Anyone know what the deal is with online mini-split sales? I was going to go that route, until I read the fine print, especially that the equipment has to be installed by a licensed A/C contractor. So, I got a number of quotes from area dealers, only to find that they want double the price of buying the equipment online. The major manufacturers all point out that they don't condone online sale of their products. Where are the online retailers getting the equipment? Gray market? I would think that the manufacturers would make sure they couldn't get product to sell if they are really opposed to it.

Meanwhile, I can't find a licensed A/C guy who will touch equipment I order online. I even had one of the guys that quoted the whole system tell me that no licensed A/C guy would install it for me. I guess everyone who buys them online does their own installation, and takes their chances?

I've never chased the distribution chain that far, but fully installed by a pro it's is usually ~2x the internet price for the goods in my neighborhood too. If you have them do it it ties up 1-2 people for a day or more, and the truck, etc. time is money. If you're having them do 100% of the installation it doesn't take any less time for them, and probably takes more, since they don't necessarily use the same mounting systems than you bought online, etc.

If you are reasonably competent and do 95% of the installation yourself, there are usually licensed bonded contractors who are willing to come out to inspect, charge the system, and test it, and since it only ties one guy up for a couple hours the out of pocket is a few hundred, not a couple thousand.

But maybe it's different in your local market- the heat pump folks aren't hungry enough?

Posted By jdebree on 10 Mar 2014 06:08 PM
Anyone know what the deal is with online mini-split sales? I was going to go that route, until I read the fine print, especially that the equipment has to be installed by a licensed A/C contractor. So, I got a number of quotes from area dealers, only to find that they want double the price of buying the equipment online. The major manufacturers all point out that they don't condone online sale of their products. Where are the online retailers getting the equipment? Gray market? I would think that the manufacturers would make sure they couldn't get product to sell if they are really opposed to it.

Meanwhile, I can't find a licensed A/C guy who will touch equipment I order online. I even had one of the guys that quoted the whole system tell me that no licensed A/C guy would install it for me. I guess everyone who buys them online does their own installation, and takes their chances?

We install and service mini-splits and I couldn't have put it better myself. Doubling the "online" price makes them competitive. They may not be in business long, but they will get their "share" of the work. Generally speaking the higher the efficiency the higher the cost of maintenance. See "automobile" for a reference. Technicians, tools, regulations, etc. etc. If you buy the right product, sized and appropriate for the application AND it is installed according to the manufacturers' installation manual, performance and ROI may be within reach.

I'm very competent, and could probably do the installation myself, but I want some kind of warrantee. As it is, the install is very simple. The walls are still open, the holes have been drilled for the lines, electrical is in place, and there are (or will be) mounting pads for the compressors. It's a matter of placing the equipment, snaking the lines, and hooking it up. That's not much work for $3500.

Be that as it may, I'm not trying to begrudge an A/C dealer to make whatever the market will bear. It's a business decision for me, and I'll just hook up some electric baseboards to meet code for heating, and possibly forgo A/C altogether. I've lived without it here for the last 3 summers. My question really is- Where are the online dealers getting this equipment? Assuming I could find someone licensed to do the final hook-up, I'm concerned as to whether I'm actually getting the same equipment as the dealer installs. If the manufacturers are so adamant about 'no internet sales', why do they continue to sell product to online dealers?

I'm very competent, and could probably do the installation myself, but I want some kind of warrantee.

How can you expect a manufacturer to give you a warranty for work you do yourself? They don't know you. At least half the people out there are worse than average.

"why do they continue to sell product to the online dealers".

The dealers are asking the same question. Ultimately it is a business decision. If the online distributor can sell them and pay for them AND the manufacturer has written them off, i.e. no warranty, no technical support, no after-sale burden, then the only liability is the lack of enthusiasm for their product in regular lines of distribution (lower sales potential) and the "bad press" that inevitably results from DIY installation of HVAC products.

Obviously many consumers are buying many products that they are unqualified to install. let alone service, but the majority must think the risk is worth it. I suspect there are also many installed by " moonlighters" qualified to install but working against their employers interests.

Fierce self reliance; you gotta love it!

Posted By ICFHybrid on 11 Mar 2014 09:01 AM

I'm very competent, and could probably do the installation myself, but I want some kind of warrantee.

How can you expect a manufacturer to give you a warranty for work you do yourself? They don't know you. At least half the people out there are worse than average.

