Hi! We are Clark and Emily, living small and intentionally together (currently aboard our 50-year-old sailboat, S/V Temptress, which we fix and maintain ourselves). This is our adventure. Here we share monthly Aventure Logs, Intentional Life Philosophy, Capable Cruising Guides to help other boaters select equipment and supplies, and regular old moments in our life (including music, laundry, and the like).
It's good to see you tackling the AC install yourself. Viewers, you can feel free to ignore the comment about the 208-240 volt being more efficient. SEER2 is SEER2 regardless of voltage. BTU and SEER2 are relative to each other in that BTU/SEER2=watts used in real-world scenarios according to the newer standard of SEER2 vs SEER and its manufacturer-manipulable ratings.
@EmilyAndClark - I just checked and that 9K Mollie Mini-Split is $371 with free shipping and free return from a local US Warehouse when purchased through Temu. Its been on sale for a while and the sale ends in around 8 days. They have the 12,000 BTU Mollie on sale for $405 and again its free shipping and returns from a Local US Warehouse. The sale on the 12,000 ends in around 5 days. Best
You have a great video here. I like the way you explain things, clear and simple. This model does not come with a much of a warranty. So if something was wrong with it from the factory (china) you might be out of luck. But getting back these things are great. Even the 2 ton is really inexpesensive to a house AC. Our whole house AC is $14,000.00 to replace yes 14 K. I just installed a mini split and it cools everything down very very well and the install is easy. In fact the 110 models are really easy to install. Anybody who is a little handy can put these in. I highly recommend mini splits. Best item I have purchased for our home.
@@wanaraz If you bought it on Amazon or even Temu who often is shipping to you from a local Amazon warehouse you get a pretty easy exchange. With Temu they even pay all the exchange shipping on the first item so it only costs you time. On big heavy expensive items that qualify for free shipping by themselves your best off to put them on a separate order. If its broken out of the box then that is fairly painless if you do your research on the vendor. Best!
Yep. I do these videos for two audiences from my point of view First for the guys who will be taking on these projects Second, and likely more important, for the guys who just find this entertaining. These guys with this extra knowledge are going to be harder to cheat.
I like Clark but so much of the information in this video was wrong and teaching people about things like this when you clearly don't know enough about it yourself is irresponsible and potentially dangerous.
I love mini splits and I guess eventually we will have a design that works great on boats., My current gold standard is to run A/C either for the last 4 hours of your nightly sleep, or the full 8 hours if you can afford it. Alternatively you could run 4 hours at night and another 2 hours for a midday nap. And as we get older, we love napping. And with the sun high in the sky, that might just be perfect
The simple reason for the different fittings is 400A pressures often exceed the capacity of r22 and r34 gauge sets and equipment so to play it safe they use a larger fitting and the equipment can withstand around double the pressure. For evacuating the system it should be OK to use an adapter on an r34a gauge set however most older gauges and their hoses can burst at the operating pressures of an r400a system. The newer systems are Iso-Butane and Propane based and are the ones you may have heard about exploding in dorm rooms, etc over the past few years. There may even be a warning label on the service panel advising of the hazard. Best!
The 410A is going to be banned next year I understand. If the system is installed right there should be no leaks ever. They use these everywhere in the world except in America in very small amounts.
I noticed SEVERAL steps you skipped right passed without even a comment. 1) Did you install the inside unit on an outside wall? 2) You never installed the hoses to your inside unit. 3) You never installed the condensation drain hose to the inside unit. 4) Those don't look like the nice white rolls of hoses that came with your unit. 5) The electrical was even inside a conduit painted the same green. 6) What's the distance between the inside and outside units?
Of course he had to do these things. There was no hole in the wall for the lines and wire prior to hanging the unit. He just took it down, drilled the hole, ran the lines and wires, connected them, and rehung the indoor unit. These steps are so well covered in a hundred other videos. Maybe that's why he got us to the parts that involved simplifying what others tend to overcomplicate.
