Fantastic review Walt! I think this really sums the experience for most customers. We usually recommend going your route when it comes to installation. Some customers are more technical and like to go the DIY route to save more. While the warranty won't be covered if you install it yourself, most replacement parts are quite affordable and we do our best to help out all of our clients. Really appreciate the kind words and hope this review is helpful to others.
Senville is the best IMO, $2100 installation with electricity is a good value(electric runs material are about 300-400 dollars) you do not want to pay warranty labor here.
Excellent review Walt! You answered every question I may have had! I just purchased a 30K Senville Mini Split yesterday for my detached 30x50 garage. I’m not a DIY person so I’m having a certified HVAC & Electrician install mine when it arrives. HVAC quoted me $300 labor and the Electrician shouldn’t be to much more. I can’t wait to cool my garage down with this unit because even though I have the ceiling spray foamed, it still gets hot inside here in central Georgia. I will say the foam makes it tolerable. This mini split should make it comfortable now. Thanks again for the great review 🤙🏾.
I can attest to this, Senville was very good to me after my purchase when I needed an inside unit I accidentally damaged. In fact I just installed my second Aura 12k unit. (look at my response to Perrymobierly7695 above for figures on efficiency and how well these units work.)
Thanks for the honest review Walt. I just bought a Senville, Oct 2022, SEER is 25.5 and it goes down to -30C(-22F) which is important in my cold climate. We'll see how it goes but looking at the install manual and hearing reports from buyers it looks like a solid company - we'll see. I'm not an HVAC tech but I built, plumbed and wired my own home and I'm an electronic engineer so I should be okay installing it.
@@perrymoberly7695 I have two Senville Aura 12k units, one I installed last Nov. and one I installed this August. I monitor them very closely, right now the outside temp is 28.2F (-2.1C). my great room unit's output temp is 94.4F (34.6C) and the power it is using is 469 watts. I looked this morning and it was putting out 103F(39.4C) and the outside temp was ~25F (-3.8C). It does go into "df" (defrost) occasionally but it's still very efficient. The cost to heat our home ~2,000 sq/ft for the month of Dec is around $60 with both units running although the second Senville hasn't been in long enough for me to get more accurate figures. Rob
Thanks for the video Walt. I just decided to install it myself, the warranty doesn't mean much really unless said warranty covers labour anyhow. Senville parts are really reasonable (checked before I bought one) and while I am not an Hvac tech, Ido however have tools for dealing with gas because of another hobby. If I had to change a compressor, I could do that ; I have done it. As to how it works, it works great , really quiet and does the job. I installed the 18000 BTU model for summer cooling and edge season heating (fall and spring heating) in an 800 sq ft cottage. It's too cold here in the winter for this thing to work for most of Jan/Feb in which case the propane heat kicks on anyhow. It took about a day in total to install after running the wiring through the concrete basement. I installed it on a concrete wall with the bracket kit you can buy about 20 inches up with it's own snow shelter roof to keep it from getting buried. Pretty satisfied with the energy use so far it's been cheaper than the old window A/C's and provides way more cooling. I'd say if you have anxiety about tackling this to watch one of several good installation vids here on youtube and just take your time and double check every step. The manual is multi purpose and can be less than helpful, it should be broken up into sections dealing with the specific units and wall mount brackets etc. For ease of install if you know nothing, I'd give it a seven out of ten provided you do your homework if you don't don't do your homework you'll have a four day process on your hands instead of one day.. For operation and ease of use, it's a solid 9 . Just my two cents.
Thanks for a great honest review Walt!! Like you i purchased a Senville mini split 5+ years ago (12000 btu Aura) $1000.delivered at the time but it cost another $3000.00 ++ to have it installed by a very good contractor after 5 years working perfect like day one 5 stars for Senville! We just purchased another Seville 12000 btu for basement hobby room,looked at many u tube videos looks like easy install ,but like you qualified installers don't want to unless unit is purchased from them anyway this new one is 6 ft away from electric 1st one was 40 feet away... Electrician friend called me and will help with install sure hope it will last another 5+years without problems like first one. Thanks again for your very easy to understand video very helpful indeed!!!
