Costco Members: MrCool E Star DIY 12K BTU Ductless Mini-Split Heat Pump System

Around here (Boston area) HVAC contractors will bill about $7K + equipement cost for an install. Absurd for a 1 day job for an experienced hvac person.

I bought the 24k a few years ago and I absolutely LOVE IT. It runs quiet and can chill things out in a hurry. I put mine in the living room as it's a centralized location and use my heat thermostat fan to circulate the cool air through the house (single story home).

The install for this can be very involved but it will really depend on your situation layout and skill level. If you get a 120v/15' hose unit that you can plug in to a standard recepticle, mount the head on the wall, drill a hole and shove the lines outside, then mount the unit on the siding or a concrete pad outside the wall, this install will likely be pretty easy.

It also be a pain as well though once you get into the 240v units if you aren't set up for it. I'm an electrician by trade and it took me 50 hours to install mine. That involved quite a few steps:

-Coring a 3" hole through brick, running lines up and through my garage and out the side wall.

-Setting up a chain-fall to hoist the condenser into the air, plus buying wall brackets and placing backing board in the walls with lag bolts to make damn sure it was solid.

-I bought the line gutter kit to give it a really clean install, highly recommend it.

-Run 1/2" conduit from my panel to a junction box outside the house, through the garage, to a disconnect under the unit.

-Installed 30 amp breaker and pulled 2 circuits a neutral and a ground, 10awg. The condenser doesn't need the neutral but you need a service gfci recepticle within a reasonable distance of the condenser unit. Plus it's been great having a plug out there now.

Sorry for the long ass post but take a few minutes with a pen and paper and a measuring tape before starting a project like this. What length of lines are you getting, how are you going to hide them? (coiling them up neatly behind the condenser is fine) What kind of walls are you drilling through, where is the condenser mounting, what voltage system will you need?

A 3" masonry core bit, wall brackets, gutters, EMT conduit, disconnect, hose and conduit supports, wire, chainfall; that's all things I hadn't anticipated but were made possible by my sponsors Amazon next day shipping and repeated trips to Home Depot heh.

Wish I knew how to host pics because it turned out great though. Good luck and safe installs everyone 👍

What is this "heat thermostat fan" you speak of?

I have the 24k unit cooling my lower floor and my only regret was not having done it before.

I had an undersized mini split installed in my home a few years ago (Mitsubishi unit). There's no chance I can reuse the same hose set I currently have and install new MRCOOL stuff on both ends, right?

It s really hard to compare heat pump vs gas. Heat pump efficiency changes with along with tempatures, the colder, the lower efficiency. Gas price also is different from places to places.
In my case, I live in North Texas, which only have minimal winter, but very low gas price. Gas is still considered to be a bit more cost effective here.

That can't be true. Even if it were, you could easily cut the connections and replace end points--it's copper, after all.

Anyway, the mrcool stuff is basically the opposite of "pro" installs because the charge is stored in the line sets. To use only mrcool condenser and air handlers, you'd need to evacuate the charge from your mitsubishi, then replace all the mitsubishi eqpt with mrcool, then recharge the system. Kind of a major job for diy.

Last, if you have mitsubishi it was almost certainly installed by a licensed pro and has a ton of warranty service left on it, since you get no warranty from mitsubishi unless you're one of their certified installers, so nobody in their right mind would self-install their equipment. It's a big step to dump their equipment after you've paid for their warranty. Maybe there's something else about your setup that could be improved rather than junking the whole system?

I bought the 24k a few years ago and I absolutely LOVE IT. It runs quiet and can chill things out in a hurry. I put mine in the living room as it's a centralized location and use my heat thermostat fan to circulate the cool air through the house (single story home).

The install for this can be very involved but it will really depend on your situation layout and skill level. If you get a 120v/15' hose unit that you can plug in to a standard recepticle, mount the head on the wall, drill a hole and shove the lines outside, then mount the unit on the siding or a concrete pad outside the wall, this install will likely be pretty easy.

It also be a pain as well though once you get into the 240v units if you aren't set up for it. I'm an electrician by trade and it took me 50 hours to install mine. That involved quite a few steps:

-Coring a 3" hole through brick, running lines up and through my garage and out the side wall.

-Setting up a chain-fall to hoist the condenser into the air, plus buying wall brackets and placing backing board in the walls with lag bolts to make damn sure it was solid.

-I bought the line gutter kit to give it a really clean install, highly recommend it.

-Run 1/2" conduit from my panel to a junction box outside the house, through the garage, to a disconnect under the unit.

-Installed 30 amp breaker and pulled 2 circuits a neutral and a ground, 10awg. The condenser doesn't need the neutral but you need a service gfci recepticle within a reasonable distance of the condenser unit. Plus it's been great having a plug out there now.

Sorry for the long ass post but take a few minutes with a pen and paper and a measuring tape before starting a project like this. What length of lines are you getting, how are you going to hide them? (coiling them up neatly behind the condenser is fine) What kind of walls are you drilling through, where is the condenser mounting, what voltage system will you need?

A 3" masonry core bit, wall brackets, gutters, EMT conduit, disconnect, hose and conduit supports, wire, chainfall; that's all things I hadn't anticipated but were made possible by my sponsors Amazon next day shipping and repeated trips to Home Depot heh.

Wish I knew how to host pics because it turned out great though. Good luck and safe installs everyone 👍

pics would be awesome, and thanks!