We have been thinking about this for ages and due to the ever increasing unbearable summer temperatures, we decided to have air conditioning (A/C) installed in the Lounge, Main Bedroom and Home Office primarily for cooling although they are capable of producing room heating.

Installation has to be carried out by an F-Gas approved contractor and I have previously used a local company, AC Cambridge, for our garden cabin A/C and when contacted, Declan had availability to help and an appointment was made.

On the day of the survey, we walked through the proposed equipment locations and method of installation, aesthetics are really important to me, so the feasibility of not seeing any internal pipes, wires or containment was explored, I also said that I would make separate arrangements for the condensers electrical supplies so this could be removed from the scope of works.

One of the limiting factors for consideration was the removal of condensate generated when the internal units are in cooling mode, the surveyor was strongly against using a condensate pump, as they are noisy and prone to failure.

The Main Bedroom and Home Office walls were external and the surveyor determined that we had enough wall space and that, if the units were pushed up against the wall, no pipes would be visible internally and externally everything would be in white containment.

The Lounge was the only wall which was not external, but backed onto a garage, this meant the pipework would need to transit at high level through the garage to the outside and disposal of condensate would need thinking about.

The recommended kit was three Samsung 2.5kW split load heat pumps with the external compressors mounted 2.6m high on an outside wall as floor space around the property was limited, this turned out to be an excellent solution.

Installation

In advance of the install day everything was moved out of the way in the work areas and I put dust sheets down, I had no need as the installer brought his own protective mats.

Declan’s first job was to mount the internal units back plates to the wall and core drill 65mm holes to the outside for the pipes and cables, once drilled the copper pipework from the internal unit was extended by brazing so that no compression were in the buildings cavity, removing any problems in the future, with the insulated pipes and cables passed to the outside, the unit is hung on the wall and the area tidied up.

Main Bedroom Unit

Externally the three condensers were mounted, I did change my mind about the location of one of the units part way through, but Declan was very amenable and moved it to my preferred location away from being above the boiler flue ,as I was concerned that the central heating boilers condensate plume may have an adverse effect on the equipment as it is mildly acidic.

To be helpful, I installed the condensate runoff in the garage, now the position through the wall of the Lounge unit was known, this was connected into the Utility room sink waste pipe.

The pipes and cables were routed in containment to the condenser and it made for an exceptionally neat installation.

Heat pumps are incredibly efficient, for example for 624 watts of electrical energy in we get 2.6kW of cooling out, however, the unit is equally efficient in heating mode with 1392 watts of electricals energy in we get 2.9kW of heating out.

The above values are different than that on the condensers data plate, however the performance verses energy consumption is still superb.

The cost to keep each air conditioning unit on standby when not in use is less the £1.00 a month.

Data Plate with discrepancy on unit wattage

Each internal unit has an external condenser which requires power, these can be ran from a plug socket, but I installed individual radial circuits with local rotary isolation as discussed during the survey.

Internal and external units generate condensate which is taken to drain by 21.5mm plastic pipe.

Each unit comes with a remote control, but I used a Tado V3+ Smart Controller which uses an App to remotely operate all the functions of the air conditioning.

As stated earlier, each unit is fed from its own supply via Fusebox consumer unit, I also decided to incorporate a kWh meter to see how much these units consume overall each season.

Sum Up

I was very happy with the installation and quality of finish, although there were some supply issues due to demand which meant the installation took longer than the predicted two days, however, it was worth waiting for.

The internal units are very neat and have a number of functions, including a sleep setting which ramps the temperature up a few degrees when you are asleep so you don’t wake up cold.

Samsung’s warranty is 24 months with 60 months on the compressor parts for peace of mind.

I would definitely recommend considering air conditioning to improve your home comforts, be that heating or cooling for you or your animals.