Cooper & Hunter Penta 5 Zone 9000 9000 9000 9000 24000 Ductless Mini Split Air Conditioner Heat Pump System Pre-Charged Inverter Compressor With 5 Installation Kits

I love this mini split unit. The install happened in one day (6 people total for 5 zones). It was not extremely hard, but I'm sure the A/C tech really appreciated the help of my family. The units run very cold and very quiet. The only drawback (very minor) is that you can only run one type of setting/mode at one time. I completely understand you don't want to run the cold in one room and the heater in a different room, but whichever cold setting/mode you run it on in one room it has to be that way in all rooms. It's not that big of a deal and this is the only critique I have on the unit. I'm actually thinking of buying another unit for two more rooms. I highly recommend this mini split.

So I would say that as a first time home owner the prospect of drilling holes in my house and connecting this to the electric line was not in my own comfort zone, I had family who install professionally help me put it in, it took about 20 hours total for two people, and when registering for the warranty it did require a installer ID for me so I am not sure how those who self install get around that.But for the systems themselves, they have worked like a charm, great heating and cooling, a major upgrade over a swamp cooler/old furnace for me and has pretty nicely lowered my bills by at least 30$ a month

This was my first time installing an AC system.I've had a single C&H working great at my office for a year that was professionally installed, so I decided to recommend the brand to a friend who purchased a cabin in Weldon, CA. The total system is 48,000 BTU and the cabin is 1,700sq ft. We installed the 5 zone system DIY.First thing about this you'll notice is these are SUPER quiet. Both the outdoor unit and the indoor units. You can barely hear unless you have the fan on high. Compared to his previous window units (you'd have to shout to talk to someone beside you) these have transformed his cabin.I figured we'd go a little bigger on the system since the price difference is not that much and it would be way worse having done all this work and end up with an undersized system, it's also an "inverter" meaning it can cool/heat variably from 48,000 btu depending on the load required by the indoor units, unlike more basic compressors that typically run at just 1 or 2 speeds.So far it's working great, and got the cabin cooled down to 68 degrees on day of testing with outdoor temp at 108. It can cool the interior from 110 to 68 in about 1.75 hours. The cabin is well insulated but the windows are not great. It's also the high desert so the overall energy in the air is less since it's so dry so do some research before choosing your system size. 108 in Southern California is not the 108 that would be in Florida.We ordered from minisplitsforless, and picked it up at their shipper's local depot in south LA so they could load the 500 pound pallet directly onto my truck.The tools specific to AC systems (all here on amazon) you won't have in your toolbox that you'll 100% need are:- Pipe cutter c.$15- Vacuum pump . c$130- Coper pipe flaring tool c.$30Nice to haves, that I wish I had purchased:- Pipe bender $100+- Torque wrench- Union compression fittings (if you kink a pipe)Things that surprised me:- The copper linesets are very easy to kink, and a pipe bender would have helped me a lot.- I knew it was going to be hard to feed the linesets though holes in studs and around corners and so on, but it's about 10x harder than you think. Plan your runs to be as easy as possible with few 90 degree bends as possible (each line can have a maximum of 3 or maybe 4 - see manual). We ended up putting a few indoor units in non optimal locations in a couple of the rooms, but the airflow is great, and you can aim the airflow horizontally to either side of the indoor units and still moves air around the entire room just fine.- Even though it's written in the manual, I didn't notice before beginning the install that the refrigerant pre-charge is for about 130 feet total of lineset, so if you have more you'll need a scales and refrigerant to top it off. There are online suppliers that will sell the non-ozone depleting refrigerant to the public.You need to buy the wifi dongles separately. The app is *meh* (doesn't' seem to be Siri compatible), but worth it if you would like to get your place cool before you arrive.Good luck with your install, we completed 5 zones done in 2 long days with two people and it was a lot of fun!