Appreciate that your including a ducted intake. Most older systems I've been looking at lately (helping maintain) have no intake plenum for the return so they put them under a dinette, berth or cabinet, cut a hole in the woodwork and stick some kind of filter over the hole. Of course most air bypasses the filter and the unit vacuums up dust from stateroom carpeting, etc loading up the unit and leaving a dust ring around the cabinet doors and drawer openings. On a 36 foot cruiser it takes about 28,000 BTU to cool the entire boat which can draw around 2,700 watts requiring a dedicated 30 amp panel on its own shore power connection to run them. It would be nice to change over the 6,000 BTU AC systems in the V-Berth and Master Cabin to these quieter DC systems. Looking forward to the final version and cost info. Best!
Doesn't seem too bad for a Pure Sign Wave 2kWh Power Station. Rated to carry a roughly 22 amp load though for just under an hour however it is advertised for Commercial Use. It should get you through a nuisance power failure that lasts a short while during the day or keep the refrigeration going overnight (roughly 10 hours for 1 refrigerator that draws 150 watts is what they claim) when being used as a UPS. Nice that this Power Station has the ability to become a Solar Generator with the addition of solar panels, has a 110 volt quick charge option plus the ability to charge using 12 volts from a running vehicle. Interesting that they support being able to use both 110 and solar simultaneously to charge it even faster. Good that the basic warranty of 2 years is extended an additional 5 years if you register it giving you a 7 year warranty. Also nice that they commit to lifetime support increasing the likelihood that parts and service will be available for quite some time. They've already been in business over 5 years so they aren't exactly a new and unproven company. You could pay $600 or more just for a 12 volt Pure Sign Wave Inverter without the batteries, UPS function, Extra outlets, USB, etc, etc so at the sale price even without the extra discount this unit is still a bargain for what your get. Best!
There are a number of name brand mini splits such as Daikin and their effective SEER ratings on their inverter tech units can hit into the 30's. The larger ones can support 8 individual air handlers/zones. They've made a lot of progress over the years with them. A number of manufacturers though only allow the full warranty if the unit is installed by a licensed contractor and will either reduce the 10 or 12 year warranties to 1 or 2 years or even void it altogether if you install it yourself. Best!
It's illegal for non licensed technicians to work on refrigerant circuits. There's a number of American channels who show how to install them but the quality of the equipment and the work looks piss poor and gives potentially dangerous information. Do yourself a favour and just pay a professional. A well installed split system can/should last 20+ years but a poorly installed unit could die in 6 months. It really is a false economy and again potentially dangerous.
Like an extra $150 I think. That's going harbor freight or Amazon/EBay I have some links in my Amazon store that I set up for my boat refrigeration videos. Clicking one of those would be nice for me
Demystified a mini, good. I'm looking at possible seer30 though doubles the price. Our power cost is expensive in most of California. 9k btu heat pumps have really come down in price. 12k are not much more though keeping a high seer is more $ Contractors are now advertising they install them, better than not working, the public knows what they want now. Many years ago out of country they were everywhere and shamed our lower standards. I have noticed the 208-240v tend to be more efficient than 110-120.
Just be mindful that the 30 SEER are usually inverter units and more prone to low voltage, surge and lightning damage so be sure to have a good active lightning clamp on the panel to protect that inverter AC unit. I'm considering also getting buck and boost transformer to correct low voltage from brownouts. Best!
@@wanaraz Yes, only a little bigger than what the formula dictates or you can end up with a damp house since when your AC unit is too big it short cycles and doesn't usually dehumidify very effectively. Then you have to get a separate dehumidifier wasting energy and loosing some if not all of the extra efficiency you paid for. 110 or 220 wiring is wiring so if you are qualified to do 110 then you should be able to do 220. The only difference is instead of L, C and G you have L1, L2, C and G. That said if you are uncomfortable with the thought of working with 220 have an electrician do the work for you and see for yourself what the differences are. I grew up when they taught shop and home repair in the public schools plus my Dad had his Masters in Electrical Engineering from MIT so we grew up working with electricity, building Heath Kits, making our own insect zappers, etc, etc, etc. We had well qualified mentors at School and Home to guide us. Dad would say "Electricity is your best friend however even your best friend will eventually turn on you, often with painful consequences, if you don't show him respect and take advantage of him too many times." Best!
