Looks good but dont forget to insulate the octopus plenum and all, other uninsulated metal connecting your flex connections as the duct is in the attic and you will create moisture within the ductwork during summer season then leading to mold issues💯
I work in HVAC, and I think what mr cool has done is awesome for the DIYer! I will say, if you ever build a ductwork setup again, I'd assemble the hard pipe then drill all the holes, couldnt hurt to put some tape over the seam either. Its a lot easier than trying to assemble it after cutting the take offs. I usually just use a hole saw or step bit to get the hole started, then follow it with aviation snips. I would also suggest insulating all your splices and the any bare metal on the supply ducting to make sure theres no sweating in the summer and moisture getting into your drywall
If the air is sucked in from under the hvac, where does the fresh outside air com in? Here i sweden we dont have supplyair in the bathroom and kitchen, those are the places where foul air is created, or nice smelling if you are cooking something nice. Only returnair in Bath and kitchen. Supplyair to bathroom comes from the doorway or a venthole in the wall. The same goes for the kitchen. Supplyair to the rest of the rooms.
@@subdivera Outside air is not required in the US for electric only heating systems. If it were gas or fuel oil heat, then yes combustion air from outside would be needed.
Because of your videos, I decided to build my own pole garage, 40x20, with a 9x12 bump out....I am not a contractor they describe me as an owner builder. Then when it came to heating and cooling the 400 sq ft office, bathroom and gym I decided to try the MR COOL mini split system...I have never done this before! Thanks! I checked with local HVAC contractors and they wanted 3x the cost of the 12ooo btu MR. Cool System I bought from Lowes. So I hooked it up as you suggested and it worked perfect! Now i am actually building the exact home you are working on now and thanks to those videos and help from the local building code officials, I am getting started! Might take me more than 90 days, however. Thanks for the videos!
Personally, as a retired commercial maintenance tech, I would mount your outside unit now. Run your siding afterwards. Just build out a box around the unit support, seal that to the sheathing and just trim and side around the box. You can use wood or metal for your box and can use hardware cloth and screen to allow necessary airflow. The project looks like it was designed and not just stuck on the building. It also hides all the ugly mechanicals. You can make the box unit removable, or a door for maintenance. It keeps snow, rain, birds, wasps and other critters form causing issues. AND, it'll be useful while working before you get to the siding.
Great video, I'm an HVAC mechanic and $20k is far to high, no matter where you are for a rough in on new const. I would have pinned this at ~$7,500 and had it done in a day or three. I am a Mr. Cool installer though I would have not used Home Depot parts. I would have used professional grade ducting, insulated trunk throughout your home, ducted a return to each room, put the supplies over the outside walls / windows and provide you with a Manual-J and Manual-D. Home depot parts are a thinner grade material. But you clearly made it work for your install, but I would have to warranty and deal with any issues down the road. 6" flex, the duct turtles into the insulation, just pull it out. Unless your never going to change the filter, your primary drain is blocking, turn it 90' CW and you'll be golden. Good job!
I’ve never installed a Mr cool so I have a quick question, what is the design static pressure of the air handler he’s installing? The units I’ve installed are rated between .7 - 1.5” of SP therefore my trunk size for a unit this size would have been a 14” not a 16”. At 16” with a 1000 CFM it puts the SP at .05 and FPM at about 700 at the plenum. Then if you add up the friction losses dues to turbulence of the octopus plenum, dampers, flext duct, Y’s, turns and length of each run how will this system ever deliver proper CFM and FPM? As you know from a manual D prospective this would not work. Then from a manual J prospective using 1 CFM per square’ is also a big no no because it doesn’t take wall orientation, wall construction and R Value into consideration.
Lol, $7,500 is barely getting the airhandler and heat pump @ contractors cost, let alone all the material needed to do the install properly, labor, and other miscellaneous costs
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Looks good but dont forget to insulate the octopus plenum and all.other uninsulated metal connecting your flex connections as the duct is in the attic and you will create moisture within the ductwork during summer season then leading to mold issues.
As a retired pest tech, I would recommend wrapping the end of your condensation drain tube with a little piece of screen mesh. Easy and preventative step. In the summer, when critters are desperate for water and humidity is low, they will travel into any outside pipe with moisture. Lots of people get the large American roaches in their attics this way. The worst is when contractors just lay those drain pipes on the ground.
Super awesome guys. You should get a harbor freight thermal imaging tool, run the heat full blast and see how tight the envelope is. Good or bad. Just for the fans. Cheers.
whenever using hole saws or drilling into things like masonry, I use the drill's clutch feature (the ring with the numbers on it adjusts to allow the drill to break free of the torque) - to avoid breaking your wrist.
I completely agree and to further say that if you can avoid using corded drills, that I still love, with out a clutch even though you can get a power reduction it's worth it to save the frustration and potential injury when that large bit grabs. good call on the comment
I retired from a company that made avionics communications. One job I had was building wire cables. We used zip ties and used a similar tighter/cutter for years. When I see UA-cam shows using the zip ties, I have wondered if those cutters were a big secret that no one knew about.. they are very handy!
I feel like every week I watch an Ambition Strikes video for which I am super excited. It end. I'm sad there isn't more. Then sad remembering I have to wait another week for the next one.
Just found your channel a week ago and love it! Been binge watching your videos and telling others about it. My son is a lot like you. He is currently working on his 2 story shop with an apartment for his parents. The apartment is just under 1200 sq ft (by law) but on the first floor. The shop, storage, crafts room and man cave together are about 3500 sq ft. All electric as CA law prohibits gas on new construction. Using ductless air mini splits with ceiling vents instead of being wall mounted. One handles the great room and bedrooms and another one handles the bathrooms and crafts room upstairs so we can turn individual areas off and on depending upon use. My son built a custom 3200 sq ft home that is about 100 ft from the house. I love your solar videos! He has to connect to the grid with his solar array but will be setting up a second solar array next year that will not be connected allowing the house and the shop to go off grid. He's on 5 acres so he built a structure to mount the solar panels on. He will DIY it but it's expensive with all the panels, inverters and battery storage.
you can mastic the flex duct ends too, and I would wrap the boots in insulation too. Since we are saving so much money doing it ourselves, I would also get an automatic Damper system. It nice to have some rooms colder or warmer. I also had it, so when the bathroom fans were on the HVAC duct would close but still allow fresh air to enter the room. I liked to oversize the bathroom fan and pull out way more air than needed, which is why I wanted to avoid sucking negative air from the HVAC unit
Fantastic install and explaination. I had to replace my HVAC 2 years ago and wanted a heat pump system (Tucson AZ). My HVAC guy talked me out of it and now I totally regret it. I could have done this myself (with a little help from my friends). A problem would have been fitting the indoor unit, I would have had to move a wall a couple inches for clearance, which was a drag todo but doable. Thanks for the video Riley.