And some of those are refrigeration techs, count on it! :-)  There was a post here in the last year or so about a Panasonic multi-split installed by a "pro" with only one interior head, despite a clear indication in the manual spelled out using 'merican-English that the unit needed at least two heads hooked up for it to work at all.

Seriously, if you're competent to do your own carpentry and electrical work, the part you want the reefer-tech for is to charge and test the system, since it takes tools that you don't even want to own (and aren't generally rent-able) and experience that you probably don't have.  And if you happen to spill some R410 in the process it's not as if you're going to have a spare cannister of R410 in your truck, or the means of metering the correct charge.  Read up on it- ALL of it, including how to correctly charge & test it, then start pricing the tools- you'll probably find that a few hundred in tech time is worth it.

Reading the manual carefully multiple times will get you through most of it.  Some familiarity with the unit and/or it's series helps if it doesn't quite work first time.  There are dozens of interior heads & cassettes in the Mitsubishi catalog, but not all are compatible with every compressor unit, etc.  That part is hard to screw up if you're buying a single-head unit where both components are listed in a performance submittal sheet, but super-easy to screw up if you're trying to hook up a mini-duct cassette to some random compressor. It'll wire-up just fine, but the smarts on both end won't necessarily talk to each other. On most of the Fujitsu units (and probably many others) communication between the mini-split head and the base unit doesn't work if you screw up and swap the power wiring when you hook it up, something a regular Fujitsu installer only gets wrong once (or at least on successive screw-ups they remember, and fix it before calling Fujitsu tech-support.)

What's not always in the manual is where/how to mount it where it won't get buried in snow drift or clobbered by roof-avalanche or ice-dam falls, etc. (IIRC there is some small mention of those issues in some of the Daikin manuals, but not from other vendors.)   Hobbit got the dog-house part right, but wasn't paying close attention to the historical snowpack depth.  This was installed by a "pro", the open shed protecting it from eave-cornice-fall was Hobbit's:



With the shed roof it survives the storms, but he still has to dig it up now and again to keep it working.  Wall-mounting above the historical snow depth peaks and protected by roof overhangs (or it's own shed-roof/awning) is worth it.

That's what I'd like to do- 90% of the installation, then have a tech do the refrigeration lines. The systems I've decided on are designed as a matched set, so no worries there, unless the vendor screws up. Snow is almost never an issue here in SC; maybe once every 10 years there would be enough to interfere with a ground-mounted unit. I'll mount mine a little higher just to keep the splash-up off of it.

One of my concerns is finding a trustworthy installer. My observations of various subcontractors around here has not been good. I'm a toolmaker by trade, so I'm pretty fussy, and I see bad work all of the time. I have a friend with a 10 y/o house that is a poster child for 'What not to do', and it was all done by licensed professionals, and duly inspected by the county. You can see code violations without even getting out of your car! I really need to find someone willing to do the tech work before I decide where to get my equipment from. So far, no one I've talked to will touch it.

Wall-mounting above the historical snow depth peaks and protected by roof overhangs (or it's own shed-roof/awning) is worth it.

Faced with undergrounding the lines and mounting the outdoor units about 30 feet away from the house, I opted to use the Daikin brackets and mounted both my outdoor units on the wall. It's excellent. The outside wall is on a walk-in closet and you can hear the units hum when you are in the closet, but I like it because it lets me know they are operating early in the morning.

"That's what I'd like to do- 90% of the installation, then have a tech do the refrigeration lines."
What ever anyone does for a living, being the only pro with your name on the job while getting paid for 10 pct of the work is bad business. You might get a moonlighter to do that, but not likely a company.
A microcosmic example, after I finished a job, the homeowner asked me to install an orange store purchased thermostat. We had already cashed out and I agreed to do it as a courtesy. The wires were short and the change was a pain in the.......... once finished the thermostat was defective. I told the client that they could go get a replacement and simply attach it to the wall bracket we had already installed. She explained she wouldn't be comfortable with that an asked me to please reinstall the old one.
Yeah, I needed the practice.
My point JD, you are offering practice that includes risk and little reward.
T/M rates in my area would be about 80 for the installer and 40 for the helper plus incidentals.4 hour miinimum (no less than half a day consumed from other work with drive time et al). What you want is about $600.....If you don't want to pay that a pro doesn't need practice. No warranty.