Anyone on the fence about senville, I would do it! I bought my first senville back in 2015! It was a 2 zone(2 indoor unit) 36,000 btu model, and it works amazingly and still does 7 years later! I installed it myself since I like to diy, and buying the proper tools was about 1/3 the cost of an installer. Since then O have installed 2 additional senville units at my business shop( one was a 3 zone 36k btu unit in 2017 and the other was a single zone 36k btu unit in 2019) they all work amazingly. From my research, it looks like pioneer is the same as senville with just rebranded plastic shells. I have also installed blueridge minisplits as well, and they work great, but I'm partial to senville since I have seen proof that it can last 7years+. Also, the price of senville includes all the line sets and everything you need to install the unit, but the blueridge requires you to buy those separately. These units a whisper quite and really put out the cold air when needed! I will probably never go with a traditional duct system in a house ever again. With those cassette air handlers they have now you can install them in the ceiling which makes it so much more attractive in your house!
Awesome, that's great to hear. When I was deciding which one to purchase, I read through a lot of reviews and Senville had some great ones. With that many sales, there will always be a few negatives.
I just got mine installed today and they only charged me $800 and its literally the best company in our area too. All i had to have for them was the outside disconnect for the condenser. Seems like i got a good deal from what others are getting charged
Thanks. This is so helpful. I am considering the 24K BTU for a sunroom. I have a professional willing to install it if I buy it. I just want to make sure it will be enough BTU. I noticed Senville responded to your video, so maybe I will ask them. Good to know they proactive with communicating.
Does yours make A popping and cracking sound after the heat cycle? My mini split keeps me up at night, and when it is in defrost cycle makes it poop and crack even louder! It doesn't pop and crack in a/c mode during the summer, just heat mode. I'm trying to figure out if something is wrong with my mini split, or if they all make that annoying pop and crack sound.
I can't believe how expensive these are for you guys. I just got an equivalent model installed for $3500NZD ($2200USD). The install only took 3.5 hours.
It's not the unit prices, it's the cost the installers charge to install them! I bought a 36k btu unit from alpine Air for $1600(that was in 2017) and installed it myself. I bought a 36k btu 2 zone senville in 2017 for $2000 in 2015. Not only do hvac companies charge way to much for the install but they mark up the cost of the units they sell by alot! Most installer in my area(Washington state) won't install a unit that you buy, they only install unit they sell so you get double screwed. I bought a 3 zone 36k btu senville for my shop In 2017 and found a company that would install it but when they came out to give me a quote it was going to cost $2400+ sales tax and that didn't include the cost for an electrician to do the electrical 🤦♂️ I only paid $2200 for the unit + all the install materials so I wasn't about to pay more for a install than the unit itself. So far I have installed 7 mini splits since I invested in all the proper tools and it has saved me and my friends well over $10,000 in install costs.
BTW, I saw your follow up video about a part in the unit failing and needing to be replaced. I just noticed in this video you said you went a bit larger. As I understand it, going larger can result in short cycling which can cause parts to go bad quicker. Could it be you went too large?
Hello, planning on buying exact unit for a 1200 square foot loft. How is the unit holding out now that you've had for a year, I'm in brutal Florida heat. How is it in the heat of summer and the poer bills? Thank you in advance. Nice garage.
We just installed two head units - one wall mount and one floor mount. We are having issues with the floor model heating to the desired temperature (eg., 21 C as set). The system seems to turn on AC fine, but when we switch the mode to HEAT, nothing happens. Any ideas? The temperature in the house is say, 19, and the outside temp may be say, 16...so I would think the unit would turn on and heat? My installer suggests we have to supplement the heat pump with our baseboards or gas fireplace...but I disagree. I bought the heat pump to replace at least the baseboard use.
I know that there are limitations if it gets too cold out. Seneville advertises their minisplits with the capacity of functioning when outside temperatures are as low as -30 C. I'd imagine that efficiency decreases as that low temperature is approached. In your case you are no where near that low of a temperature. Is it possible that you don't have enough BTU for the space you are trying to heat? Otherwise I agree, seems like you should be getting the heat to kick on.