Give it respect, because sheetmetal can cut to the bone! I wear pvc dipped cloth or anti-slice gloves and clamp it to a tubafore for support when working with it. And you finally relented to both. LOL Riley, the next time you're in HFT, grab a pair of all their different glove types that you think would help in different tasks and try them out. They're cheap. Once you get a nice pair of gloves that fit your hands and give you the dexterity you need, you'll find that you wear them a whole lot more, protecting your hands more often.
Proper duct design is a bit more complicated than shown. For example, the CFM for a given room depends on its heat loss/gain, not just the square footage. So corner rooms with two exterior walls need more CFM than an equal sized room with just one exterior wall. The full procedure: 1) Based on the design outdoor high and low temperatures, and the construction of the building, determine the heat loss/gain for the building as a whole and for each room. 2) Select an appropriate sized HVAC unit and air handler, which will determine the total CFM and available fan pressure to move air through the ducts. 3) Apportion the total CFM to the various rooms in accordance with the fraction of the total heat loss/gain that room requires. This may require checking both heating and cooling, e.g. a south facing room will have a greater fraction of the total heat gain in the summer than it will have fraction of total heat loss in the summer. 4) Now design the duct system to deliver the necessary CFM to each room, while ensuring that the resulting duct static pressure loss for those airflows does not exceed the air handler's specs.
The corner room issue can be balanced with the dampers he put in if it becomes an issue. That was a step too often skipped. Having those allows for fine tuning a system in real circumstances for things that might not have shown up on the plans.
In my mind and with my experience, I believe that contractors ask not for what something costs, but rather charge what they think will not blow the lid off the customer.
Hi, an HVAC contactor here. All exposed metal parts need insulation, or they will sweat in cooling. Bat insulation and tie cord will work or use insulation cut from extra heat pipe.
Suggestion put foil tape on the plenum and at all registers. Where the duct is at. Also little FYI when setting the outside unit. Do it 3:19 off the ground do to the snow you all get. Also when you run the line set. Try not to have a lot of rolled up line set at the out door unit. Reason being is refrigerant has oil in it and when the line set is rolled up oil can settle at the bottom of the coils which in time will destroy the compressor.
Your supply registers should be near the perimeter of your house! This is really important. At least 6 ft of flex duct is needed on the return to dampen fan noise from the air handler.
BTW that plenum you built needs to be fully insulated because condensation will build up on it and you will have water all over your floors any bared metal needs to be fully insulated and pucky at all connections and ends btw if you have silver metal tape for a/c duct work wrap all ends tight then cover over with pucky as we call it here in Florida
Tip... For the condensate vent opening add a piece of screen and use a zip tie on it. This will keep the outside critters small lizards and Palmetto bugs (cockroaches) form getting into your duct work. Shape the screen like a ball for more airflow. Great video! I even have them on my sewer pipe vents on the roof. So far working great.
Nice explanation As an HVAC veteran, I feel cheated. Now, anybody can install an HVAC system. But I'm not out of my trade yet. Yes, cover your octopus and connection with insulation to prevent condensation, "not required," but good prictice. Make sure all connections are well sealed. Remember, lost off air flow cost money. What happened with electrical and plumbing videos????????
Couple of notes, Supply Ducts want to go to the outside walls of the rooms, preferably below or near penetrations like windows or doors as those are the coldest/hottest spot depending on the time of year, this also allows the returns to be more centrally located so the air handler sucks the air across the rooms. The "water heater base" has no way of having a filter, you NEED to filter the incoming air or your whole system will get filled with garbage, the filter box base also functions as something you can run return airs to, Returns are important because a unit has trouble pushing air into a room it's not sucking air out of (fun fact this is part of why doors don't go all the way to the floor, so that if your return air is in the hallway the gap at the bottom of the bedroom door allows the return to suck air out of that room). Without proper returns you will have serious issues of how evenly temperature controlled the rooms are, I know this first hand, the guy I work for has 3 story house with the basement being the office and location of the return air, there is 5-10 degree temperature differentials from floor to floor in that house because there is no return air upstairs.
love this, could have gone with standard wall mount radiators (hydronic) or underfloor heating but with this you can inject fresh air into the intake so you can have fresh air in every room, so personally this would have been my choice too
You guys are great DIYers. AC leaks reminds me of calls about water in the computer room of a company where I did facility maintenance. I would remove the drain and blow it out with portable compressed air while water came out of the the hole in the pan. 20 minutes work got me 4 hours pay. They finally caught on, and had the HVAC guys clean the drains on a regular basis.
20:39 for us natural gas is still cheaper on ambient temperature difference than electricity ..making a heat pump not a viable option. (Try telling that to the DICtator in Ottawa) Also we run the forced air at floor level and heat/ cool the lower 2/3 of the room first… Or most still choose the hot water hydronic, heating with tankless water heater.. super efficient @98% Which also makes using old style case iron radiators a cool option. Great video.. very well done with wonderful articulate detailing!
What a coinkydink! I bought the 2-3 ton universal system after seeing the one you installed in the shop apartment. 😁 Now I’ve got even MORE info to go off of for the install in my 1930’s Ogden house! 😊👍🏼
You could also get some wide straps to suspend the ducts from the rafters. This will reduce the chance of them getting crushed and and you can straighten them to improve air flow efficiency especially for the longer runs.
Love Mr cool products, we swapped out our 4 ton gas furnace with a Mr cool universal 2-3 Ton which we set to 2 Ton in a 1500 square foot house been running perfect for 2 years now.
A lot of contractors in just about every trade (not all) these days are so busy and will simply throw stupid quotes to potential customers. They don't all need more business, but if someone is desperate enough to agree to this price they'll do it and rake in a small jackpot.
