The unit's finally here for my DIY home
air conditioning on the cheap. And I
made some mistakes. Not once, but twice.
I actually ordered completely the wrong kit. My warehouse staff was extremely
disappointed. And so, unfortunately, I only have the outdoor unit today. But
that's okay because there's still plenty that I can do. I can run coolant lines
up the house. I can run a big fat tech cable to get power to the outdoor unit
from my panel. And if all of this sounds like something that I'm going to have
one heck of a time doing unassisted,
you're right. In fact, I wasn't even moving this box on my own. The one and
only Brian the electrician is here to help. And help is what I need.
Brian the electrician. He's electrifying
and helpful. Such a helpful man. And you know what else I need to tell
you guys about Ruggable? Protect your floors from your computer chair with
Ruggable. Ruggable rugs are machine washable and they'll stay in place with
their non-slip pads. Use code Linus 10 to get 10% off your order at the link
below.
All right. So, by 3:00 it's a 43% chance of rain. And by 4:00 that goes up to
69%. Nice. Um, not nice. What that means is
we should probably focus on the outdoor stuff first. Yeah.
Okay. The measuring competition with the like having more tools than me thing has
gotten out of hand here. You don't have to pull up with a whole
truck of tools. What are we going to need here? This is some armor for where
the cables are going to come down the wall, I guess. Yeah.
Wow. What's that? Like eight gauge? Yeah. Dang. Wa. It's That one's heavy. It's a
good thing you didn't throw this that much. Oh, man. Now we've got armor plus 8
gauge. Oh, wait. That one's not that heavy. Is this not 8 gauge? No, it's 8 gauge. It's just a lot
shorter length. I see that. What do we need this for?
uh strapping on the outside. Really? My wife is going to have a fit
when she sees this running up the outside of the house. Well, no, no, it's cuz everything's
going to be running up. You just put this across. Then we only do two screws
through your siding instead of multiple straps and everything straps to this.
Okay. This right here. So, this is our suction and what's this one called?
Well, that that's the suction or the low pressure. That's your discharge or your
high pressure. Got it. Okay. So, this is just in case
the kit, which does include 25 ft of
each per ceiling unit, uh it's just in case the kit doesn't include enough,
which it doesn't. I get the feeling that this kit is designed more for like uh
like a singlestory rancher style installation, but because we're going
all the way up the wall and we're actually going to be going quite deep into the house,
we're definitely going to need some extra. How much did all of this cabling
cost? about 800 for uh the materials. 800 bucks.
Yeah. Wow. Okay. Compared to what I was quoted for air conditioning, which was 25 grand
plus, we were doing real well. Yeah. Because the entire setup for the like
the kit was 2,800.
So, plus another 800 Canadian rubles. I'm still at like 4 grand Canadian,
which is like a quarter the price even after I
pay a filming crew to be here. and like watch us do it.
Yeah. And I'm assuming I should probably pay you as well.
Not bad. While I've been waiting for the air conditioner to arrive and while
Brian's been prepping materials, I've been getting my attic ready. So, one of
the other issues with my house is that my insulation was about 35 years old and
never particularly amazing. You can see there's actually a little bit of it left
here and it's basically just like kind of roped onto this skylight. Lots of
gaps in it. Anywhere you have a gap in your insulation is an opportunity to
lose a lot of heat in the winter and have a lot of heat come in in the
summer. So, we actually had all of the insulation in the attic removed in
preparation for this project. So, I've been running Ethernet runs, uh, putting
in new security cameras, doing all the stuff that is really easy to do while
you've got things removed and really hard to do once it's, uh, back in here.
Over on this side is where the lines are going to come in. And then we're going
to have two ceiling units here and here for the two bedrooms that are combined
into one, but that we may put back together someday. We're going to have
one that comes clear across the ceiling to right under where Andy's standing
there. And then we actually need one more way over here. You're not going to
be able to follow me over here, but I'm going to go over into the front attic
where the office is. So that's where the the computer room and stuff like that
is. One of the most important things that I did for prep was get lighting
installed in my attic. It used to be that there was just one little like
desktop lamp that hung off of this 2x4
and then was plugged into an outlet right here. Instead, now we've actually
got four light sockets up here so we can actually see what we're doing. Now, you
were concerned about the overall capacity of this panel cuz it's only a
100 amp service and then you're how you're allowed to use what? 80% of it.