@@waltsreviews90 my installer is going to check the fittings, do a leak test, and recharge the system. Our neighbour has the same unit and our house internal temp and the external temp was essentially the same. He turned his unit to 25C and voila, heat! Not for me on our unit.
I already have a minisit install in garage. I have the outside unit on 4x4 on floor. I wanna mount it a few inches high on wall since they are pouring concrete on floor. Us there a way to do this without disconnecting any hoses?? Thank u
You can hang the interior unit like it's a TV mount, drill a 3" hole in the wall and drop the lines through it, mount the exterior unit on a glorified shelf hanger, and connect a simple disconnect to the unit with 4 wires. Get an HVAC guy to vacuum test the lines and charge the lines. Run a circuit from the disconnect to breaker box yourself (RU-vid it). If an HVAC guy charges more than $300 you are getting robbed.
A lot of companies with items that are complicated to install do that. I'm guessing it's because it would be quite easy for someone who doesn't know what they are doing to break something or install it wrong resulting in a fire or something like that. It keeps them from having to pay out for something that isn't their fault.
Thank you for your honest review! What I would like to know is the name of the app you're using? I just got mine installed, 18K BTU in an uninsulated garage converted to an office and laundry room and it was an amazing change!
Hvac guys want to sell you the whole package because they earn a huge mark up on the equipment. If you ask them to install your purchased equipments, some of them will openly and shamelessly tell you they will charge you a lot more than it should cost. Also for the warranty to be valid, you only need the professional to do the last steps of the installation. that is when they pressure test the linesets for leaks, add more refrigerant if needed, and safely start up the unit. So technically you can do the trivial parts of the installation which is setting up indoor and outdoor units, connecting them with line sets and comm cables. Do electricals as well if you are comfortable and aware of the local codes of wiring. Hire a pro HVAC guy to do only the last steps that are testing and startup the system.
Yup, they gotta make a living too. I do take on a lot of projects myself, but as someone who owns a business, RU-vid channel and has kids, I gotta pick my battles! this one seemed like it was worth hiring someone for.
"They gotta make living" does not justify outrageous pricing and absurd business practices. The customers they charge those big bucks also need to save money to make their living. Refusing to install customer purchased equipments is not an honest business practice. I am currently waiting on my senville order. Before that I got a few quotes to get two 36k BTU systems installed. Four wall mounts and one concealed duct with some ductwork in attic. They quoted me over 41k for GREE Ultra+ VIRO and 53k for Mitsubishi. I understand that every job is different, but I can assure you my job is one of the easiest. HVAC guys don't have to maneuver linesets much as all linesets would enter into the house from the same wall where outdoor condenser sits. I did some research and learned that GREE equipment and supply would cost around $15k and Mitsubishi would be around $20k. That means HVAC guy's avg markup on equipment was about 100% on retail price.
Such business models and practices give birth to DIY oriented business models. Getting rid of the dependency on licenced service provider and offering DIY products. As most customers are refusing to pay ridiculous HVAC guys markups and choosing to go DIY, more companies are coming up with DIY friendly equipments. There will be numerous guys offering their DIY installation services since HVAC licencing isn't required for DIY.
@@waltsreviews90 Blatant ripping people off is not just making a living. Our quote from a local company was over $8000 to install a heat pump (on top of the purchase price). For what myself and my nesting partner will be able to accomplish ourselves in 1 day. They are taking advantage of people getting various government rebates. But it defeats the purpose of a rebate if the company selling the product artificially inflates the price to use up the whole rebate. I told them to go get fucked.
Correct! They mark up the cost of the units they sell and refuse to install units you buy yourself under the "if something goes wrong with the unit we don't know if we can repair it or get parts so we don't want to put our name on a install from a unit we don't provide". I said screw it and learned everything about installing them myself and saved over $10k on all 7 different minisplits I have installed over the years.