Well Riley, you have done it again. A masterclass anybody can follow. Mind you, you lost me as soon as you said CVN. Once again i still watched. Cannae wait to see the unit working. $15,000 dollar Saving is some saving. Riley i am also with you on the gloves thing. I never could do the intricate things with gloves on AND ive got the scars to prove it. Later 👍
I love the stuff you do and I love that you take things on and do them yourself. When you compare the cost of you doing the work to a quote you, to be fare you need to add your time in the price as well. Your time is money as well. You will still be cheaper then the quote. Thanks you for share this build.
Did HVAC for years, only critique is to use pookie around all your ducting connections. Usually you paint a ring of it around the ducting metal and slide the plastic tubing over it. Kinda helps lube it up too. When in doubt, more pookie! Haha
I don't know what the official HVAC way of drilling through sheet metal is, but step drills work well for general sheetmetal work. Pick up a set at HF.
I've been around building houses, and for how small this house is I would have opted for in floor heating, way warmer, and more of a constant warmth. On longer runs on hvac I would install low volt heating elements in the vent that come on just before the furnace, so cold air isn't the first thing being blown into the rooms.
We just bought a house with baseboard electric upstairs and no heating in the basement. we got quoted $18,000 to install heat pump and furnace. We’re pretty handy. This is our third house we’ve remodeled, but I’ve never touched HVAC. This video might give it a try
My brother and I installed my bosch heat pump system. He is certified but he doesn't do hvac as a profession. He got tired of hiring "pros" that either didn't fix his stuff or made it worse. He found out it's pretty easy to get certified and did so. That aside, the bosch system comes precharged as well as long as your line set is 15ft or less. Unfortunately we were a little over that and he had a fitting failure in his gauge set and we lost almost all of the precharge. So due to that we did have to bust out the expensive specialized equipment. Had that not been the case the bosch system i would consider potentially diy friendly but maybe not as much as Mr cool. The bosch is also on the more expensive side of the spectrum but it's performance has been great so far considering my houses original ductwork is apparently all sized incorrectly. So that's going to be corrected in the future to get the system running as well as possible.
I could be wrong because I am not a residential guy (commercial refrigeration). But returns are just as if not more important then your supplies. Open plenum are something you normally see in commercial environments where there are no ceilings. Once you have independent rooms where doors shut you really want to be able to get the air out of that room using a return. I am sure it will work but probably not as efficiently as you would want and some rooms will perform better then others. 20k is also way too high. Probably could've got all this done with proper returns for 10k
The 20k bid from the contractor had a "I do not want this small job" feel to it. Using the very rough but wonderfully useful estimating tool I had as a GC it would have been more like 13-14 k for the job based on material costs. Even with a "small job adjustment" it would have been about 15k. That bid is a sure sign the contractor was too busy to mess with it. If you had said yes, he would be happy to take it but mostly did not want it. Small jobs do cost more as two or three short days cost money for travel time and interrupting the schedule for the big jobs. And yet the savings are real if he was the only choice in the area.
If it was not clear, I rarely said no to a job but if I did not want it, i would deliberately be high bidder. If I still got it the extra profit was nice, and if I did not get it all the better. Only time I said no to a job was if the customer was an obvious "Karen".
Here's the text with added information about whistling: Think of your house's air system like breathing. You know how you both inhale and exhale air? Your house needs to do the same thing: Supply vents (the ones that blow air into rooms) are like your house breathing out Return vents (the ones that suck air in) are like your house breathing in Two important rules to remember: The path for the "breathing in" air (return duct) needs to be at least as big as the path for the "breathing out" air. This helps your system work properly, just like how you can't breathe well through a tiny straw! Every main room in your house (like your bedroom, the living room, and kitchen) needs either: Its own "breathing in" vent (return vent), or A way for air to flow back to a return vent (like through the gap under a door) Here's something else to watch out for: If your return air has any tight spots or restrictions (like a bent grille or partially blocked vent), you might hear whistling noises. This happens just like when you whistle with your mouth - air makes noise when it's forced through a small space. If you hear whistling, it usually means something is blocking the air's path and needs to be fixed!
The Mr cool system that you have in your Google spreadsheet is a single fan heat exchange on the outside of the building yet in your video you have the dual fan.
bought an old house in late 2018. furnace was over 25 years old. November 2022, it died of old age! quotes from several different HVAC contractors, furnace only using existing ductwork from $5000 - $6000. Just to replace the furnace with a 10 year warranty.! I bought a brand new AirQuest 85,000 BTU 96% efficiency gas furnace for HVAC DIRECT For $1750. parent company of AirQuest makes gas furnaces under many different well known brand names and they’re all pretty much identical! furnace cost me $1750 including shipping delivered to my door! I removed the old gas furnace, installed the new furnace myself with the exception of the 3” Schedule 40 PVC piping for the exhaust and the air inlet to bring air from the outside. The reason why you may need 3” PVC, instead of 2” or 2 1/2” is based on the your altitude & distance number of 45s or 90° pipe bends that you have. New furnaces don’t have grills on them so they don’t get air from the location they’re placed in your house. they need to have air brought in from the outside. I hired my local plumber to do that. He only charged me $200. I bought (3) 3” Schedule 40 PVC pipe, plus the elbows, pipe cost me around $150-$200 From Home Depot. Luckily my plumber was also an HVAC contractor and he used a Nemometer to check and adjust the settings so they were correct for the amount of gas my gas pipe into the (5) gas burners. I placed the new gas furnace on top of the concrete floor in the basement and I made a base used 2x4 pressure-treated wood. With a piece of plywood on top and the furnace rests on top of the plywood 2x4 base. I also bought a 4 inch box to go in between the furnace and the return duct. This allows me to get up to a MERV 14 4 inch wide filter to filter out the contaminants from inside my house going into the furnace, then being released into the ducting system.
IF Reckless Riley can do it Anyone can do it!!😆😁 The exterior looks good in green,. You were quiet Courtney!!, misse youre dulcet tones,🤩😀Great video Thanks. x x x
Great video, but I didn’t see the part where you installed a filter into the system. Those are critical to you, keeping your air handler clean and working for a long time.
I too, am a member of the 'NO Gloves' faction. For me, I find that I just don't have the dexterity to handle most things, except for maybe metals. This has been a particular issue for me recently, where I started working in an environment that absolutely REQUIRES gloves at all times that are snugly fitting and no loose fingertips. I guess I can get used to it.
