I Saved Thousands! A DIY Heat and AC System with Heat Pump

Carpenter, concrete, electrician, plumber. And now HVAC. You go girl. Mad skills as always. Cheers

I replaced my office hvac & one in a rental house. Although the attic units were very accessible, it was still easier to replace just the coils & fan elements inside the old sheet metal boxes than lug the whole new units upstairs for the office or thru a ceiling crawl hole for the house.

I am an HVAC guy and i have much respect for you for tackling this job yourself.

So far I’ve installed 6 of these units. Three on the last house and three on the new house. I always use 2 ton separate units this way if a compressor goes out I still have some what of air from the other units. Self taught, now I’m teaching neighbors. Never a problem.

I like how you don’t let your fears prevent you from tackling projects April! Congrats on a successful installation! 👏👍😃

I’m a retired master electrician but over the years I’ve replaced my own furnace in 3 different houses, done a few for friends and relatives, installed the entire system in a new house I had built, and installed a complete AC system and replaced the boiler in a 5000sq.ft. historic home I restored. The boiler was the biggest challenge, it was a beast. I dismantled that to remove it because it was so heavy, fortunately it came apart in ten 120# sections once I stripped the cabinet off it. That thing had a 10” diameter copper glue pipe connecting it to the chimney. I got over $400 for the scrap metal from that. I take my time , plan ahead, do actual heat loss/gain calcs to correctly size the unit (most “pros” don’t), and used manual D to properly size the ductwork. Mine all turned out better than most of the “pros”. Skilled trades are greatly under staffed these days so actual craftsmen are hard to find so this is a good opportunity to save some money and likely end up with a better result.

I've been watching this channel diyhvacguy and have learned a lot from his videos as well. If you have a working unit, you can self recover the refrigerant into the condensor. Someone will have to recover it from that at a later date. Great information in this video. I always look forward to see what your doing next.

Great video as always! Helpful life saving meter tip in the future. Prior to assuming a piece of equipment is no longer energized is to do a live-dead-live test. Confirm your meter is working properly by testing it on a known love circuit, followed by the de-energized circuit you are validating. Followed by known live.

Kudos to you; you amaze me with every video! A couple things to mention; It gets hot in those attics in the summer time. Seriously, heat stroke in 15 minutes! Also, in the south its pretty common to have an attic AND a crawl space (like a basement but not as high, and with a dirt floor). Most crawl spaces were not built with ease of access in mind, though I built my house myself and built it with EOA at the top of my list, since I was in a service job for 25 years! Third, many 2-story homes have separate units up and down for more even cooling/heating. Ours does and I wouldn't have it any other way! Total control of each floor; it makes a huge difference!

Nice job April, im an HVAC Contractor and after seeing this video i would hire you in a heart beat to install new ac systems. You did amazing, i am amazed on how well you did. Thank you for sharing!

For safety, you need to do four things. Turn off the thermostat so it's not calling for service or running the fan in your furnace and that is actually used even when not heating, it's used for cooling, too. You need to turn off the furnace fan at the furnace. You turn off the circuit breaker for the A/C unit in the breaker box but please stand to the side of the breaker box, the side closest to the switch you're turning off to help mitigate the rises of arc flash and associated events. Same thing when you turn it back on, same procedure. Pull out the the quick disconnect (you say it's code that you need it, that depends purely on the city and state you're in). I'll be honest, it should be code regardless for the quick disconnect to be a part of this unit.

Good choice and good job on the heat pump install. I installed a Mr Cool system in my house and am very happy with it. Don't forget to send in for your Mr.Cool hat! lol

Ok is there is there anything that April hasn't done? The AC isn't only cool thing in attic. 😎 😊👍👍

I run a heat pump and -22 is impressive. I know mine still run in below freezing, just runs a lot longer using more electric. Since you geek out on tech I’ll tell you I automated my propane fireplace and ceiling fan to come on with the heat pump from the thermostat only when it’s colder then 40 outside and it runs half the time now with double the off time in between. Plus the benefit of increasing humidity in the house. So far works great. But I may still install a small Mr cool for the garage this year.

I recommend running a 2”thick filter. It will facilitate less static pressure in the system which makes less resistance on the fan, more effective heat exchange. Wish they had this product when I did mine myself.

When working in an inclosed area where this is fiberglass insulation, some kind of respirator would be a good idea because as you move around, fine fibreglass dust becomes airborne.

I saved $5000 by doing it myself, probably a 3hr job I fabricated the wall mount too. Doing research took 8 hours of research sifting through inconsistent videos comparing to the manual for several afternoons. The 30 videos I went through turned out to be a huge time waste I should have just studied the manual, where I live most professional installers don't follow the book after learning it myself.

Would love a followup video on how you chose the unit you did. I'm trying to get my a/c unit (both inside and out) replaced and this video gave me a huge confidence boost that I could do it myself. Thanks and love your videos ma'am.

My goodness April another outstanding diy project you have done have a great week be safe

Nice work on accomplishing what can be a daunting task! Glad you shared this one with us. Thanks! Keep on building!