Yeah, you have baseboards upstairs that this will not only function as an air
conditioner, but it will also work as a heat pump. Okay. So, you have baseboards upstairs we can
disconnect. Mhm. That you don't need anymore. And then
you were also talking about going to a gas range. Conveniently, the electric baseboards
are already a 240 volt circuit. So, that
means it's as simple as I mean, should we put in like a switch to switch
between them or like what's the point? As long as they're disconnected, there's
no way they can come on and, you know, be a load, right?
So, what are we looking at here? So, well, we need to figure out which
breakers for your upstairs baseboards. Aha. I spent an entire evening mapping
out this panel because the labels that were on it before are terrible. Also,
part of the original plan that I laid out on the WAN Show when I first found
out about these things was putting the
outdoor unit. So, this is the condenser
in the eaves of my house. Or actually, I had intended instead of using a four-way
like a one to four mini split system, I had intended to use just one smaller
outdoor and indoor units and just like mount them in the sophets of my house.
Brian Brian informed me that it was really stupid that plan. He's being
really nice right now and keeping his mouth shut. But that's all I can really do sometimes.
Yeah, I have to be nice to you. I'm still relying on you to actually hook it up
right and not, you know, make my house burn down. It was really nice of the
contractor who came and put this in to do it. Everyone else we called was like,
"Are you for real? That is the smallest, stupidest job ever. I'm not doing it."
Like just coming and putting one little concrete pad here. But yeah, a couple
hundred bucks. So we'll add that to the tally for the whole project. And it
looks bad, right? Perfect. Yeah. Uh, so now what?
Well, now we get the lines that came with this thing. See how wide they are
and how much room we're going to need to run up the wall. And then we can start
cutting pieces to mount to the wall and strap everything. Okay. All the refrigerant lines come in
down on this side. For each cassette unit, there's going to be both a
discharge and a suction line. The discharge is small and the suction line's bigger. So everything ties in
here. So it'll be four separate pairs running up the wall. Each unit also gets
a power run from this. Oh wow, that's 12 things running up the
wall. And then we also need the tech cable to bring power to this. That's
lucky 13 things running up the wall. Considering uh how getting everything
here is gone for you. 13 seems appropriate.
Okay, here we go. So this is the
accessory kit for the cassettes that we're still waiting for. So, a cassette
is the terminology for the inseiling mounted cold side units that are going
to go in each room compared to I forget what the wall-mounted ones are called,
but I really don't like those. I think they look like a big wart. And so, I
wanted to go with the insealing ones, which is why I did that second
exchanger. Okay, so it does look like this is what
I thought it was. The ends of the valves
here, this is just a a cover nut that comes off. And then you use an Allen
wrench on uh the valve underneath and that's what actually opens or closes it.
I noticed that A down here has a fatter suction than B, C, and D.
Interesting. Any reason why that might be? I'm presuming kind of from what I've
seen in here. It looks like if you have more than one
of these, you can actually link them together for increased capacity. And you can only
link them through the ASAT. Got it. We're going to do 15-in wide
straps up the house. That gives us 2 in each for the suction and discharge. Uh
an inch for the tech cable and then
another inch for this bundle that's
going to go from the outdoor unit to the four indoor units. We're going to have
four of these. Oh, hold on. I got to fix my Hold on. Let me fix my ladder
carrying form before uh you you roll on this, Andy. All right. There we go. Oh,
yeah. Moving a ladder like a pro now. Here we go. Yeah. Yeah. Very funny,
smart guy. Well, this is quite the invention. And this is the Brian the
electrician cutting table.
Okay. So, actually, I'll grab a file out of
the truck so we can clean up the burrs. I'm assuming that's going to be a me
job. It's kind of an assistant sounding job. Deburring the cuts.