Here’s a free tip. Turn your air handler 90°. Otherwise, when you go to Braze the copper lines you will never be able to shut your door on that closet. The copper will stick out too far.
Ummmm did you think about drywall g and finishing the walls where your furnace is going first? By installing the furnace first you created double the work and big challenges down the road.just a thought.
FYI! I hope you put a extractor fan moving (slightly) more air from the bathrooms to the outside of the house than your air handler put in to the room, otherwise you will have positive pressure air going from the bathroom (with the smells generated with in) in to the whole house and I doubt you want the kitchen and/or living room smelling of farts (or worse).
the thing that worries me about the DIY units is that I installed one of these units for a customer being a general contractor and not an HVAC contractor, I spoke with the HVAC contractor I have used in the past and he said he did not want to install the unit and that he refuses to work on the DIY units including repair work in protest to their massive loss in installation labor and he said that most HVAC contractors he has spoken to in the area feel the same way. I imagine that you can find contractors to service these units but maybe this could be an issue in your area...I don't know. He said one of the biggest issues beyond being stubborn was that when an HVAC contractor works on a unit they have to warranty their work for one year and he wasn't willing to do that.
Whatever the better way is, cutting sheet steel you please must wear decent leather gloves Riley!!!! Ah you got there in the end.... ;) Absolutely great video. Nothing like this exists in homes over here (predominantly wet central heating with radiators) and domestic AC is pretty much a rarity too. (UK). Fascinating to watch your process at work though, well thought through. Totally demystified!
The house looks awesome! Perhaps instead of a rachet strap you could have used DUCT TAPE......The one thing it was actually made for.......Don't worry. I did the same thing, and my buddy busted me for it. I just never thought if it for that... This looks like a great system. I'll definitely keep it in mind for my next project. In my last house we needed a new unit and they put the upstairs unit in the attic most likely when they were framing, because it didn't come through a 2'x2' hole, and the downstairs unit was in the crawl space, which had the same kind of access. I think the main cost of the job was labor for them taking apart and reassembling the units piece by piece to get them through the holes. It was a nightmare. I do have a question for you: What are you doing for the intake? We have 1 large duct on each floor (Where the filter is), that keeps the system "sealed" for lack of a better word. How do you do that with the intake under the unit? Are you going to close off the sides and add a filter? Best of luck until next week!
That foil tape should have been used on all your duct to grill connections but everything looks great it's unbelievable that a diy system that anyone can do is available at that price. Man that's a better deal than God gave Noah😊
The reason for those prices is experienced techs, warranty, and liability issues and insurance for liability if issues arise from manufacturing of equipment and materials
Flex duct can cause issues, but you can fabricate later for just those issues. Flex duct is also nice if you need to make a change or additional registers in the system quickly. You have to wear gloves all the time to get used to them. I like the nitrile coated gloves in the 10 pack. They have grip, fight tight, are cheap, and provide enough protection for most things. I have handled ducting with them along with using them to push the mower and since they are a couple dollars per pair if I ruin one or two I don't feel bad. I have spent real money on pairs of gloves and there are specific ones you do want for special things, but my cheapos work for carrying materials, painting, mudding, foaming, stuccoing, and gripping. Seems like a splinter might get me but mostly the glove and additional grip strength is so nice working overhead or moving material. 🗿👽🗿👽🗿
I hope you sized the heat pump for heating otherwise you are going to have a very hard time keeping up in those cold winter months. And splitting the flex duct with Y’s you will run into air flow issues, you should have made home runs to the plenum.
Riley your the new and improved Bob Villa. And more fun. And of course Courtney is the best of the best also. I haven’t come up with a clever title yet.
Not a fan of heat pumps in my area but i like the easy setup. We had an estimate to replace the badly installed out flowing duct work of 5k. I did it myself for a lot less. One bad contractor makes it hard to trust another one.
Just a question. Why do Heat vents get put up high in rooms when heat rises? My simple mind would want to think you would want them low??? As always you guys rock!
Shop the complete lineup of MRCOOL DIY products: mrcooldiy.com/
Looks good but dont forget to insulate the octopus plenum and all, other uninsulated metal connecting your flex connections as the duct is in the attic and you will create moisture within the ductwork during summer season then leading to mold issues💯
I work in HVAC, and I think what mr cool has done is awesome for the DIYer! I will say, if you ever build a ductwork setup again, I'd assemble the hard pipe then drill all the holes, couldnt hurt to put some tape over the seam either. Its a lot easier than trying to assemble it after cutting the take offs. I usually just use a hole saw or step bit to get the hole started, then follow it with aviation snips. I would also suggest insulating all your splices and the any bare metal on the supply ducting to make sure theres no sweating in the summer and moisture getting into your drywall
Thanks so much for the tips!! 🙌
Same here.
If the air is sucked in from under the hvac, where does the fresh outside air com in?
Here i sweden we dont have supplyair in the bathroom and kitchen, those are the places where foul air is created, or nice smelling if you are cooking something nice.
Only returnair in Bath and kitchen.
Supplyair to bathroom comes from the doorway or a venthole in the wall.
The same goes for the kitchen.
Supplyair to the rest of the rooms.
Yeah as a Tinkocker a Unibit is a must have, way safer and smaller than a hole saw.
@@subdivera Outside air is not required in the US for electric only heating systems. If it were gas or fuel oil heat, then yes combustion air from outside would be needed.
Because of your videos, I decided to build my own pole garage, 40x20, with a 9x12 bump out....I am not a contractor they describe me as an owner builder. Then when it came to heating and cooling the 400 sq ft office, bathroom and gym I decided to try the MR COOL mini split system...I have never done this before! Thanks! I checked with local HVAC contractors and they wanted 3x the cost of the 12ooo btu MR. Cool System I bought from Lowes. So I hooked it up as you suggested and it worked perfect! Now i am actually building the exact home you are working on now and thanks to those videos and help from the local building code officials, I am getting started! Might take me more than 90 days, however. Thanks for the videos!
Wow, that is amazing!! I’m so glad the install went well and congrats on the huge accomplishment. 👊
Did he post where he got the plans from? Where did ya get the plans from for your house?