What you are experiencing is supply and demand and a little bit of old boys networking. Mini splits are quite rare in N Calif, even though they are ideally suited. I speced 2 units for my house, a 2 head upstairs and a single head downstairs. new construction, easy access. I got bids running from $11,000 to $16000. Equipment cost off web was under $4,500. This from certified installers; at least 2 admitted that they had to learn how to install. I finally found someone who had done several. While he did not want to install 36,000 BTU, but tried to talk me into 48000, his price was $8500. A decent deal by New England standards, where installers do more minisplits. About the same price as 4 tons of gas FAU and separate AC in a ducted system, but no ducting and much easier to install. So maybe the answer is to keep trying, or install yourself and pay a pro to do the charging, final and make it worth his time.

PS; Hi Joe; county plan check finally admitted that if the air could move through a door 1 way, it could just as easily go through a door on the other side of the FR to a second bedroom. manual J for each room showed so little heat loss (we are a zone 3) that the oversized minsplit could handle all three rooms. By the way, my max heat load is 25000-28000 BTU; I bought 36000 system with 3 heads. The installer could not believe a 2700 sf house could not need at least 4 tons. Even with the Manual J calcs. Oh well, we just have to keep providing more data and insist on common sense.

Let's see- if the two guys are getting $120/hour, the $3500 mark-up works out to 29 hours of labor. If they spent an entire day on this job, they would be goofing off. Two heads, two compressors. Mounting pads- done. Electrical-done. Holes drilled through ICF- done. Manual J calcs- done. I have no problem with people making a good living, but object to them making a killing.

I have a hard time wrapping my head around some of these quotes. The insulation guys are cheaper than I can buy the materials for. meanwhile, the gutter guy is 400% of the material cost. From what he told me about how long it would take them to install the gutters, their rate is about $300/hour.

As a toolmaker, I obviously went into the wrong line of work. When I had my own shop, you could get $50-$60 an hour shop rate, tops. I had close to half a million in capital equipment. It takes 4 years of schooling and apprenticeship to START being a toolmaker; many more years to get good at it.

If I can find someone to do the hook-ups, I guess I'll buy the equipment online. Otherwise, I'll hang my own gutters to help offset the added cost of a turn-key installation.

meanwhile, the gutter guy is 400% of the material cost

That's interesting you came up with that. I recently discovered the pricing plan of a number of the less skilled subcontractors that have submitted bids to me. It's pretty simple. Double your cost for materials and then double that for the labor bid. Voila! 400% The gutter subs used it as did the railing installers. I also figured out what some of the fencing subs have been up to.

McFish, thanks for the follow up. I vaguely remember the conversation. One of my mantras as an inspector is "show me". Contrary to popular belief, I do not think I know everything so if an installer proposes something new, I simply ask him to demonstrate compliance. Then I must be able to wrap my head around it. Some of the language in the code suggests you must be able to provide (in certain zones) X degrees, X feet off the floor........but it speaks nothing to balance (meaning the adjacent room can be 10 degrees higher) in that instance even a skeptical inspector in your case can demonstrate due diligence in enforcement. I'm not suggesting you will not have balance from room to room, simply stating how the skeptic could still sign off on your project.
Inspectors are not very "green" educated in general, so innovators must assist in their progress.

There really is not a direct correlation between materials costs and cost of labor. I am not a HVAC guy, but I don’t think these guys are making a killing. A HVAC company guy I respect and who is mentoring me a bit in my own business told me his break even for service techs is ~115$ per hour onsite time. His average tech generates 29 billable hours per week without overtime. That company has installed minisplits for me twice in buildings I manage both- were single head units and were in the 5-6 K$ range. Someone has to come out and estimate the job and figure out what, where and how to do it, Someone had to pull the permit, which here is at least 1 ½ hours in this town. (This fact I know personally) Someone has to get the unit and all the stuff needed, 2 guys spent ~ 6 hours on the Initial installation + The electrician took about an hour to run conduit(commercial installation). Then they sent a separate guy to test and commission the system and make sure everyone knows how to use the thermostat. They are on the hook 24 hours per day for any problems with the unit for 18 months. On the other hand if you could find a company that specialized in minsplit installation and that was all they did, you could probably get installation on a lower cost basis. A typical HVAC company has to cover everything from Minisplits to heat pumps, boilers- furnaces, sheetmetal, gas, oil. That is a lot of parts to stock, tools, and knowledge.

That is a lot of parts to stock, tools, and knowledge.

