Multiple heat pumps or multi-head pump?

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SJB

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#223452 30-Sep-2017 10:55

I'm looking at putting heat pumps into a rental property and wondered what other people's thoughts were around installing individual heat pumps or a multi-headed system.

The installation in question would be for 4 rooms. There is plenty of space around the outside of the house for 4 outside units although 2 of them would need to be adjacent to a driveway and therefore slight vulnerable to damage. If I went for a 4 head installation the outside unit wouldn't need to go on the driveway side.

I have a 4 head heat pump in my own house and have never had any problems or come across any particular drawbacks but the sales guy leaned towards separate units. The price difference is marginal.

msukiwi

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#1875034 30-Sep-2017 11:12

We opted for 3 separate units. Better redundancy. (Can still have heat / cold if 1 outdoor unit fails) Same (ish) cost etc.

For us there was no problem with the placement of the outdoor units.

Dingbatt

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#1875036 30-Sep-2017 11:18

The biggest advantage to separate units is that you can dehumidify bedrooms during the day while still heating the living areas. After investigating the multi head vs multi unit, we ended up fitting ducted, the cost difference was marginal.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

Geektastic

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#1875048 30-Sep-2017 11:59

My recommendation is to take advice from the installers. They have a good idea of the capabilities vs room size etc.

We have one where there is a single unit outside running 2 seperate inside units and two stand alone units.

Our house has a flat roof, so the outside units just went up there on isolation mounts.

ben28

190 posts

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#1875128 30-Sep-2017 15:45

The smaller the unit the more efficient it will be. I think the smaller units are now close to 5x effiency. So overall lower running costs .

Quinny

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#1879224 7-Oct-2017 21:24

Brought super efficient Daiken (just check what cycles down to) plus 4 units to run off it. Can control what on and off by room better than ducted. 4 years on house and very very happy with my choice. Was about 12k all up.

timmmay

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#1879250 8-Oct-2017 07:41

Ducted would be my first choice - heat pumps are fairly ugly and breezy. After that I'd take advice from the installer.