Personally, as a retired commercial maintenance tech, I would mount your outside unit now. Run your siding afterwards. Just build out a box around the unit support, seal that to the sheathing and just trim and side around the box. You can use wood or metal for your box and can use hardware cloth and screen to allow necessary airflow. The project looks like it was designed and not just stuck on the building. It also hides all the ugly mechanicals. You can make the box unit removable, or a door for maintenance. It keeps snow, rain, birds, wasps and other critters form causing issues. AND, it'll be useful while working before you get to the siding.
Great video, I'm an HVAC mechanic and $20k is far to high, no matter where you are for a rough in on new const.
I would have pinned this at ~$7,500 and had it done in a day or three. I am a Mr. Cool installer though I would have not used Home Depot parts. I would have used professional grade ducting, insulated trunk throughout your home, ducted a return to each room, put the supplies over the outside walls / windows and provide you with a Manual-J and Manual-D.
Home depot parts are a thinner grade material. But you clearly made it work for your install, but I would have to warranty and deal with any issues down the road.
6" flex, the duct turtles into the insulation, just pull it out.
Unless your never going to change the filter, your primary drain is blocking, turn it 90' CW and you'll be golden. Good job!
7500 seems low. most areas a system change out is going to be 7500 where ducts and line sets are already in place.
It wouldnt cover material@james6794
@@james6794I think 7500 is a good price. In this situation everything is accessible. No hot sweaty attic work. Two guys knock this out in a day.
I’ve never installed a Mr cool so I have a quick question, what is the design static pressure of the air handler he’s installing? The units I’ve installed are rated between .7 - 1.5” of SP therefore my trunk size for a unit this size would have been a 14” not a 16”. At 16” with a 1000 CFM it puts the SP at .05 and FPM at about 700 at the plenum. Then if you add up the friction losses dues to turbulence of the octopus plenum, dampers, flext duct, Y’s, turns and length of each run how will this system ever deliver proper CFM and FPM? As you know from a manual D prospective this would not work. Then from a manual J prospective using 1 CFM per square’ is also a big no no because it doesn’t take wall orientation, wall construction and R Value into consideration.
Lol, $7,500 is barely getting the airhandler and heat pump @ contractors cost, let alone all the material needed to do the install properly, labor, and other miscellaneous costs
Looks good but dont forget to insulate the octopus plenum and all.other uninsulated metal connecting your flex connections as the duct is in the attic and you will create moisture within the ductwork during summer season then leading to mold issues.
Yes 100% insulate the plenum otherwise it will sweat big time in the summer and you will have water and mold issues
plus they need to better insulate the boots as there is exposed metal on those too
As a retired pest tech, I would recommend wrapping the end of your condensation drain tube with a little piece of screen mesh. Easy and preventative step. In the summer, when critters are desperate for water and humidity is low, they will travel into any outside pipe with moisture. Lots of people get the large American roaches in their attics this way. The worst is when contractors just lay those drain pipes on the ground.
Super awesome guys. You should get a harbor freight thermal imaging tool, run the heat full blast and see how tight the envelope is. Good or bad. Just for the fans. Cheers.
That is a great idea!!
whenever using hole saws or drilling into things like masonry, I use the drill's clutch feature (the ring with the numbers on it adjusts to allow the drill to break free of the torque) - to avoid breaking your wrist.
I completely agree and to further say that if you can avoid using corded drills, that I still love, with out a clutch even though you can get a power reduction it's worth it to save the frustration and potential injury when that large bit grabs. good call on the comment
Using the clutch properly is definitly key. That battery packs a punch when it comes slinging around. Ask me how I know... 😅
I retired from a company that made avionics communications. One job I had was building wire cables. We used zip ties and used a similar tighter/cutter for years. When I see UA-cam shows using the zip ties, I have wondered if those cutters were a big secret that no one knew about.. they are very handy!
I feel like every week I watch an Ambition Strikes video for which I am super excited. It end. I'm sad there isn't more. Then sad remembering I have to wait another week for the next one.
I love the work arounds, using what you have - the ratchet strap duct closure was inspired.
It's not a "how-to", it's "what I did".
Just found your channel a week ago and love it! Been binge watching your videos and telling others about it. My son is a lot like you. He is currently working on his 2 story shop with an apartment for his parents. The apartment is just under 1200 sq ft (by law) but on the first floor. The shop, storage, crafts room and man cave together are about 3500 sq ft. All electric as CA law prohibits gas on new construction. Using ductless air mini splits with ceiling vents instead of being wall mounted. One handles the great room and bedrooms and another one handles the bathrooms and crafts room upstairs so we can turn individual areas off and on depending upon use. My son built a custom 3200 sq ft home that is about 100 ft from the house. I love your solar videos! He has to connect to the grid with his solar array but will be setting up a second solar array next year that will not be connected allowing the house and the shop to go off grid. He's on 5 acres so he built a structure to mount the solar panels on. He will DIY it but it's expensive with all the panels, inverters and battery storage.
you can mastic the flex duct ends too, and I would wrap the boots in insulation too.
Since we are saving so much money doing it ourselves, I would also get an automatic Damper system. It nice to have some rooms colder or warmer.
I also had it, so when the bathroom fans were on the HVAC duct would close but still allow fresh air to enter the room.
I liked to oversize the bathroom fan and pull out way more air than needed, which is why I wanted to avoid sucking negative air from the HVAC unit
Fantastic install and explaination. I had to replace my HVAC 2 years ago and wanted a heat pump system (Tucson AZ). My HVAC guy talked me out of it and now I totally regret it. I could have done this myself (with a little help from my friends). A problem would have been fitting the indoor unit, I would have had to move a wall a couple inches for clearance, which was a drag todo but doable.
Thanks for the video Riley.
Give it respect, because sheetmetal can cut to the bone! I wear pvc dipped cloth or anti-slice gloves and clamp it to a tubafore for support when working with it. And you finally relented to both. LOL Riley, the next time you're in HFT, grab a pair of all their different glove types that you think would help in different tasks and try them out. They're cheap. Once you get a nice pair of gloves that fit your hands and give you the dexterity you need, you'll find that you wear them a whole lot more, protecting your hands more often.
Proper duct design is a bit more complicated than shown. For example, the CFM for a given room depends on its heat loss/gain, not just the square footage. So corner rooms with two exterior walls need more CFM than an equal sized room with just one exterior wall. The full procedure:
1) Based on the design outdoor high and low temperatures, and the construction of the building, determine the heat loss/gain for the building as a whole and for each room.
