Multi split heat pumps for New Plymouth homes
One outdoor unit runs several indoor heads, so you can warm and dry the lounge, hallway and bedrooms without covering the house in outdoor boxes.
A multi split heat pump runs several indoor units off a single outdoor unit. It's a neat fit for older New Plymouth homes with small rooms and tight sections, letting you heat and dry the lounge, hallway and bedrooms at once instead of fighting the damp one room at a time.
Why one outdoor unit suits our coastal sections
Plenty of New Plymouth bungalows sit on tight sections with the neighbour's fence close by. A separate single split for every room means a separate outdoor unit for every room, and there's rarely wall space for that. A multi split solves it with one outdoor unit doing the lot.
It also cuts down the wall area you're exposing to salt air. Out here in Fitzroy and Strandon the coastal wind chews at outdoor units over time, so fewer units in fewer spots is genuinely worth having. If you're weighing up your options, our rundown of the types of heat pump lays out where a multi split sits against the rest.
Warming and drying several rooms at once
Our winters are damp and humid, not bitterly cold. The problem in most older weatherboard homes isn't one freezing room, it's the whole house feeling clammy. A multi split heats and dries several rooms together, so you're not chasing the damp from the lounge into the hallway and back again.
That matters most in homes chopped into lots of small rooms, which is half the housing stock in Vogeltown and Welbourn. Each room gets its own indoor head sized to that space, rather than one big unit trying to push heat through doorways.
Mixing indoor unit styles on the one system
The heads on a multi split don't all have to be the same. You might want a standard wall unit in the bedrooms, ceiling cassette heat pumps in an open-plan area with no free wall, and floor console heat pumps under a window where a bungalow's low ceilings or bulkheads get in the way.
If you're doing a bigger renovation and want it all hidden away, ducted heat pumps New Plymouth are another route worth a look, though that's a bigger job than adding heads to a multi split.
- Wall-mounted heads for bedrooms and small rooms
- Ceiling cassettes where there's no spare wall
- Floor consoles under windows or in low-ceiling rooms
Sizing, install and what it costs
The trick with a multi split is matching the outdoor unit to the total of all the indoor heads. Undersize it and it struggles on the coldest, dampest mornings when every room is calling for heat. We work that out on site by measuring your rooms, and you can get a rough feel first with our heat pump sizing calculator.
A multi split usually costs more upfront than a single split in one room, but less than fitting three or four separate systems. For a full breakdown see our heat pump installation cost notes, and our approach to heat pump installation New Plymouth covers how we run the pipework and place the outdoor unit.
Not sure how many rooms to do?
Give us a call on 06 242 5842 and we'll talk through which rooms make sense to start with.
Common questions about multi split heat pumps
How many indoor units can one multi split heat pump run?
Most multi split systems run between two and five indoor heads off one outdoor unit, depending on the model. The more heads you add, the bigger the outdoor unit needs to be to keep up. We'll size it around the rooms you actually want done rather than cramming on more than the outdoor unit can handle.
Is a multi split heat pump cheaper than separate single splits?
For one room, a single split is cheaper. Once you're heating three or four rooms, a multi split usually works out less than fitting that many separate systems, and it uses far less wall space. The catch is that if the outdoor unit ever needs a repair, every room is off at once, where separate systems fail one at a time.
Can each room on a multi split be set to a different temperature?
Yes. Each indoor head has its own controller, so you can run the lounge warmer and leave a bedroom cooler, or turn rooms off entirely when they're not in use. You're not stuck with one temperature for the whole house.
Do all the indoor units need to be heating or cooling at the same time?
On most standard multi splits, no. All the heads have to be in the same mode, so you can't heat one room while cooling another at the same time. In our damp winters that's rarely an issue since you'll want everything heating and drying together anyway.
Get a multi split sorted for your place
We install across Fitzroy, Vogeltown, Strandon, Welbourn and Merrilands. Send through the rooms you want done and we'll come measure up and quote it.