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Old 01-28-14, 09:12 AM   #11
nokiasixteth
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O i thought you were talking about opening a door to the outside . It may now that i insulated the top of the house now be able to keep it warm in the room. I usually dont heat the house usually its below 40 degrees in winter in the rest of the house . The bedroom i keep at 68/

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Old 01-28-14, 09:14 AM   #12
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I did do the check on how much kw hrs i used


2.55kwhr 5.37 hours temp was kinda chilly. Tonight supposed to be colder Think the low for last night was 27. Started the heat it was 47 i believe
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Old 01-28-14, 06:54 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nokiasixteth View Post
http://www.kozykool.com/wp-content/u...er-12-36-2.pdf

12HRDN1 Has anyone had any dealings with kozykool ?
Never heard of Kozy Kool. It looks like the company is only 2 years old. Their units look amazingly similar to the usual suspects on amazon and ebay (klimaire, soleus, air-con, haier, midea, etc.). Other than ebay and amazon, they seem to be sold through hydroponic grow room supply houses. Nobody else really sells them, as far as I can tell.

They have a tech bit on their "solar evacuated tube assisted" outdoor unit and its supposed superiority. In my experience, ALL of these prepackaged "hybrid" systems cost A LOT MORE and are unproven, to say the least. Read through the bit, click and view the provided diagram, and tell me if you understand anything they are trying to explain? The only thing you might be able to harvest from the solar collector addition is hot water in the summer. Other than that, unless the designers have uncovered a new, mysterious thermodynamic mechanism, the collector is just a gimmick.

Here's another site pitching the same basic thing, with an even longer useless description page:

Solar and Wind Energy

The "Tech specs" page has the same Rube Goldberg diagram as the kozykool tech bit. Go figure.

I'm not saying the units are no good, in fact they may work well their whole lives. But in the HVAC industry in general, unless you have a super-common unit, if something goes wrong in a year or three, noone will want to work on it. Even the major name brands have sketchy service, especially with mini-split units. Just make sure you get some sort of exchange warranty with the purchase. And some kind of human to exchange with.

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Old 01-28-14, 10:12 PM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jeff5may View Post
Never heard of Kozy Kool...
Maybe it should be Voodoo Kool rather than Cozy Kool...



I'm sticking pins in my Cozy Kool doll right now...



Grrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!,

-AC
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I'm not an HVAC technician. In fact, I'm barely even a hacker...
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Old 01-29-14, 10:19 PM   #15
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I had thought that was 13/3 maybe .
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Old 01-30-14, 05:58 AM   #16
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It was just to cold of a night my radiator heater couldnt keep it warm in the room. Temp was set to 68 woke up it was only 63 this mornin. Was 14 degrees last night. Had to turn on 2 electric heaters in one room to keep it warm. So ill have to do the test some other day when theres not snow on top of the roof and a wind chill really low
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Old 01-31-14, 10:41 AM   #17
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Don't feel like you're alone in the cold. It's been hovering around 0 to 20 degF here. I've shut off my dirt cheap heat pump. Below about 20 degF, it defrosts every cycle. Once every 1/2 hour or so. When the wind is blowing hard, it takes ~ 5 minutes to defrost, even when the outdoor coil isn't iced up at all. I'm now relying totally on the 80% natural gas furnace for heat. I'll probably have a $200 gas bill for January, up from $35 in December.

Even though the unit I hacked together was (only) a 10 SEER, 12000 btu window unit, it still whooped the pants off of 2 electric space heaters running on high. It supplied all the heat I needed down to around 40 degF outdoors for the house I lived in last year, a 2-story saltbox that wasn't insulated well at all, 900 sqft downstairs and 600 upstairs. Between 40 and 15, it shared the load with the central gas furnace.

I have since moved into a different (rental) house, a 750 sqft single story with full basement. The roof and walls are better in this house (they actually have insulation), but the poured basement has zero insulation, only concrete. Luckily, the ground floor is only a foot or so above grade, so I only have maybe 2 feet of basement wall that sucks heat out when it gets cold outside.

In this house, the unit has taken residence in the basement with my 2 sons. They have been keeping the thermostat set at 74 degF all winter, and it has kept up until the polar vortex hit us this month. Last winter, the unit saved me around $1000 in natural gas, so it's paid for itself many times over already. This year it's just putting more money in my pocket.

In my situation, I am not willing to invest in a portable split unit that will provide heat down to around 0 degF outdoors. I have no water source to tap, so that option is out also. I will, however, build another portable air source unit that performs better when it gets really cold outside. As it stands, I am extremely satisfied with the unit I threw together for under $100 plus maybe 20 hours of building and debugging.

Last edited by jeff5may; 01-31-14 at 12:55 PM.. Reason: rambling
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Old 02-23-14, 11:41 AM   #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nokiasixteth View Post
Well at the moment ive got decently efficient window unit that i use 8000 btu. It does good for where i stay. I dont heat and cool the whole house because of the money it cost. I am heating with just a space heater. Radiator heater. Ran a Kil o watt meter and divided the time it ran 650 watts a hour what its usin at 68 and 70. Figured if a heat pump is more efficient have the cop of 3 . Wouldnt that mean rough estimate 215 to heat the same ? There for i could heat 3 more rooms the same size for the price im heating only 1 3 more rooms would be almost the whole part we go through durin the day. .
Or am i just way off on the figures.
So now that you have chosen and DIY installed the mini-split unit, Could you humor us with some first-hand opinions?



How difficult would you say installing the unit was?

Who could accomplish this feat?

You were previously heating with one of these:



How would you say your mini-split of comparable wattage performs compared to the above heater?

Does it satisfy the heating and cooling needs you bought it for, or does it exceed or fall short of what you expected?

Last edited by jeff5may; 02-23-14 at 11:46 AM.. Reason: words
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Old 02-23-14, 12:27 PM   #19
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Default Few pics of inside unit

Few pics of inside .Outside looks different too . Just rainin outside
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Old 02-23-14, 12:37 PM   #20
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Yea. A few things about the mini i noticed real fast . Is it is extremely quite. Turned the breaker on. Heard nothin thought it wasnt workin. Felt the fan is only reason i knew it was on.

Id think pretty much any one who has basic knowledge of electrical work could hook it up. Worst part to me was shovelin the cement and holding the inside unit above my head trying to line up the lines through the hole.

Wattage wise i cant say. It stays around 2 on the leds. So id guess it to be around 408 watts average to heat the whole house compaired to 650 average. Prob a bit more . Thats just the guess. Waiting on the power meter to come in being my kw meter cant measure it.

Performance compaired to the old radiator. Blows it out the park. Thats kinda like compairing a bicycle to a motorcycle. It heats the room in a matter of minutes wen i turn it on. Cooling beats the old window unit with ease too . Was expecting the heat to be beat . Wasnt expecting the ac to beat the window unit but it did.

I had bought it to replace my old radiator heater. Wanted somethin that would keep the room warm. I had expected for it to be able to heat the side of the house . It did that without a problem . So i opened the door and let the heat go into the kitchen and eating place before we go in there. So it passed the expectations on heating and cooling. I do plan on later on getting the multizone though so i can have a unit in each room but for now this does just fine for the whole house.

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