2) Select an appropriate sized HVAC unit and air handler, which will determine the total CFM and available fan pressure to move air through the ducts.
3) Apportion the total CFM to the various rooms in accordance with the fraction of the total heat loss/gain that room requires. This may require checking both heating and cooling, e.g. a south facing room will have a greater fraction of the total heat gain in the summer than it will have fraction of total heat loss in the summer.
4) Now design the duct system to deliver the necessary CFM to each room, while ensuring that the resulting duct static pressure loss for those airflows does not exceed the air handler's specs.
I am pretty sure he already took measure on that.
The corner room issue can be balanced with the dampers he put in if it becomes an issue. That was a step too often skipped. Having those allows for fine tuning a system in real circumstances for things that might not have shown up on the plans.
In my mind and with my experience, I believe that contractors ask not for what something costs, but rather charge what they think will not blow the lid off the customer.
Hi, an HVAC contactor here. All exposed metal parts need insulation, or they will sweat in cooling. Bat insulation and tie cord will work or use insulation cut from extra heat pipe.
Thanks for the tip!!
Suggestion put foil tape on the plenum and at all registers. Where the duct is at. Also little FYI when setting the outside unit. Do it 3:19 off the ground do to the snow you all get. Also when you run the line set. Try not to have a lot of rolled up line set at the out door unit. Reason being is refrigerant has oil in it and when the line set is rolled up oil can settle at the bottom of the coils which in time will destroy the compressor.
Your supply registers should be near the perimeter of your house! This is really important. At least 6 ft of flex duct is needed on the return to dampen fan noise from the air handler.
BTW that plenum you built needs to be fully insulated because condensation will build up on it and you will have water all over your floors any bared metal needs to be fully insulated and pucky at all connections and ends btw if you have silver metal tape for a/c duct work wrap all ends tight then cover over with pucky as we call it here in Florida
Tip... For the condensate vent opening add a piece of screen and use a zip tie on it. This will keep the outside critters small lizards and Palmetto bugs (cockroaches) form getting into your duct work. Shape the screen like a ball for more airflow. Great video! I even have them on my sewer pipe vents on the roof. So far working great.
The King of DIY!!!
Huge savings and knowing you did 1 more thing yourselves. Impressive
Nice explanation
As an HVAC veteran, I feel cheated. Now, anybody can install an HVAC system. But I'm not out of my trade yet. Yes, cover your octopus and connection with insulation to prevent condensation, "not required," but good prictice. Make sure all connections are well sealed. Remember, lost off air flow cost money.
What happened with electrical and plumbing videos????????
They're coming!
Agreed. Even this grandma learned something and Riley held my attention for what I thought was a boring topic. 👏 TY ❤
Heat pump yes!!!! Feel that from this point forward most all homes should have heat pumps. Also heat pump water heater.
Couple of notes, Supply Ducts want to go to the outside walls of the rooms, preferably below or near penetrations like windows or doors as those are the coldest/hottest spot depending on the time of year, this also allows the returns to be more centrally located so the air handler sucks the air across the rooms. The "water heater base" has no way of having a filter, you NEED to filter the incoming air or your whole system will get filled with garbage, the filter box base also functions as something you can run return airs to, Returns are important because a unit has trouble pushing air into a room it's not sucking air out of (fun fact this is part of why doors don't go all the way to the floor, so that if your return air is in the hallway the gap at the bottom of the bedroom door allows the return to suck air out of that room).
Without proper returns you will have serious issues of how evenly temperature controlled the rooms are, I know this first hand, the guy I work for has 3 story house with the basement being the office and location of the return air, there is 5-10 degree temperature differentials from floor to floor in that house because there is no return air upstairs.
love this, could have gone with standard wall mount radiators (hydronic) or underfloor heating but with this you can inject fresh air into the intake so you can have fresh air in every room, so personally this would have been my choice too
You guys are great DIYers.
AC leaks reminds me of calls about water in the computer room of a company where I did facility maintenance.
I would remove the drain and blow it out with portable compressed air while water came out of the the hole in the pan. 20 minutes work got me 4 hours pay. They finally caught on, and had the HVAC guys clean the drains on a regular basis.
20:39
for us natural gas is still cheaper on ambient temperature difference than electricity ..making a heat pump not a viable option.
(Try telling that to the DICtator in Ottawa)
Also we run the forced air at floor level and heat/ cool the lower 2/3 of the room first…
Or most still choose the hot water hydronic, heating with tankless water heater.. super efficient @98%
Which also makes using old style case iron radiators a cool option.
Great video.. very well done with wonderful articulate detailing!
Amazing & informative video. Love that Riley explains everything so that it is easy to understand! You guy’s are the best🙏🙏🙏Blessing’s
That is a huge savings and I love the way you explained your layout for the HVAC system.
What a coinkydink! I bought the 2-3 ton universal system after seeing the one you installed in the shop apartment. 😁 Now I’ve got even MORE info to go off of for the install in my 1930’s Ogden house! 😊👍🏼
I hope your install goes smoothly and you're just as happy with it as we are!
Maybe there's a plan for fresh air & exhaust air. Maybe a HRV / ERV unit exhausting the bathrooms and supplying back into bedrooms.
Saving money is always a plus if you can do it yourself!! Great job 👏!
You could also get some wide straps to suspend the ducts from the rafters. This will reduce the chance of them getting crushed and and you can straighten them to improve air flow efficiency especially for the longer runs.
That's a great idea. I think Riley is going to go back and add some straps.
Love Mr cool products, we swapped out our 4 ton gas furnace with a Mr cool universal 2-3 Ton which we set to 2 Ton in a 1500 square foot house been running perfect for 2 years now.
$20K for an installation during an open frame phase of construction is an insane quote
A lot of contractors in just about every trade (not all) these days are so busy and will simply throw stupid quotes to potential customers. They don't all need more business, but if someone is desperate enough to agree to this price they'll do it and rake in a small jackpot.
$5grand when Trumps back!
@@ravneiv I find contractor bids in my area to be 4x the cost of doing it yourself.
North Idaho contractor pricing.....too much 1000 dollar a square foot build pricing at Schwitzer Basin Ski Resort.
