Midea Ductless Units
In our full-house renovation, we have decided to replace the oil furnace with a series of mini splits throughout the house. We have met with multiple HVAC contractors to price the project, and were/are planning on going with the Mitsubishi product, until recently when one HVAC installer (who also installs Mitsubishi) recommended Midea. This was the first time I’ve heard of this brand and a cursory search on the internet doesn’t show a significant US market share. Yes, they are very inexpensive, but cost is not a huge factor in our decision as we are prepared to spend what is necessary for the correct system; however, I am intrigued by the difference in cost between these units and the Mitsubishi. Is the 85-90% cost increase for the Mitsubishi units justified in terms of value?
Has anybody installed Midea units? If so, what has your experience been?
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Replies
I believe one of the posters on this side works for Midea USA. I has come up fairly frequently in the past couple of years:
https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/community/forum/general-questions/101197/ductless-mini-split-overpriced
https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/qa-spotlight/are-ductless-minisplits-overpriced
If I'm understanding it correctly Midea units are manufactured by Gree, the largest manufacturer of air conditioning & heat pump equipment in China. (I believe they make all of Carrier's ductless AC & heat pumps too.) The Midea brand has a wide range of home appliances large & small sold into the Chinese domestic market, appears to be primarily a marketing rather than manufacturing company. (It's National Marguerita Day- need a new blender? Midea can sell you one!)
Be careful to not oversize or install so much capacity that your multi mini-split solution ends up with them all cycling on/off in an efficiency-robbing mode rather than modulating most of the season at high efficiency. Be sure to look at the MINIMUM output numbers and gauge that relative to the average winter load and estimate temperature at which it simply can't modulate, and must cycle. (Some of the Midea submittal sheets don't even give a minimum-output @ +47F number, though that number is part of the HSPF test.)
The "ductless head in every room" approach usually leads to some pretty poor average performance, when spending the same money per room to upgrade the thermal performance of that room would have made installing a head/zone there unnecessary. A room by room, zone by zone Manual-J using aggressive rather than conservative assumptions will more than pay for itself in reduced equipment cost and higher operating efficiency.
Ryan,
Sorry to bring up an old thread, just curious if you went with Midea or Mitsubishi (or other). How are they working out? What heating zone are in you?