Mini Split Installation in Naperville, IL
A new system here will heat from October through May and cool from June through August every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers DuPage County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
What a mini-split in Naperville has to handle
Your mini-split here works 11 months of the year, between heat and cooling. Winter nights average 19°F from December through February, so the heat pump side has to keep pulling warmth out of cold air for months at a stretch. Summer afternoons average 82°F, a lighter job by comparison, but the unit still needs to be sized right for both.
Any new mini-split installed now has to meet the federal minimum for split-system heat pumps, 14.3 SEER2 for cooling and 7.5 HSPF2 for heating. That is the floor a licensed installer is working from before they even get to what your home needs on top of it.
- 8 months
- October through May, your system heats
- 3 months
- June through August, it cools
- 19°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 82°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
In Illinois, HVAC licensing for homes is left to the cities and towns.
In DuPage County, whether a mini-split installer needs a local license depends on the municipality. Illinois does not test or license HVAC contractors at the state level. Whatever record exists on a contractor is whatever the town or village has set up on its own, and that varies from one place to the next in the county.
What stands behind this job is the permit process. In most cities and counties, installing a mini-split needs a permit from the local building office, with an inspection once the work is done. That inspection is what checks the installation itself, since there is no state license behind it here.
Source: Illinois General Assembly
- Is a mini split worth it?
- For the right room or addition, yes. A mini split heats and cools one space well, and because it has no ducts, you lose none of the air to leaks along the way. Your winters here run cold, down near 19°F on average overnight from December through February, so check that the unit you're looking at is rated for that kind of cold before you count on it as your only heat source. For a whole house already on gas heat, it usually makes more sense as a way to cover a room the furnace struggles to reach, like a bonus room or a finished attic.
- How many rooms can a mini split cover?
- One outdoor unit can run up to eight indoor heads, so it can cover several rooms at once. Each indoor head handles the room it's mounted in, and you set the temperature for that room separately from the others. The more heads you run off one outdoor unit, the more that unit has to work, so a contractor will size the equipment to the rooms you actually want covered rather than guessing.
- Can a mini split heat a whole house?
- It can, if it's sized and placed for that from the start. A multi-zone system with a head in every room can carry the whole heating load on its own. Your winter nights here average 19°F from December through February, so the equipment has to be rated to keep up at that temperature, and a contractor works out the sizing room by room before you count on it as your only heat.