Well Riley, you have done it again. A masterclass anybody can follow. Mind you, you lost me as soon as you said CVN. Once again i still watched. Cannae wait to see the unit working. $15,000 dollar Saving is some saving. Riley i am also with you on the gloves thing. I never could do the intricate things with gloves on AND ive got the scars to prove it. Later 👍
That plenum needs to be insulated because it will sweat. You can't screw it to wood!
💯
Thank you for another informative video. You all are terrific.
After so much time I finally found put why you don't like gloves! For such, I actually recommend getting black nylon gloves, better than nothing!
You and Courtney always do nice work 👍🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
You might consider also wrapping the fittings in your ducts so you don’t get condensation drips where they are exposed.
You could easily adjust the duct damping with a Raspberry Pi and some motors lol
And the condensate water. Is collected. And used for irrigation on your hedges. That's what I do. It's almost free irrigation.
I love the stuff you do and I love that you take things on and do them yourself. When you compare the cost of you doing the work to a quote you, to be fare you need to add your time in the price as well. Your time is money as well. You will still be cheaper then the quote. Thanks you for share this build.
Did HVAC for years, only critique is to use pookie around all your ducting connections. Usually you paint a ring of it around the ducting metal and slide the plastic tubing over it. Kinda helps lube it up too. When in doubt, more pookie! Haha
I don't know what the official HVAC way of drilling through sheet metal is, but step drills work well for general sheetmetal work. Pick up a set at HF.
I've been around building houses, and for how small this house is I would have opted for in floor heating, way warmer, and more of a constant warmth. On longer runs on hvac I would install low volt heating elements in the vent that come on just before the furnace, so cold air isn't the first thing being blown into the rooms.
We just bought a house with baseboard electric upstairs and no heating in the basement. we got quoted $18,000 to install heat pump and furnace. We’re pretty handy. This is our third house we’ve remodeled, but I’ve never touched HVAC. This video might give it a try
You are so easy to understand as you explain each piece, I love that !!!
My brother and I installed my bosch heat pump system. He is certified but he doesn't do hvac as a profession. He got tired of hiring "pros" that either didn't fix his stuff or made it worse. He found out it's pretty easy to get certified and did so. That aside, the bosch system comes precharged as well as long as your line set is 15ft or less. Unfortunately we were a little over that and he had a fitting failure in his gauge set and we lost almost all of the precharge. So due to that we did have to bust out the expensive specialized equipment. Had that not been the case the bosch system i would consider potentially diy friendly but maybe not as much as Mr cool. The bosch is also on the more expensive side of the spectrum but it's performance has been great so far considering my houses original ductwork is apparently all sized incorrectly. So that's going to be corrected in the future to get the system running as well as possible.
I could be wrong because I am not a residential guy (commercial refrigeration). But returns are just as if not more important then your supplies. Open plenum are something you normally see in commercial environments where there are no ceilings. Once you have independent rooms where doors shut you really want to be able to get the air out of that room using a return. I am sure it will work but probably not as efficiently as you would want and some rooms will perform better then others.
20k is also way too high. Probably could've got all this done with proper returns for 10k
The 20k bid from the contractor had a "I do not want this small job" feel to it. Using the very rough but wonderfully useful estimating tool I had as a GC it would have been more like 13-14 k for the job based on material costs. Even with a "small job adjustment" it would have been about 15k. That bid is a sure sign the contractor was too busy to mess with it. If you had said yes, he would be happy to take it but mostly did not want it. Small jobs do cost more as two or three short days cost money for travel time and interrupting the schedule for the big jobs. And yet the savings are real if he was the only choice in the area.
If it was not clear, I rarely said no to a job but if I did not want it, i would deliberately be high bidder. If I still got it the extra profit was nice, and if I did not get it all the better. Only time I said no to a job was if the customer was an obvious "Karen".
Here's the text with added information about whistling:
Think of your house's air system like breathing. You know how you both inhale and exhale air? Your house needs to do the same thing:
Supply vents (the ones that blow air into rooms) are like your house breathing out
Return vents (the ones that suck air in) are like your house breathing in
Two important rules to remember:
The path for the "breathing in" air (return duct) needs to be at least as big as the path for the "breathing out" air. This helps your system work properly, just like how you can't breathe well through a tiny straw!
Every main room in your house (like your bedroom, the living room, and kitchen) needs either:
Its own "breathing in" vent (return vent), or
A way for air to flow back to a return vent (like through the gap under a door)
Here's something else to watch out for:
If your return air has any tight spots or restrictions (like a bent grille or partially blocked vent), you might hear whistling noises. This happens just like when you whistle with your mouth - air makes noise when it's forced through a small space. If you hear whistling, it usually means something is blocking the air's path and needs to be fixed!
That was very informative. Keep them coming.
The Mr cool system that you have in your Google spreadsheet is a single fan heat exchange on the outside of the building yet in your video you have the dual fan.
Nice job. Better thee than me. I HATE working sheet metal. Sliced my hands way too many times.
bought an old house in late 2018. furnace was over 25 years old. November 2022, it died of old age! quotes from several different HVAC contractors, furnace only using existing ductwork from $5000 - $6000. Just to replace the furnace with a 10 year warranty.! I bought a brand new AirQuest 85,000 BTU 96% efficiency gas furnace for HVAC DIRECT For $1750. parent company of AirQuest makes gas furnaces under many different well known brand names and they’re all pretty much identical! furnace cost me $1750 including shipping delivered to my door! I removed the old gas furnace, installed the new furnace myself with the exception of the 3” Schedule 40 PVC piping for the exhaust and the air inlet to bring air from the outside. The reason why you may need 3” PVC, instead of 2” or 2 1/2” is based on the your altitude & distance number of 45s or 90° pipe bends that you have. New furnaces don’t have grills on them so they don’t get air from the location they’re placed in your house. they need to have air brought in from the outside. I hired my local plumber to do that. He only charged me $200. I bought (3) 3” Schedule 40 PVC pipe, plus the elbows, pipe cost me around $150-$200 From Home Depot. Luckily my plumber was also an HVAC contractor and he used a Nemometer to check and adjust the settings so they were correct for the amount of gas my gas pipe into the (5) gas burners.
I placed the new gas furnace on top of the concrete floor in the basement and I made a base used 2x4 pressure-treated wood. With a piece of plywood on top and the furnace rests on top of the plywood 2x4 base. I also bought a 4 inch box to go in between the furnace and the return duct. This allows me to get up to a MERV 14 4 inch wide filter to filter out the contaminants from inside my house going into the furnace, then being released into the ducting system.
