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Vermont 2017

The 2017 FHB House is a production-built house in a small development of net-zero-ready houses in Wilder, Vermont, all with a focus on affordability and universal design principles. It’s designed to be quickly built and easily duplicated while meeting stringent air-sealing and performance standards and a strict budget.

Tools & Materials

Minisplit System for a Happy Mother-in-Law

The system is sized for temperature control in each room.

By Tim Biebel
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The FHB House is heated and cooled with Mitsubishi Heat Pumps. Specifically, there are two outdoor units (MXZ-3C24NAHZ2) that feed five indoor units (two on one outdoor unit and three on the other).

This provides 48,000 btu’s of heating capacity, which is overkill for the house, but it allows us to heat the main living spaces individually. The kitchen, living room, and all three bedrooms each have their own indoor unit. I wanted people to be able to have better control over the temperature in each bedroom. What if a mother-in-law comes to visit? A cold mother-in-law benefits no one. For not much of a cost increase, we are able to provide heating and cooling flexibility, eliminating cold mother-in-law potential.

Installation of the indoor units occurs during the rough in phase of construction. The refrigerant and condensate lines are buried in the wall and the unit is mounted on a piece of sheetrock that the drywallers will finish to later.

 

Our installers like to do it this way because they can connect their fittings more easily.

 

When the unit is mounted on an interior wall connecting the line sets becomes a one man job.

 

The outdoor units are mounted on precast concrete slabs once the finish grading is done around the house.

Mounting them to the side of the building is noisy and vibrates the building structure. It’s better to ground mount them. The raised mounting brackets help keep the compressors above winter snow.

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View Comments

  1. FBaldwin | Nov 18, 2017 10:41am | #1

    The major benefit of the Mitsubishi mini-split is the inverter control which allows a variable speed compressor that will change with the heat load. Most HVAC are designed assuming that the entire house is occupied with a fixed heat load. Closing vents on a typical forced air unit decreases the efficiency.

    In my Los Angeles Home I replaced a traditional FAU with five small Mitsubishi SEER 26 Mini-Split units. I added hydronic baseboard for heating. Depending on how much my PV System is producing I can switch between the mini-split heat pumps and natural gas heated hydronic. Traditional heating and cooling systems waste huge amounts of energy.

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