Mini-split installation and repair in Los Angeles
For houses with no ducts. A mini-split heats and cools one room at a time without opening plaster, and the lines run outside in a painted cover.
- Same day on calls before 2pm
- Replacement quotes are free
- One year on parts and labor
A Craftsman or Spanish bungalow built before central air has nowhere to run a duct. A mini-split puts a small indoor head in each room that needs one, piped to an outdoor unit. Most mini-splits are heat pumps, so the same heads heat the room in winter.
How an installation goes
- A visit to measure each room and see what the walls are made of. The outdoor unit needs air around it and room to work on it, so we find it a spot.
- A load calculation, room by room. It sets the size of every head, so a small bedroom doesn't get a head built for a living room.
- A written quote: how many heads, where each one goes, the route every line takes, and the price.
- Install day. The heads go up first. Their lines run down the outside wall in a line-set cover, painted the wall's color, to the outdoor unit on its pad or wall bracket.
- Before refrigerant is released into the new lines, they are pressure tested and pulled into a vacuum. Then the system runs in both modes and the readings go on its first record.
We pull the permit and book the inspection. You pay the city's permit fee to the city directly. Where your utility offers a rebate on the new system, we file the paperwork with them.
Repairing a mini-split
- A head that drips. Usually a blocked drain line, or a head that has tipped out of level.
- A head that ices up. Filters and a coil too dirty to pass air, or refrigerant run low from a leak. On mini-splits the leak is often at a flare joint where a line meets a head.
- Blinking lights. The unit is showing a fault code. Tell us the pattern when you call, and we read it on the visit.
- Running, but not cooling or heating. Usually a sensor or a fan motor in the outdoor unit, and now and then its control board.
The repair visit
- Visit fee
- $89
- We find the fault and write it down. The $89 comes off the bill if we do the repair.
- Arrival window
- 2 hours
- Sent by text, then a second text when your technician is on the way.
- Warranty
- 1 year
- Parts and labor on every repair and installation.
Nights and weekends cost the same as a Tuesday morning.
What the price of an installation depends on
- How many rooms get a head, and the size each one needs
- How far the lines run from each head to the outdoor unit
- The walls: lath and plaster, stucco or drywall, and how a line gets through them
- Where the outdoor unit goes: a pad in the side yard, a bracket on the wall, or the roof
- The power: how far the outdoor unit sits from the electrical panel, and whether the panel has room for its circuit
What you get
On an installation, a quote that names every head and every line run, and a first record with the readings from the day the system started. On a repair, the record that ends every visit, with the failed part and the readings on it.
Questions about mini-splits
Can one outdoor unit run several rooms?
Yes. A multi-zone outdoor unit runs two or more heads. Whether one unit or two makes sense depends on the rooms, and the quote says why.
Do the lines show on the outside of the house?
They run along the wall in a cover painted the same color. In some houses a line can go through a closet or an attic instead, out of sight.
Do you service mini-splits another company installed?
Yes. The record starts with what is on the wall now, whoever put it there.
How is a heat pump different?
Most mini-splits are heat pumps without ducts. A ducted heat pump can replace a furnace and a central AC together, using the ducts the house already has. See replacement for that.