Always put you registers blowing on exterior walls..HVAC 101
If you insulate properly and maintain airflow, it should make no difference. But on an older uninsulated home, it's practically mandatory.
IF Reckless Riley can do it Anyone can do it!!😆😁 The exterior looks good in green,. You were quiet Courtney!!, misse youre dulcet tones,🤩😀Great video Thanks. x x x
I am a fan from Thailand. I like watching you very much and have watched all your videos.
Great video, but I didn’t see the part where you installed a filter into the system. Those are critical to you, keeping your air handler clean and working for a long time.
The filter installs in the bottom of the air handler (on the return air side).
That mastic is also good for waterproof sealing window openings before you install the windows.
You are a genius, much love from kenya 🇰🇪
I too, am a member of the 'NO Gloves' faction. For me, I find that I just don't have the dexterity to handle most things, except for maybe metals. This has been a particular issue for me recently, where I started working in an environment that absolutely REQUIRES gloves at all times that are snugly fitting and no loose fingertips. I guess I can get used to it.
WOW..... Well done. Great savings!
Here’s a free tip. Turn your air handler 90°. Otherwise, when you go to Braze the copper lines you will never be able to shut your door on that closet. The copper will stick out too far.
Think about installing home assistant while your building. It is well worth it.. so put a leak sensor in the drain pan.. :)
2x materials for labor and overhead is what I always heard for hiring it done. 15k would be a good quote for hiring it out.
Ummmm did you think about drywall g and finishing the walls where your furnace is going first? By installing the furnace first you created double the work and big challenges down the road.just a thought.
FYI!
I hope you put a extractor fan moving (slightly) more air from the bathrooms to the outside of the house than your air handler put in to the room, otherwise you will have positive pressure air going from the bathroom (with the smells generated with in) in to the whole house and I doubt you want the kitchen and/or living room smelling of farts (or worse).
Would that not increase your need for a/c and heat because of discharging the conditioned air to the outside?
We love Foreman Oliver checking Mr Recklesses work!?!
where i'm at, modern code allows for the condensate to go straight into the septic/sewer.
Another banger of a video
Riley practicing his DIY dad jokes
the thing that worries me about the DIY units is that I installed one of these units for a customer being a general contractor and not an HVAC contractor, I spoke with the HVAC contractor I have used in the past and he said he did not want to install the unit and that he refuses to work on the DIY units including repair work in protest to their massive loss in installation labor and he said that most HVAC contractors he has spoken to in the area feel the same way. I imagine that you can find contractors to service these units but maybe this could be an issue in your area...I don't know. He said one of the biggest issues beyond being stubborn was that when an HVAC contractor works on a unit they have to warranty their work for one year and he wasn't willing to do that.
Whatever the better way is, cutting sheet steel you please must wear decent leather gloves Riley!!!! Ah you got there in the end.... ;) Absolutely great video. Nothing like this exists in homes over here (predominantly wet central heating with radiators) and domestic AC is pretty much a rarity too. (UK). Fascinating to watch your process at work though, well thought through. Totally demystified!
The house looks awesome! Perhaps instead of a rachet strap you could have used DUCT TAPE......The one thing it was actually made for.......Don't worry. I did the same thing, and my buddy busted me for it. I just never thought if it for that... This looks like a great system. I'll definitely keep it in mind for my next project. In my last house we needed a new unit and they put the upstairs unit in the attic most likely when they were framing, because it didn't come through a 2'x2' hole, and the downstairs unit was in the crawl space, which had the same kind of access. I think the main cost of the job was labor for them taking apart and reassembling the units piece by piece to get them through the holes. It was a nightmare. I do have a question for you: What are you doing for the intake? We have 1 large duct on each floor (Where the filter is), that keeps the system "sealed" for lack of a better word. How do you do that with the intake under the unit? Are you going to close off the sides and add a filter? Best of luck until next week!
You sir, are a very clever fellow with a gift of gab and a smarty pants to boot.
That foil tape should have been used on all your duct to grill connections but everything looks great it's unbelievable that a diy system that anyone can do is available at that price. Man that's a better deal than God gave Noah😊
The reason for those prices is experienced techs, warranty, and liability issues and insurance for liability if issues arise from manufacturing of equipment and materials
Great Tutorial on basic HVAC install..👍
Flex duct can cause issues, but you can fabricate later for just those issues. Flex duct is also nice if you need to make a change or additional registers in the system quickly.
You have to wear gloves all the time to get used to them. I like the nitrile coated gloves in the 10 pack. They have grip, fight tight, are cheap, and provide enough protection for most things. I have handled ducting with them along with using them to push the mower and since they are a couple dollars per pair if I ruin one or two I don't feel bad. I have spent real money on pairs of gloves and there are specific ones you do want for special things, but my cheapos work for carrying materials, painting, mudding, foaming, stuccoing, and gripping. Seems like a splinter might get me but mostly the glove and additional grip strength is so nice working overhead or moving material. 🗿👽🗿👽🗿
I hope you sized the heat pump for heating otherwise you are going to have a very hard time keeping up in those cold winter months. And splitting the flex duct with Y’s you will run into air flow issues, you should have made home runs to the plenum.
One reason you have a beautiful wife is because how damn smart you are. Great channel. Been watching you a year now. You're great my friend
Amazing great savings
Ah nice one more thing to work around when trying to insulate.
Hope you are going to drywall behind the air handler before the final hook up !
Absolutely you both are the best.
Nice install my only question is do you intend to finish the walls around the unit
How are you going to sheet rock around that air handler ? Insulate your plenum .
we called it pookie. have fun. that stuff gets everywhere like anti seize.
Awesome video. Awesome job.
You make everything look so easy😅
Riley your the new and improved Bob Villa. And more fun. And of course Courtney is the best of the best also. I haven’t come up with a clever title yet.
Not a fan of heat pumps in my area but i like the easy setup. We had an estimate to replace the badly installed out flowing duct work of 5k. I did it myself for a lot less. One bad contractor makes it hard to trust another one.
Just a question. Why do Heat vents get put up high in rooms when heat rises? My simple mind would want to think you would want them low??? As always you guys rock!