Just install it yourself. It really isn’t that hard. The hardest part in my opinion for your average DIYer would be pulling a vacuum on the system, especially since they don’t really stress the importance of this in the installation instructions, but honestly even that is way easier than it looks. You can get some cheap gauges from harbor freight, and then you need a 410a adapter and some basic hand tools, but you don’t get ripped off that way. $7500 is an absolute rip off. These companies are taking advantage of you. Edit: oh you also need a vacuum pump. This doesn’t have to be expensive. I bought a vacuum pump for $14. FYI, the gauges from harbor freight really stink and I don’t recommend them, but they’ll serve for a one and done situation. No reason to drop a couple hundred on a set you’ll only use once. Also, don’t wait a year to clean your filters. I’m not just talking out of my butt here. The worst thing you can possibly do to an HVAC system, which a mini split basically is just in mini form, is not clean the filters. I’ll tell you what can happen if you don’t clean your filters. I’ve seen it several times in the bigger versions of these systems. Your unit will start running all the time. It’ll be way less efficient. It’ll start costing you a lot more money to use. That is only the beginning though. The strain can cause the capacitor to get hot and explode or rupture. Once this happens, it can cause the fan or compressor to quit running and then you have no functionality to your system. I’ve also seen it fry the terminals on the compressor itself. I’ve also seen it kill the compressor completely simply because it is working all the time and overheating. Just like anything else electronic, heat is the enemy. I’ve seen it fry motherboards too. Inversely, don’t ever run it without your filters. If you do, you’ll clog your coil up with dirt. This is also a serious problem, because the coil is how the air is “conditioned”. If air can’t pass through a coil because the coil is clogged with dirt, then at the very least, you ain’t cooling. At worst, any number of the above things can happen, and then you will have to find a way to clean the dirt off the coil before the system will work again. While you are probably right in that every two weeks is probably excessive, I’d check those filters once a month to be safe. I definitely wouldn’t exceed 2 months. Just fyi. This is just some friendly advice for what seems like a nice guy and those that may be interested from a man who has installed several ac systems over the years
Thanks for the advice! What's easy for you to install might not be easy for other people... That's partly why I made this video, to let other people know what kind of work load and skill sets are involved with installation. 7,500 might seem like I'm getting ripped off to you, but ease of mind that I don't have to mess around with electrical components makes it worth it for me. Having anyone come over to the house to do work costs an arm and a leg these days. Unfortunately I don't have the time to become an expert on installing everything that goes into my home.
@@waltsreviews90 you don’t have to be an expert. 3 power wires. 1 ground. Labeled 1,2,3, and 4. They provide the harness. All you do is plug into the appropriate spot on both the inside and outside unit. The copper lines are connected with compression fittings. Two crescent wrenches and the knowledge to tighten instead of loosen is all you need there. The system comes precharged from the factory with the appropriate levels of Freon from the factory, so you don’t even have to worry about the pressures. I guess if you are installing a system with no existing power box to connect to, running a new line from your main would be pretty difficult (or scary, depending on your experience), but I didn’t have to do that seeing as how I was replacing my existing heat pump with a bad compressor with this mini split. We just used the existing wiring. Like I said, the vacuum pump would probably be the hardest thing to do without knowledge, but even that isn’t bad. I just installed this thing. I know the amount of work it takes. If someone charges you over $500 to install it, it is a ripoff. I promise you that. When I used to install units as a side gig, we’d charge about $800 an install. Everybody else would charge 4K. Trust me, they are all ripoffs. Just because people pay it, doesn’t make it right. Trust me buddy, if only you knew how much money these people make, and how much it costs them to do something like this, you’d be calling it a ripoff too. Take what I used to do for instance. We’d install a fedder unit. Cheap stuff, but it worked. Costed us about $650 for the condenser unit. We’d install it in a hour. Charge $1200-1300. Profit $600. In one hour. Customer was always tickled pink because everyone else charge quoted them thousands. That is $600 for a hour of work. We could do 3 of them a day comfortably and be home before dinner. Did we need to make that much profit? No. And we certainly didn’t need to make thousands more. I see these scams everyday. Have you ever called a “legit” ac company to come out