Newell Gurus

After much consideration and consultation, we finally got off the couch and installed our minisplit. 
Just as no two Newell are the same, neither are the owner's needs, use and/or taste

I just bought #463 in February and decided to put new system in rather than bothering with either of the two original SCS 2702 units at all. One works and the other kinda wants to. So if anyone needs, I'll give you a great deal.

My 4 main considerations were
1. new technology 
2. AC
3. Heat
4. Darn near silent operation 

I chose to install a single 24k concealed ducted unit and plumb to existing ducting

Original configuration had 2 SCS 2702 unit in R2 front and L2 rear. I sealed off R2 with 2in insulation board I had lying around and sealed with very tight perimeter with foam, and fabricahted a shroud to vent thru floor as originally designed with the rear also venting same way.

The understair return air box and L2 now house the ducted unit which was connected to original ductwork with an  additional tube run into the salon. That additional duct tube has not found its permanent location as of yet but will be low mounted as the two original ducts are in the driverside columns.

As i am still a wannabe junior guru, so i did cheat alittle and hired a local hvac contractor for sizing math, fabricated ducting and proper connections/hookup, with the side benefit being he's offering a full warranty 

Thank you to all I've pestered throughout this process, I promise not to leave you alone as I delve deeper into the next project...lol

Arch,

Great job. We all await the results during the summer. You have taken the most straight forward approach possible by utilizing the existing ducting. Your observations about salon to rear balance utilizing only one ducted unit will be extremely important. Also, all of us contemplating such in install have NO data to compare the nameplated, but horribly inefficient SCS units at 44k BTU against the 24K BTU mini split. We have much to learn from your experience, and I admire the pioneers that are adopting the mini technology.

Echo what Richard said. I gave up on my 30 year old Dometics. One still works and works great (for the time being). Contemplating cutting my roof for a single roof air over the kitchen to take care of the front area. 15k btu low profile. Your install looks incredible. I do not have ducting in the bays which makes it even more of a challenge than just doing what you did. My Dometic units are hidden in cabinets with their ductwork being hard to reach in some areas.

Looks like a very nice and sanitary job on the install, well done. Do you mind sharing what manufacturer and model that you went with?

That looks great, Arch I too will be very interested in how it performs. My 316 has 4 Dometics that I have repaired as well.

Thanks for the compliments, hopefully we are successful pioneers and not Guinea pigs...lol

We installed a MrCool Olympus Hyper Heat Single Zone 24k concealed ducted unit.

The two main reasons for chosing MrCool is the gentleman i hired is a dealer and offerd full warranty and the similar Senville unit was unavailable 

She's been qiuetly purring for about a week and performing as expected at about 5amps (8 at initialstart on "turbo mode). I will confirm load this weekend

Very nice ! Has renewed my interest in doing mini split install .
Chris

Simon’s comment about ductwork leads me to a PSA. Starting with we all view the posts with the picture of our own rig in mind. The Dometic units don’t have duct work at all, except for few which have a unit hidden in the kitchen cabinets. They are the OG mini split, with an outside condenser and an inside evap. The SCS units that Jack, Arch, and Hank(you have been outed) installed are a completely different animal. The condenser and evaporator are contained in one large box. The cool air is ducted into the coach. Given the ductwork runs in the basement most of the length of the coach, there is plenty of efficiency loss. Plus on the SCS units, since the hot side and the cold side are in the same space, there is some transfer of heat to the cool air we are trying to make.

The point being that the folks with Dometic units will face an entirely different set of challenges when installing mini’s than the folks with SCS units. I make this point so that when reading the mini posts you can make the distinction. I make these comments having owned a coach with Dometic, and owned one with SCS.

Dean is on the right track with utilizing the interior spaces where the Dometic evaps are located for interior ducted mini. The challenge in my mind is deciding which bay or bays are going to get serious modification to allow the install of the condenser(s) because the condensers are NOT going to fit where the existing Dometic condensers reside, as Simon and Dean have clearly stated.

Arch,
Nice install. I like the way you immediately directed the heat away from the outside unit. I may have a little sheet metal envy.

Now that Richard has outed me, I'll have to post about my mini split install and some of the latest results. I began to piece together my thread Saturday. The pictures I downloaded from a webserver weren't playing nice so I gave up on the posting and went outside to work on the newest modification to the AC unit.

Such a cool instal. Nice work!