSVette]

My experience with warranty coverage on the outside unit entailed me doing some tests with a VOM and submitting them to the technical support folks. After seeing those results ( which were normal and ruled out some possible causes), Technical support requested verification of refrigerant quantity and operating pressures-which I wasn’t able to do so I brought in a local HVAC tech to do the testing and document the results which I submitted to Technical support who then initiated a warranty replacement of the outside unit. I was not asked to return the defective outside unit-which I still haven’t decided what to do with

Additional note-I bought mine from an on line HVAC dealer.