and do a “free system check” on your currently working system? Guess what? They always find something wrong. What is the follow up advice 9 times out of 10? Replace the whole system. If only you knew how many times I’ve gone out behind one of these companies because they told the customer they needed an entirely new system just to find out there was absolutely nothing wrong with their system at all. It is so immoral. What they like to claim is that “there is a hole in the heat exchanger”. They do this because it sounds scary and you can’t really verify if it is true without the proper equipment. I come out to a customer that is freaking out because they are about to pay 6k to have a new system installed and they don’t have the money, and when I tell them these companies are just trying to scam them and I can’t find a single thing wrong with their system, they are visibly relieved. Those are the kind of people you hire to install something like this for thousands of dollars. My advice? Don’t trust them. They take advantage of the public’s general lack of knowledge. I forgot to mention one of the most important things. After these companies have replaced your good ac system with their “new top of the line” ac system, what do they do with the old unit? Ever thought about this? They have a complete perfectly fine working system for free. They do 1 of two things: they part it out and use the parts on other scams to make even more profit, or they sell the working system on the side for an easy additional 1k profit. I hope I’ve opened some eyes and some minds here, because these companies need to be stopped
It sounds like you understand the DIY issue with senville! Socherbal you should make a video about this to help out the community. IMHO install is a breeze even with 4-5 zone system. However, the gauge/pulling/drying the lines/liquids is a bit daunting for DIY. Also for ANY type of diag the DIY community is not easy to get started with!!!. great unit my installer said it was quieter than the Mitsubishi. FYI Carrier North America(brand) also partnered with the company making these named Midea!!! MAybe one day we will be able to remove that blower wheel in 1 second!
@@ss4717 the only problem I had with this install for the Senville is the instructions are garbage. If they improved that, this would’ve turned a few hour job into an hour job. Been using it about a week so far. Great product. Very happy with it for the price. Oh, the other failing is the app control. They say press the LED button 8 times in 10 secs in the manual to put the unit into pair mode, but that doesn’t do it. Neither does using the remote to put it in the appropriate mode. No matter what I do, the stupid thing isn’t discoverable. After messing with this about an hour, I gave up because ultimately the remote served my purposes
I've done electrical and hvac courses at college. Then I've done code work for the county and worked for myself for over 10 years. I think you really do need somebody that knows but 2k was a little high. I think one day install if you have everything and 2 if not. And that's not even working hard.
The ductless air conditioners are a great concept. However the Chinese electronics inside are a disaster waiting to happen. With no schematics available, a failure means you need a replacement circuit board. Good luck finding one. A traditional air conditioner uses standard parts and can be repaired easily and cheaply. I installed a 24000 btu system a few years ago, but last year a power surge killed it. No luck finding parts and I even tried to fix the board in my electronics lab. Gave up. Almost a year later I lucked out when a customer needed his Daizuki (Gree) system replaced and I ended up with the old one. It does work but the inside unit makes a noise from the fan motor and put out a foul odor. He bought the home and the unit was there. I disassembled the inside and outside units and cleaned them before reassembling. Installed it and it is working for now. The motor noise inside is really not that bad but eventually I think I can find a replacement motor. This is a 36,000 BTU 18 seer so I have to see how much more power it would use. As you said these ductless systems work fast, I can get from 90 degrees to 72 in 30 minutes. I clean my filters weekly because it is so much of a pain to clean the unit if it ever becomes clogged. When that happens water will start leaking from the condensate tray. I have never had to use the heat function because around here heat is free outdoors.
That is a crazy price for a split for a garage? you can get a whole has central air ac for that. all these units come with pre filled with gas. Pioneer has units under for about $1000. for 12 BTU's come primed and with a help of a friend. you can install in about 2 hours.
That alot of money man my one ton cost me 0 dollar installation and unit 300 bucks for 12000 and am gonna upgrade to 24000 easy labor 2 to 3 gourd installation
if you lived in south mississippi it can be hot at 85 degrees. it was 89 early in the day before it got hotter and on the news it said felt like 103 degrees. humidity sucks in the south.
