Central air or minisplit?

Central

I’ll take the minisplit advice tho…

SDS heating and cooling installed mine. 12/10 would recommend. Steve is great

CarJon out of Johnston did a pretty good job at my house. Installed a fully ducted system, using a Mitsubishi Hyper heat condenser. It's been super efficient and works great to heat and cool.
The only downside... Mitsubishi doesn't work with popular thermostats like Nest and Ecobee, so you need to buy their overpriced Thermostats, and use their god awful Kumo cloud system if you want to be able to control it using an app.

I did restivo for minisplit and was very happy

Bracing for that myself. Carjon is installing a hybrid duct/ducted heat pump system for us in a couple of weeks and I’ve heard nothing but bad about Kumo.

Good to know, thank you. Do they only install Mitsubishi?

I believe they have other brands, But from my research Mitsubishi is the most efficient, and also has a heat pump that works very well, even at super cold temps (I think down to -13 outside).

This is actually what I did, I have 2 floors and a half finished basement. I did 2 air handlers (one in attic, for 2nd floor, and one in unfinished side of basement, for the first floor) then had them put in a mini split in the finished part of the basement.

I don't have any app control on the mini split, as you need to buy the Kumo adapter for each endpoint. So I only have them on the 2 airhandlers. I will say the Kumo cloud system has gotten better but it still pales in comparison to Nest or Ecobee, yet costs a TON more. I've heard rumors they are overhauling it... but I don't have anything concrete on that. I'll say it has become better over time as they've made some updates, it just very finicky at times.

Our setup is weird - it's an old cape that has been heavily remodeled and at some point, when previous owners update the 2nd floor, they added ducting and just never did anything with it. So we're going to have the air handler put into the scuttle which will take care of the 2nd floor, and will be installing two ductless ceiling cassettes for the first floor. I do have some concerns about the air handler performance in the scuttle, which is insulted but gets quite hot in the summer but Carjon didn't seem concerned.

Used Carjon from Smithfield, don't recommend. The sales guy was trying to sell us a mini-split for each room and when I asked about cosmetics of having the power/vent going out of every exterior wall of my house...he said ok how about a bigger unit in the master bed and then opening the doors for every room so the air would flow to them?

National Refrigeration out of Warwick is a solid company. Very professional and worked with them on a few job sites.

Restivo's. I've seen their work and its tight too.

I just got a quote from Atlantis for a whole new central air system 3.5ton with new ductwork and the high eff heat pump and I was around 17.5K

I'm looking at the same exact setup. I'd be interested in hearing about your thoughts on quality and pricing. I've gotten a few quotes from several companies and the prices are astronomical.

Cmags HVAC Inc (401) 862-4998 https://maps.app.goo.gl/Mhov3i4L7JRxp6fx9?g_st=ic

I had 3 quotes done from 3 different companies all using Mitsubishi. I had them price up mini splits and fully ducted. Carjon was the most reasonable for both options. But ducted made more sense as I would have needed 2 outdoor condensers if I went with the mini splits in all rooms option.

I think my total price was around $30k. Mitsubishi hyper heat 3 to heat pump, 2 air handlers, 1 wall hanger mini split, 2 of the wireless thermostats, 2 kumo cloud adapters. I also got a $3k rebate back from National Grid, where Carjon supplies all the forms, I just had to fill out my personal info and send them in. (I believe RI energy may have bigger rebates now).

Overall, quality of the install was great. Took about a week to install. When I ordered they were booking installs like 3 months out. My only complaint was the placement of a vent in the bathroom too close to the toilet, but I can see that they had limited options. The system heats and cools super well and is pretty efficient. I haven't needed to use my oil fired baseboard system since I put it in.

Awesome. Thanks. I didn't try to get a carjon quote yet. I will give them a call. I need to condensers and 2 air handlers. One of the condensers will be a multi zone so it can handle the mini split wall unit in the basement. The condenser for the attic will be single zone. 30k is lower than the prices I've gotten from other companies, so crossing my fingers.

Both floors of my house are already ducted, so hopefully can save some money there.

This was 2 years ago now, so I'd expect prices to be a little higher now. I'd see if they can do it all with 1 larger condenser as it will certainly save you money. (I know mine can do up to 5 zones) but they'll come out and look at your place, take some measurements and give you a quote. They were super straight forward, and very low pressure.

I think the largest Mitsubishi makes us 4 tons and that's not big enough for my house, unfortunately. I guess I could probably expect to pay 40k, then.

I'm glad to hear that your system works without oil. I'm keeping my oil boiler baseboard system as a backup, but definitely glad I won't have to use it.

Yeah, my house has baseboard oil heat, hence why I had to install ducts, but figured I'd keep it as a backup. In the event we lost power for an extended period of time I can use it for heat, as I have a Tesla power wall setup, but the heat pump would drain that pretty quick. The only time I've used the oil furnace was a month ago or so, I had some water get in the basement, so I threw the wall hanging mini split on it's "dry" mode to help dry it quicker. But since I only have 1 condenser, and it was on cool mode for the basement I couldn't use it for heat on the main 2 floors.

Thanks for all the info. I'm hoping they have quick install times now compared to when you did yours. We can't go another summer without AC and spending a fortune on oil is crazy. Hoping the solar setup with the heat pumps kills some of those bills.

Did you get electric heat strips with your blowers? Or are you just strictly using oil as a backup?

No prob! I didn't get the electric heat strips. From everything I've read they aren't really necessary since the heat pump works down to -12. I'm strictly using oil as a backup