Uhh....did you create more work for yourself? These split units usually come pre-charged. They are a little over charged to compensate for the line set. Thete will be a tiny bit of atmosphere air but you can easily purge that during hook-up. It's just- hook up the lines and open the valves.
No, Tavares (I believe) was named for explorers/traveller's that cam up after landing in modern day Brazil. My recent ancestors emigrated the US from San Miguel in the Azores. I am sure I share some distant ancestry though.
Ya know Clark, if you read the instructions you automatically lose your M.A.N. card.😂 (That Men Against Nowledge). But seriously you've got me thinking about one of these for some of my apartments. They don't have A/C right now and at $500 each I could pop for a couple for each apartment. Now the where to put the compressor units. Just a note on the Harbor Freight gauge sets. If you look on the Internet at the various gauge sets available they are almost all identical to the Harbor Freight sets except for the color of the plastic covers. No need to spend lots more money for some name so called name brand. Keep the good stuff coming.
You can stack 2 compressors on a strut frame, you can ground mount the frame or put it on the wall with the mfgr's recommended clear space offset from the wall. I've seen them mounted high on a wall for flood purposes but you'll need ladder(s) for install & maintenance
All these regulations and restrictions due to environmental fears and whatever is about to bite us in the butt. So we are getting rid of the cheaper refrigerant? How convenient. There was Exxon Valdese and now the US and the US alone has elected to import their oil in DOUBLE hull tankers. Which tankers are only going to the US? The double hulls. What will always be targeted? The double hulls. We are in Cold War 2.0 and on the cusps of WWIII. We have had decades of media terror of our own military industrial complex. I had a liberal friend in the industry that wanted to sabotage weapon production. But she knew whether that worked or not, people would still be getting killed, so she didn't. We barely build our own ships anymore. The only ones we really build are for the Navy. We barely know how to do it now and have very few facilities to do it. The US has been totally set up to fail. If we lose a war, it will require a treaty to cease the killing. The US military is SWORN to defend the constitution. In the constitution is the supremacy clause. It makes treaties the supreme law of the land. That end the war treaty could, would, destroy our constitution and establish a new form of government. And I think half our nation will be ecstatic. Get a boat and get off the coast now. The illegals need your house anyway.
A disconnect should be installed on the electric feed and a whip from the disconnect to the outside unit with THHN wire to the unit and from your breaker panel to the disconnect. It appears you ran romex in your pipe which would not conform to code where I am.
Non-electrical water pipe also 😅 I've spent time in other states, the things you see that won't fly even to a diy homeowner in your area. I saw non cemented water pipes running electrical on a bank in Kentucky exterior.
@@braithmiller yes I didn’t want to torch the entire electrical of the install, but it’s all wrong. As a power lineman for more than 4 decades, I’ve come across many installs that have had me scratching my head. The ones that really baffle me are the bad installs that pass inspection.
@@edge1289 Inspection doesn't mean much when the inspector doesn't know better. Even my no permit installs have to comply for liability and so they can just pay the fines when caught instead of starting over.
@@edge1289 You mean like the one I started to trouble shoot the other day where they had the main breaker tripping the common? Another tech was there telling me the site was cold because he killed the main which was in a separate panel however while line to common was cold, line to ground was hot. You had to shut down every breaker individually or pull the meter to shut down the entire building. How that passed inspection I'll never understand. Best!
Wow So a few of these scattered around your house not only saves a load of money and power but gives you redundancy. If one fails just open some doors until you get it fixed
In the Tampa area that would only be a smaller low SEER bargain system. I just went through this last year and $10,000 met the minimum SEER requirement and that was on an easy replacement with the air handler on the floor within 10 feet of the entry door and not up in an attic plus they did not have to run any new refrigerant, drain or electrical lines as everything was already up to current code. Best!
