Split AC : Installation tips

mk76

Adept
Recently I purchased my first split - Sharp AH-XP18MV. Based on the installation experience, I compiled a list of issues I faced and certains tips that may come handy. Specially for those, who are getting their walls ready, renovated, plastered etc.

Split AC has 2 parts - IDU and ODU aka Indoor unit and OUtdoor unit respectively. The tricky part is to lay cable, pipes to connect them.

Henceforth I refer cable to the bunch of electrical cable + 2 copper pipes + drain pipe.


Points to ponder
1) Slope - There should be sufficient slope from IDU for 'Drainage' pipe. This is a must to allow water to flow freely from IDU to the drainage point
2) Turns/Bends - Should be minimal. It is difficult to bend copper pipes as they carry risk of getting 'punched' (that could block the flow).
3) The IDU should be generally installed at 70% height.
4) Usually in IDU, the copper pipes are fixed in shape '__|'. Means they are joined with at top right corner and then have opening in direction towards left. I am not sure if this with every IDU, but that's what the engineer told me. This is important to know, because if your cable is coming from right of IDU, it will need a U turn to get connected. If coming from left side, will get connected straight in the same direction.
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5) The drainage point in IDU can be shifted to either side.




Installation of cable
1) There can be 2 scenarios for laying down cables from IDU to ODU -
2) The easy site - The ODU is placed on the opposite side of the wall. This is an easy site.
.... 2a) A hole can be dig through the wall and cable can pass through the wall to the other side.
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3) The hard site - The cable runs along the length of the wall to the exit point.
.... 3a) The wall should be dug along the length to lay down the cable.
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In my case, I had wall tiles getting installed. Plus the cable had to be run along the length of wall. And the exit point was 14 ft away from IDU installation. Definitely a hard site. It was important for me to have a system where the cable could be removed easily in case of need (eg leakage) without breaking the tiles.
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Tip:
1) So I used a 2 inch PVC pipe and had it installed in the wall. To serve as a container. Later I realized, a 2.5inch would have been better.
2) The PVC pipe was layed from the IDU installation point upto the exit.

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During installation
1) The engineer bundled the electrical cable, 2 copper pipes, drain pipe with a tape and then pushed inside the pvc enclosure.
2) It emerged at the other end, where he unbundled them and connected to respective points.
3) At 2 points along the length, the pvc had to be cut, to allow walls separation. At those points, I wrapped the cable in sponge, then put half cut 2 inch flexible pipe and finally sealed with sellotape.
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Have a look at this link or this link. Gives fair idea of what is involved in a split ac installation.
 
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