A dark, minimalist bedroom featuring a sleeping cat on a grey-quilted bed, a wall-mounted air-conditioning unit, warm cove ceiling lighting, and a pendant lamp illuminating the bedside table.

Mini Split Installation in Ann Arbor, MI

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 Washtenaw County will get in touch.

Tell us about the job

It takes about a minute.

Step 1 of 3: Equipment

What kind of equipment?*

A tabby cat sleeps on a large bed in a dark, modern bedroom equipped with a wall-mounted air-conditioning unit.

What Washtenaw County winters and summers ask of a mini-split

Winter nights here average 19°F from December through February, and a mini-split has to hold your home's heat against that cold for eight months, October through May. Summer only asks 3 months of it, with afternoons averaging 81°F. That split, 8 months of heating against 3 months of cooling, means the heating side of the system does most of the work over a year.

Any mini-split installed new has to meet the federal minimum for a split-system heat pump, 14.3 SEER2 for cooling and 7.5 HSPF2 for heating. That floor applies whether the home is adding a mini-split or replacing one, since there is no separate rule for ductless systems.

8 months: October through May, your system heats
3 months: June through August, it cools
19°F: the average winter night it heats against
81°F: the average summer afternoon it cools against

Isometric cutaway illustration of a small gray house showing two rooms, one with a sofa and one with a bed, each with a wall-mounted indoor air conditioning unit connected by line sets to an outdoor condenser unit on the ground outside.

Your system heats October through May and cools June through August.

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NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals

Michigan requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.

The Board of Mechanical Rules issues that license, and it covers the contractor, not each individual job.

For a mini-split installation, that license is the thing accountable for the work. In most cities and counties, this kind of installation also needs a permit from the local building office, with an inspection once the work is done, so someone outside the contractor checks the finished job too.

Sources: Michigan Legislature · Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs

Is a mini split worth it?: For the right room or addition, yes. A mini split heats and cools that space directly, without ductwork, and modern units meet the same efficiency minimums as any other heat pump, 14.3 SEER2 and 7.5 HSPF2. Whether it makes sense for your whole house depends on how your home is heated now and what you're trying to fix, so a contractor should look at the actual space before you decide.
How many rooms can a mini split cover?: A single-zone system covers one room. If you need more than one space heated or cooled, a multi-zone system can run several indoor units off one outdoor unit, and each zone gets its own thermostat, so you can heat one room and leave another alone. How many zones your house can actually support depends on the layout, which is something a contractor needs to see in person.
Can a mini split heat a whole house?: It can, if there's an indoor unit in enough rooms to cover the house, but that's a different job than adding one or two units to a home that already has a furnace. Ann Arbor winters average 19°F overnight from December through February, and homes here need heat eight months a year, October through May, so any system covering the whole house needs to be sized for that cold, not just for a mild day. A contractor can tell you whether full mini split heating makes sense for your house or whether it works better alongside the heating you already have.

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