The home had always suffered from a lack of heat. Johansen explained that the previous owner had confined himself to living in just two rooms heated by large kerosene heaters.
When Johansen bought the home, it wasn’t financially feasible to install ductwork for a forced-air heating and cooling system, nor pipe for radiant heating. Both systems would have been structurally invasive. Instead, he purchased a wood-burning boiler that served him and his family for several years until it became too heavy a burden.
The wood-burning boiler was a tremendous amount of work and expense,” explains Johansen, who had to stack 12 cords of wood every year, clean the unit weekly, and often get up in the middle of the night to replace malfunctioning parts, to name a few tasks. “The physical labor involved with maintenance was immense, and I couldn’t see myself doing that for the rest of my life.
Mini split systems require no ductwork. They consist of indoor units that link to outdoor condensers via a refrigerant line set. Chief among the mini-split system's benefits is the ability to have separate temperature zones throughout the home, enabling one room to be warmer or cooler than another.
Johansen instantly realized that this was the solution he had been looking for. “The ability to condition individual rooms sounded very efficient to me,” he explained. “Since we only use a small portion of the home at any given time, heating the entire house to a comfortable temperature wasn’t necessary.
When Johansen contacted eComfort, the online HVAC retailer was able to assist him through the entire buying process. “They were there for me from A to Z,” he said.
I did not know what I was doing, so I gave eComfort the dimensions of the rooms, the number of windows, and other sizing information,” says Johansen.
Using this data, eComfort product and sizing experts were able to craft the optimal mini split heating and cooling solution—not an easy task for a historic home.
In the end, installers set up nine indoor Daikin mini split units and connected each to one of two outdoor condensing units. They used a mix of mini split styles—from wall-mount to floor-mount units— depending on the needs of the space, as recommended by eComfort.
Johansen immediately noticed the benefits of mini split technology. “It’s now a comfortable temperature all over the house, even in the hallways where we were never able to heat before.” For added convenience, he and his wife can control all nine zones with a wireless remote.
This improved comfort has also brought major financial savings, with Johansen paying 46% less per month after switching from the wood-burning boiler to the mini split system. These savings take not only energy into account but also other costs associated with the old boiler, such as wood and various maintenance parts.
Preserving a historic home’s heritage while enjoying modern comforts is never an easy compromise. Fortunately for Johansen, eComfort guided him to a Daikin mini split system that will provide his family with uncompromising, energy-efficient comfort for years to come without disturbing his home’s nineteenth-century charm.