They stock parts? Then why do I always get a 90 minute charge around noon for a "run to the parts store"?

Posted By jdebree on 13 Mar 2014 08:19 AM
Let's see- if the two guys are getting $120/hour, the $3500 mark-up works out to 29 hours of labor. If they spent an entire day on this job, they would be goofing off. Two heads, two compressors. Mounting pads- done. Electrical-done. Holes drilled through ICF- done. Manual J calcs- done. I have no problem with people making a good living, but object to them making a killing.

I have a hard time wrapping my head around some of these quotes. The insulation guys are cheaper than I can buy the materials for. meanwhile, the gutter guy is 400% of the material cost. From what he told me about how long it would take them to install the gutters, their rate is about $300/hour.

As a toolmaker, I obviously went into the wrong line of work. When I had my own shop, you could get $50-$60 an hour shop rate, tops. I had close to half a million in capital equipment. It takes 4 years of schooling and apprenticeship to START being a toolmaker; many more years to get good at it.

If I can find someone to do the hook-ups, I guess I'll buy the equipment online. Otherwise, I'll hang my own gutters to help offset the added cost of a turn-key installation.

To run an HVAC company there's more to it than just the raw labor costs- there is substantial overhead for the office & truck, there are financial risks in buying/stocking/returning the hardwarer etc. the company needs to stay in business.  They have to somehow cover the time and costs of selling- quoting multiple jobs where at best low double-digit percentages turn into contracts, and cover the down-side risk of being called back for warranty tweaking/repairs etc.  It's a business- expect to pay for more than just the tech's hours on-site- his employer also has to cover his travel time, and the cost of the equipment.  But if all they're doing is checking your work and charging/testing the system it shouldn't be more than a few hundred, similar in cost for a two hour service-call to diagnose & repair an air conditioning system or something.  And when they leave your driveway with the check in hand you're even- they don't owe you anything, unless it turns out they actively damaged something, then it's time to negotiate.  (Those kinds of costs are also overhead that has to be covered by their hourly rate.)

If you're having them do anything more than check your installation then charge/test the system you're asking them to assume more of the risk. There will a burdened labor cost to cover overhead for simple tech-visits, but when they leave the risk should then be yours.  Installing the refrigration lines is something that YOU should be doing. Unless you have to cut and re-flare the lines there is no particularly technical skills or tools involved (and even if you do need to cut & flare, the tools for that aren't expensive, but take the time to use the right tools, not some re-adapted copper plumbing flare tool driven by your trusty ball-peen.) Measuring the lengths carefully you can usually avoid having to cut them when buying the typical internet-store line sets.

"But if all they're doing is checking your work and charging/testing the system it shouldn't be more than a few hundred......"

The trouble with this is- a client who has already identified himself as a DIY and an on-line shopper is of very little interest to an HVAC pro. First you are suggesting you share skills with them (but yet need their help). Second you minimize the value of their contribution to the job (taking away opportunity to mark up and provide value added services i.e. warranty). Third DIY's have a habit of "picking our brains" which is not only distracting to the job at hand, but suggests our knowledge (and time to convey it) is something that should be shared freely (suggesting what we sell for a living should be free).

I say this as someone who owns a DIY company, so I am not a stranger to assissting a do-it-yourselfer. I also share my knowledge freely (more than 3500 posts on this site alone). However these things are done on my terms. Someone emailed me recently to commission a system and I explained that to me that would be a "from the ground up" excercise. That means we are going to start with the heat loss/gain calc and system sizing and go from there. If I'm putting my name and professional stamp of approval on a system, I will have intimate knowledge of that system.

So a DIY calls and asks me to run the line set for his mini split. What size is it? What is the load for the area it covers? Have we complied with all the other installation requirements (i.e. adequate electrical infrastructure, line set length within spec etc.). I want to know that the project will be successful. It is of no use to anyone to spend time on something that won't work.
Permits? In my state as the only licensed guy on the job, I should pull a permit (or permits, mechanical/electrical). There is such a thing as a homeowner permit but that means the homeowner does the work. You don't want a permit? Well now I could be a risk for violating code.
Why should I simply trust the design of someone who "knows everything about the job".... except what they want me to do?

You want a trained monkey to charge it for you, someone might do it. Unfortunately it is likely that it will be one of the bottom feeders of the business.

so when the installer screws up, who do you call? Or who do you call later for warranty work or service? Most "companies" won't touch it with a ten foot pole.