MULTI HEAD AIR CONDITIONERS

Multi head air conditioners. Are they cost effective when it comes to cooling your home this summer?

MAY SEEM LIKE A GOOD IDEA – BUT AREN’T FUN FOR ANYBODY

MULTI HEAD vs SPLIT SYSTEM

The nice man from Mitsubishi pulled out his harmonica, sat us down and told us a story about manufacturing. Mitsubishi Heavy Industry, like most manufacturers, has a series of products which it makes non stop, all year round for distribution to the public. If there is a product for which the demand is not high enough to justify a dedicated production line, then they must build another production line for a small number of products, or shut down their main line and re-tool it for the specialized design. Either way, buying one of these products is going to be more expensive than if you were to buy one of their standard split systems.

MHI makes tens of thousands of split systems every year. Their production line runs 24 hours a day, 365 days in multiple countries, and even then most years they cannot supply enough split systems to meet demand. You can see why they’d be reluctant to shut down any production to make a handful of these multi heads when they can sit in the warehouse for months before anybody buys one.

 ONLY USE A MULTI HEAD AIR CONDITIONER WHEN THERE’S NO OTHER OPTION

The initial costs will surprise you. Imagine you wanted to cool three bedrooms. The split system cost for 3 x 2.5kw MHI would come to $4800. If you wanted to do the same thing with a multi head – four pieces instead of six – one condenser and three heads – it will cost $6240. This formula is surprisingly accurate. If we wanted to do one 7kw and two bedroom 2.5kw systems our cost would be $5800 using individual systems. A multi head to do the same job would cost  $7540

Then you must take into consideration the higher running costs, that would have to be at least another 30%. You must also consider the maintenance issues. Imagine something goes wrong with your condenser – you’ve lost all three air conditioners. If something goes wrong with one of your splits – you have lost only one system. Once you know all this – is there any justification for buying a multi head air conditioner?

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MULTI HEAD AIR CONDITIONERS

ARE NOT THE SOLUTION

Multi head air conditioning systems do exactly what the name suggests. They run multiple head units off the one base. You may be forgiven for thinking that these systems save energy, costs or living space. In reality they only save space. They are more expensive in every other area. These systems are only used in high rise developments where space is at a premium. As the title suggests, the condenser is larger than the head, and runs multiple connections to different rooms, allowing up to four heads to run off the one condenser. You’d think that these types of systems would be cheaper than their split system counterparts, because there’s less pieces – but you’d be wrong. I was surprised by that too.

Multi head air conditioners are not only more expensive to buy than split systems, but they are harder to install, and (far) more expensive to run.

Here’s why :

WE ASKED THE MANUFACTURER

The nice man from Mitsubishi pulled out his harmonica, sat us down and told us a story about manufacturing. Mitsubishi Heavy Industry, like most manufacturers, has a series of products which it makes non stop, all year round for distribution to the public. If there is a product for which the demand is not high enough to justify a dedicated production line, then they must build another production line for a small number of products, or shut down their main line and re-tool it for the specialized design. Either way, buying one of these products is going to be more expensive than if you were to buy one of their standard split systems.

MHI makes tens of thousands of split systems every year. Their production line runs 24 hours a day, 365 days in multiple countries, and even then most years they cannot supply enough split systems to meet demand. You can see why they’d be reluctant to shut down any production to make a handful of these multi heads when they can sit in the warehouse for months before anybody buys one.

MULTI HEAD AIR CON IS A VERY BAD IDEA

CAN YOU PUT A PRICE ON IT?

The initial costs will surprise you. Imagine you wanted to cool three bedrooms. The split system cost for 3 x 2.5kw MHI would come to $4800. If you wanted to do the same thing with a multi head – four pieces instead of six – one condenser and three heads – it will cost $6240. This formula is surprisingly accurate. If we wanted to do one 7kw and two bedroom 2.5kw systems our cost would be $5800 using individual systems. A multi head to do the same job would cost  $7540

Then you must take into consideration the higher running costs, that would have to be at least another 30%. You must also consider the maintenance issues. Imagine something goes wrong with your condenser – you’ve lost all three air conditioners. If something goes wrong with one of your splits – you have lost only one system. Once you know all this – is there any justification for buying a multi head air conditioner?

FURTHER INFORMATION