@@EmilyAndClark The greater benefit, if you're willing to upgrade some aspects of doors and their jambs is that you can cool or heat only the areas that you need conditioned, adding savings to the savings that you are already calculating. Additionally, you can add a room to your home and not struggle with re-ducting. I'm sure that I could come up with a dozen ways that these are a better option than central heat and air but the main one is that there is no real benefit to having central heating and air over having these.
Only call it sailing temptress if you actually plan on doing a lot of SAILING I have watched this channel for a few years now and your mostly LIVING on temptress on anchor or off temptress in a caravan. I actually like your technology reviews and how to videos. So the name of “Clark’s adventures” covers anything you feel like doing. Whereas sailing temptress I would expect videos of long passages new locations and lots of sailing footage. (Like sailing Zingaro before he decided to give it all up for the Family life and is now selling his oyster 485) I would go with a channel title that allow you to do what ever you feel like doing that isn’t just sailing specific.
The only thing I'm waiting on is the technician data pertaining to performance. I know that the AC powered mini split I want is overkill for my 100 ft. space and uses about 230 watts. I've been looking for something purpose-built for 100 sqft. or less and uses fewer watts while being DC-powered.
Stuart has published detailed performance data on his site. And I have a video where I give the details of my install. I think my setup uses 200w when running but once it cools the room I think it averages under 60w. But watch the video to be sure
@@EmilyAndClark I've seen your videos from 2 years ago. Since then I've deleted my channel. I've never seen your install of the air-cooled version and I can't find the video on your channel.... Found it!
The service manager at the marine mechanic facility I use just talked me out of using a lifepo4 battery for my starting motor. He was worried about how the charging system would be affected on my mercury pro xs. Told me to stick with agm and that’s exactly what I plan to do. Nice video. Very informative.
If you liked this you might like the others in the series(check the leaderboard in the description). Even if you aren't interested in buying the other offerings I hope that I added a bit of general battery knowledge to each.
Looks like you found the right person to run things. In other news, you may remember I put out the idea of using the innards of a cheap portable fridge to convert an Icebox. Well project complete. Found a sub $200 compressor driven 12/24/ac fridge and took the cover off and removed the foam. I cut a hole in the icebox to stuff the tubes through and then filled the hole with foam. I used the mounting plate on the "sled" (I think you call it) to mount the compressor to the bulkhead on the other side from the icebox. It works fine. I just have to make a beauty plate for the control panel because I am using the hole left by a speaker. I also need to insulate the top of the icebox because the people who built the boat in 1969 didn't feel that was required. I, on the other hand, want to give things the best chance of success I can. Thank you for the encouragement.
Great work! Thanks to both of you. I'm looking forward to this product, both in my sailboat and in my truck camper. Boondocking/anchoring out would be much more pleasant. 👍 Be well.
Idea for using a heat storage component to improve defrost cycle has been reported in latest issue of PV Magazine, with the title "New defrosting tech may increase coefficient of performance of air-source heat pumps by up to 11.2%". It sounds simple enough in principle, and I'm surprised that current heat pumps don't employ such a 'heat flywheel". Maybe you guys can add that to your development plan. Open source plans may be an option for the DIY enthusiasts here.
Something that helps and I am surprised I don't see this more often, is completely separate circuits between house and nav. Yes you can switch off nav, radio etc at your control panel, but I am talking about a completely separate panel with an inline kill switch so you can completely disconnect your expensive equipment from everything else. At anchor/dock you don't need them and while out at sea you can still navigate with paper chart and if you are in the middle of the ocean, you can just turn your chart plotters back on when the storm passes. I have seen many people complain about loosing expensive systems that shouldn't have even been on because they are still connected and the lightning has been able to fry them. It also helps not making the radar mast the highest point on the boat like most motor yacht manufacturers do.
I just bought the feence 100ah battery. I could Bluetooth connect to it on day one. Day two I cannot. I tried everything including a second phone. I'm getting ready to return it. Do you have customer service contact info for fence battery? Thx
