Replies

1. 
   mr_reference_Hugh | Oct 14, 2022 03:29pm | #1

   I did a ton of research before buying my Mitsu equipement.

   You mention: I’m leaning toward telling her to go with the Mitsubishi equipment...

   Response: Ya, that is what I ended up doing because everyting was pointing to Mitsubishi being reliable and from what I could tell they were at the head of the pack in terms of cold climate heat pumps. This says something even if you don't need a cold climate unit.

   Was it reasonable to "just go with Mitsubishi"? Here is what I went through to let you understand how I ended up buying Mitsubishi.

   I know that other brands do have cold climate equipment and Mitsubishi comes at a premium. I actually had quite a bit of difficulty getting specs online for other equipment. Not sure if it was me but I was able to get info on Mitsubishi really easily. I had a local vendor who was pushing me towards Daikin but he knew a lot less than me about the equipment he was selling - mind you he did say that his firm was just starting a new relationship with Daikin. Most (maybe all) the HVAC companies I called were pushing me to stick with a natural gas furnace, and this after if I told them that I needed less than 13,000 BTUs /hr of heat at -25C.

   They all could install heat-pumps but there are very few who specialized in heat pumps in our geographical area of Turtle Island. The firm that I chose for the install knew more than most but I was still the one guiding them on the options that were available. To be fair, I think that the equipment available is evolving so quickly that it hard for them to keep up. These HVAC installer are overloaded already just responding to customers who want either a straight A/C unit or natural gas furnaces... NOW! I think that it is the demand side that will make HVAC companies in our area start to focus on heat-pumps.

   Of course, I am no expert but my point is this: you are very likely the best placed person to make the choice no matter what the sales person is telling you.

2. Expert Member
   Dana Dorsett | Oct 14, 2022 04:16pm | #2

   Daikin owns Goodman, not the other way around. If it is a modulating heat pump it's more likely to be a fully Daikin design than Goodman. (Shortly after acquiring Goodman Daikin opened an equipment design center in Texas.) If it's a single or 2 stager it might be a mixture of components. I haven't peeked under the sheet metal of any newer model Goodman or cube-shaped Daikins, but I strongly suspect they are all becoming more Daikin-like than traditional Goodman-like.

   The ASPT37C14 air handler is a multi-speed ECM beastie, which makes me think the system is more Daikin-like:

   https://daikincomfort.com/products/heating-cooling/whole-house/air-handlers-coils/aspt-multi-position

   But the manual for the DZ16SA160301 indicates a Copeland compressor and no indication of multiple speeds, which is Goodman-like

   https://backend.daikincomfort.com/docs/default-source/product-documents/residential/specifications/ss-dz16sa.pdf?sfvrsn=1eb32c26_21

   At one time (not very long ago) Daikin was the world's largest vendor of VRV/VRF (Variable Refrigerant Volume/Flow= modulating) HVAC equipment, more recently eclipsed by juggernaut Midea.

   If it's a single-speed compressor it's critical to not oversize the system for the design loads, both for comfort and as-used efficiency. Indeed, even undersizing it slightly and adding strip-heat to cover the very-cold days uses less annual electricity than 1.5x oversized equipment. Even fully variable modulating systems should not be oversized by more than 1.2x the design loads, where possible, to max out comfort & efficiency. Modulating ranges are not infinite, no matter how much marketing hype they throw on the BS heap.

   To have a better shot at getting it right (even as replacement-equipment), running the BetterBuiltNW load tool (free, but you have to share an email to get an account), which has much more appropriate default U-factors built in than most general-purpose load tools. It was purpose-designed to rein in the rampant oversizing that happens with most HVAC contractors, and they made it very easy to use (even HVAC contractors can handle it! :-) ) See:

   https://betterbuiltnw.com/hvac-sizing-tool

   If she runs the actual load numbers she might find that both the Mitsubishi and Goodman proposals are sub-optimally oversized for the actual cooling & heating loads.

1. 
   sk | Oct 14, 2022 04:29pm | #4

   Thanks Dana. I (and many others) have learned so much from you. Will look at the betterbuiltnw tool. The proposals are definitely oversized, but not as much as I had feared. The fact that Daikin seems to Frankenstein together Daikin and Goodman-esque components scares me right back to Mitsubishi.

   That said, the Daikin Fit system looks interesting...

   Thanks again for all you contributions to the GBA community!

3. 
   sk | Oct 14, 2022 04:20pm | #3

   Thanks for sharing your experiences and your takeaway that an informed client often knows more about the product than the sales rep. That has been my experience with mini-splits. My immediate concern is thinking we're getting a Daikin engineered product but getting Goodman instead. Don't want Goodman (or Carrier or Trane) engineering. I think it's pretty clear that Mitsubishi (and Fujitsu) only market their own heat pump products. Daikin's product line seems like a mess in comparison.

4. Expert Member
   Akos | Oct 15, 2022 10:36am | #5

   That Daikin is a warm climate heat pump. At near freezing temperature it looses about 30% of its nameplate capacity. Even the non-hyper heat SVZ/SUZ delivers at least 100% of its nameplate capacity down to 20F.

   Unless the Daikin is significantly cheaper, it doesn't make sense in Zone 4. There are other Daikin models that are comparable to the Mitsubishi unit and they would work quite well such as the RZQ24TAVJU / FTQ24TAVJU 2 ton hyper heat unit:

   https://ashp.neep.org/#!/product/56874/7/25000///0