I'm not even faulty about getting the tasks, though.
I'm going to have air conditioning when we're done. by code. You have to have a
disconnect close to these. Literally, you just pull that out to disconnect.
Okay, cool story, bro. There's rubber feet for this thing, too.
It looks like Oh, okay. Neat. I guess we should put those on. Or does it matter? Oh, yeah. I
guess for vibration, it might be nice to have. Yeah. Okay, sure. Why don't we just put those
on now, then? I guess then they're there. Then they're there. Uh, yep. That's 18
exactly. Okay. And then, and that's 18 exactly. # nailed it.
Okay. What's this? No, it's a Duck seal this. There's a duck seal. Oh, it's got to be
the same stuff then. Yeah, sure. Same idea either. Yeah. Okay. Asb best is free. Wonderful.
I didn't want to pay for asbestous. What can I do that would be useful?
Squeeze bullshes and then just put those on the wall.
Pretty much. Why don't I climb to the top and get a
piece of string and put a weight on it and hang it down the wall? That would be magic.
Okay. Okay. So, where do you want it? Um
I'm thinking kind of here about
it is for real Z is raining now.
Gravity always gives you a straight line that it does.
Whether the house is actually straight straight remains to be seen.
Yeah, that's a whole other thing.
This did not make this easier to deal with. Oh, you're just putting it on
anyway. Okay, fine. Whatever. Like I say, I was just figuring out where it's
going. So, I can do a dab of this where
we actually put it on. So, you can put the coaul in there.
Yes. Yes. Lionus,
I can do this. You know, I don't need supervision. I know why you're here.
Need somewhere to put the strap. And I'm sort of regretting telling you not to
debur it. It's not too bad because I got these nice protective undies.
ltstore.com. We need a disclaimer on the screen for that. ltstore.com underwear
do not actually protect against metal sharp metal burrs.
Undeterred by the weather. Brian's attached all eight of the lines to the
bottom of the air conditioning unit. All that remains for me to do is finish
strapping these all the way up to the set and then we can change gears over to
electrical. Right. Yeah.
Pass them up.
Oh, yeah. We haven't even really looked at where this is going to land us up
there. No. And that's kind of why I'm thinking if we just cut the hole in the soffet,
that's where it's going to go through regardless. All right, fair enough.
Oh, hello.
So, are you going to feed these up to me? I am. Yeah. Okay. I'm ready to feed one
through. Oh, okay. Let me know how hard you want me to pull. I don't want to throw you
off balance or anything. Nope. That's I'm fine. Okay. And that's
it. That's about it, eh? Yeah. Well, these definitely weren't long
enough without extending them, that's for sure. This last bit's definitely going to be a
little tight. Okay, we're just on the last tiny little
bit. Yeah. So, now it's just tweaking. Got them actually straight and clamped
and Yeah. Okay. I can do the clamps. Yeah.
Time to throw some tech cable up the wall. I think so.
These are the pe clamps we were missing yesterday. So, you just hook them on
there and you give them a little tidy tighten and then boom,
disconnected. Thinking about cable management, we're actually going to put
yet another hole up there because if we
want to hook up the gas range, which we need to do to have enough capacity here,
then we're going to need a gas line coming down here anyway. So, if we think
about that now, it might save us some hassle later. So, instead of bringing
the tech tech cable and the uh the other electrical wiring down here close to uh
these guys, the refrigerant lines, we're going to bring them down this far edge.
That way, the disconnect box can be right over here without interfering with
the gas line coming straight down and then hopefully across the bottom there.
So, we are probably going to need you in the attic to push this through.
Okay. Um, lengthwise
for this, too. And he undid all the work I did while he
was up the ladder. You You mean this work? Yeah. I I also ran the thing through it.
Go. Well, now we got to strap it all the way
down. Then we put a a junction box in the attic because we don't need the
armored cable running through the house. Then we can run the unarmored cable from
that box through the attic and down to the panel in the garage.
