Friedrich recently sponsored a NEWS webinar titled “Ductless Split System Innovations That Matter to Your Bottom Line.”  Below are questions taken from the Q&A portion of that webinar. To watch the webinar in its entirety, click here.

Questions: How are the refrigerant lines and lengths calculated, from the compressor to the condenser, for a typical residential installation?

Answer: Good question. So this is a common answer really for all Friedrich ductless and pretty much all ductless in general, is you’re going to size the lines based on the manufacturer’s line sizing. And you’re going to do that based on the recommended or the minimum and maximum line set lengths. So unlike some systems where you have to balance and resize and add receivers and things, with the ductless, as long as you install them per our parameters — and they’re pretty flexible, you know, many of our systems can connect to 50 feet and some to 100 and some to 165, so that we’re not really restricting you a lot — but as long as you install them per those guidelines, you can just use the exact same line set sizes that are specified for the products. And Friedrich sells those, you can field supply them as well, but there’s no measuring or calculation that you have to do. And in fact on all Friedrich ductless split systems, including the FastPro units, we actually precharge our condensers. All of them for up to 25 feet of line set, so you don’t even have to balance in or add in refrigerant for that type of an installation. Good question.

Question: And what is the most important feature on the FastPro?

Answer: Thanks again, what a phenomenal question. I think mainly if you evaluate most of the content on our webinar that we had just now, it’s certainly our FastPro design, which is in our Floating Air Pro series of ductless. We actually have three series of ductless: Floating Air Select, Floating Air Pro, and Floating Air Premier, and I’m addressing another question that I saw come over the line as well there with that answer. But within our Floating Air Pro line and our FastPro design, and the ease of access for both service installation and ongoing maintenance, it truly gives our Friedrich product and our Pro series specifically a unique value proposition in the marketplace, specifically designed toward contractors and their ability to save time, increase their ROI, and perhaps do more installing and more maintenance on the job.

Questions: And how do I find a local distributor?

Answer: The best way to find a distributor would be to — for this particular product line — would be to go to that website that we just mentioned that I think Holly just dropped in, which is friedrich.com/fastpro. And type in your information and where you’re located and we can get that to you specifically, and make sure more that you’re pointed toward a distributor for this particular product line, as opposed to just the general Friedrich website locator.

Question: Awesome. And is FastPro a Friedrich exclusive?

Answer: It is. FastPro is an exclusive design that we have. We do not design, build, or manufacture for any other brands, and it will be exclusive to Friedrich contractors throughout North America.

Question: Now, will Friedrich be holding ductless trainings at my distributor’s training center?

Answer: Yeah, I kind of addressed that one. I jumped ahead a little bit on my previous answer, but we are rolling out training information to our distributors now. I think it’s probably important to point out that this product, I think PJ mentioned it earlier, actually becomes available in May of this year. So we’re actively engaged with our channels right now to launch training opportunities specifically through our Friedrich Ductless Academy. And a little plug here for contracting members of our Friedrich Advantage program, the Ductless Academy training will be free for our Floating Air and FastPro line.

Question: Alright, great. Well you mentioned ductless as the fastest growing HVAC segment, do you guys see this growth continuing?

Answer: Yeah, we do. Phenomenal question as well. Right now, when you look at ductless North America, we see about 2 percent of the market being ductless. We think the market will continue at this exponential, double-digit growth that we’ve been seeing. And we predict, along with many of the industry pundits, that ductless will be 5 percent of the North American market within the next decade.

Question: Wow, OK. That’s quite a market share. Alright, is Friedrich Floating Air ductless AHRI certified?

Answer: They are, yes. And you’ll see those enter the directory very soon, as we start to distribute them into the marketplace.

Question: The question comes in from Mr. Collin Roberts, he wants to know what is the SEER rating of your products, generally?

Answer: We have three tier of product in our Floating Air ductless line. Our Select line — our Floating Air Select line — is the 16 SEER product. As you move into our Floating Air Pro line, it’s up to 22 SEER. And as you move into our Floating Air Premier line, we achieve 28 SEER in many of our applications. So good question.

Publication date: 3/1/2019

Want more HVAC industry news and information? Join The NEWS on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn today!