When my brother was talking about installing a ductless mini split in his home by himself, I thought he was crazy.
He was getting a four zone ductless mini split which I thought looked like a lot of work.
He worked on everything and got the first zone hooked up along with the power. He was surprised when he turned it on and it didn’t seem to be working correctly. He said he was sure that you could operate the ductless mini split without having the rest of the zones hooked up just yet. I thought that didn’t sound right so I looked into it myself. When I looked into it and found his particular make and model, I learned that it was possible to install just a couple of zones instead of all of them. If you choose to go that route, I don’t think you can add another zone at a later time, but I could be wrong about that. I suppose you would be able to but you might have to add extra refrigerant to the lines. It was a close call because I think he could have ruined his condenser for sure. It even said on the condenser not to run the equipment without opening all the refrigerant lines, including the master line which he overlooked. All the videos he watched were for units that were single zone, but the multi zones were a little different with that master valve. He ended up installing the rest of the zones which was a lot of work, and then he had perfectly cool air from all the units when he finally opened all the refrigerant lines. He thanked me for looking out for him, but I still worry that his unit could be damaged. I also know his warranty is void because he is not an HVAC professional.