There's not a lot of space to work in there, is it? No. Especially for the amount of wire
that's going to be in here. Yeah. We got to put in four sets for all
the cassettes. And then this gigantic
power for power for everything. This is kind of ridiculous.
Yeah. And plus, I'm going to have to drill this out a little bit more.
That's not going to fit. Not thrilled about how it's going to
sit. But don't really have much choice.
This is so amazing. Just having your own like workbench that you carry around
with you. I think my bicep is bigger than his forearm now. No, not yet. Still
working on it. Can I do anything useful?
Uh, you could strip these and hook up in here if you want.
Okay. I actually Oh, yeah. No, I I know how to do that.
My fingers are sore already. Really?
I strip any more equipment? We're going to have to start calling me the
stripper. Hey, got them.
You didn't tie these in. Yeah, I didn't know how to do it.
I didn't know where they went. What do you want from me?
Okay. So, we'll probably do one down here.
Want to be nice and follow the contour.
Can you reach that one? Yeah. These aren't as stiff, so it's a
little tougher. Keep going. A little
more. You're there. Okay, great. That's it then. We're done
out here, aren't we? Yeah. Uh, all that's left is Well, we
need the wet connector for the tech and actually anchoring the unit down.
Oh, yeah. Okay. Uh, that can do kind of whenever, though.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. We're headed inside.
Yeah. Actually, it's kind of a beautiful day today. I wish we were inside yesterday.
And Yeah. Thought it'd be good how that all came
up. We can put all the junction boxes up on
the tubis at the end here. Transition to uh the LUMX going to the cassettes
and to the Lumix that's going to power everything. So, at
this point, we're going to go run the lines and just
get them boxed. Then we have our connection points ready to go for uh
when we do more wiring.
Now that we're ready to tie this into the box, uh Brian stripped the tech
cable, which involves taking off the outer sheath, ripping apart the armor
with his bare hands, cutting this piece,
stripping another sheath, and then we've got the four conductors exposed now. So,
we've got our uh what do you what what do you call them for AC?
The color coding there is three hots, but the the blue we could mark as a
neutral if need be. Got it. And then the way we're gonna cable manage it is such that I'm gonna
be able to put all my flooring plywood back in here and it's just going to run
up through that little gap over there. Yay. Yay.
So, um, yeah. And then I'll strap it when we do the the Lumax.
Beautiful. Yeah. Am I moving? Where do you want me?
There's good. Where? Wherever wherever you feel comfortable because that's it,
guys. That's part one. The only thing left to do outside here is to get that
second wet connector we need and run this tech cable into the disconnect.
But all this is all hooked up. All this is cable managed and the tech cable is
tied into the box at the top. So now we
just play the waiting game for the indoor units. And while we wait, we can
check out our sponsor for today. Lenode provides virtual servers that make it
easy and affordable to host your own app, site, service, or whatever in the
cloud. Other entry-level hosting services work for startup, but
eventually you're going to want something that's powerful, customizable, and that can be used for cloud
computing. You can easily set up your own server with their one-click apps. Or
there's the DIY option if you want to go for a full custom setup, so you can
deploy Minecraft or CSGO servers or WordPress or or really anything you
want. You can even use it to spin up your own VPN. They've got affordable
pricing with no hidden fees that try to sneak onto your monthly bill. And best
of all, their customer support is 100% human, 24/7, 365 via phone or support
tickets. Get $20 in free credit on your account by visiting lenode.com/Linus
or at the link in the video description. So, thanks for watching. If you guys
enjoyed this video, maybe you should check out one of our other collabs with
Brian the electrician. Maybe the one where we um installed the charger in my
garage. Yeah, that that's a good one. That one's a cuz we didn't film the stripping the
tech cable in this one, but we did in that one. So, if you were curious, how
does it look like when he rips it apart with his bare hands? You can see it
there.
Okay. Well,
out of out of an A, you know, where are we at?
Um,
yeah, an A. Yeah. I don't think I don't think he could have done it any better.
That's the problem.