BL
Brian Lavigne
5 days ago
Prior to our installation our Precise consultant was very good to work with and was very quick and responsive to any questions we came up with in deciding to go with our new heat pump system. After deciding to go with the Mitsubishi system, the scheduling went really well, with little lead time, and the installation went very quickly and efficiently as expected all on the one day for which it was planned.
As this all occurred in January, we immediately starting using the new system for heating. This seemed to work very well, with one exception. Apparently, the basic remote provided with the system has a setting for a temperature, but it is not a true thermostat in controlling heating of the room to a given temperature, like normally heating thermostats. I was very disappointed in this and felt that this should have been a basic feature provided right from the start, out-of-the-box. After working with Precise and a visit from one of their technicians, it was determined that what was needed to enable this feature was to install kit #MHK2. This kit costs about $500 plus installation. I was able to save some money by buying one from ebay, and installing it myself. However, each inside unit really requires their own kit. So, for now we are going to see how we get along with installing just one on the unit in the most important room. So far, so good.
One other issue we ran into with the Mitsubishi system, was when days were starting to get warmer in the spring and we wanted to switch over from heating mode to cooling mode. Well, it turns out that regardless of the fact that each unit has its own remote, they all are connected to the same pump unit, so all of the indoor units need to be set to the same mode. I consider this a shortcoming of the system, and a minor inconvenience as on occasion you may want to heat in one room and cool another at the same time. This is much less of a concern than the issue above described relating to needing the kit for better temperature control.
The last issue we’ve had so far, was again around the time of the switch-over from heat to cool. Even after resetting the breaker for the system and switching all of the indoor units to cool, the system cooled nicely for about a day and then at night stopped working. We had a technician come out to check on this, and what was determined was that there was an error in communication between the indoor units and the outdoor pump. The technician reset the system, and it has been working OK since. What the technician said is if this problem occurs again, then we may need to have some refrigerant sensors installed, to allow each of the units to have better sensing of when they should run.
Through all of this, both my wife and I have meticulously looked through the provided operation/user manuals. We believe that they seem overly complicated. Also, even if Mitsubishi is considered the best available system, I believe the system is over-engineered in some ways and under-engineered in other ways, making it not so easy for their customers.
In summary, the sales, installation, and service by Precise has actually been very excellent, but perhaps the shortcomings of the system could have been better explained during the sales process, especially as it relates to potentially needing added devices (e.g. kit #MHK2, refrigerant sensors) for expected full feature.
As for Mitsubishi, I am hoping that they are trying to simplify their system to make it better, out-of-the-box, for their customers.