ALDI Split System Air Conditioners Questions & Answers (page 8 of 8)

I would talk to Aldi - they claim to provide product support - this will test that!

The after sales support number is on the back of your Instruction and Installation Manuals 1300 886 649. Good luck :-)

These are a very quiet unit, ideally suited for a bedroom or room of similar size. They don't do well in our open plan living area - just can't get the temperature down below about 27C during the recent hot weather. The only drawback I know of is that the display is very bright - such that it lights up the bedroom like a night light. I fixed this by removing the the display board from inside the front cover and covered the LEDs in black duct tape. Problem solved - a 10 minute job.

A 2KW air conditioner is good for a small room. 2KW is just about what an old fashioned 2 bar radiator heater produced. You wouldn't dream of trying to heat a whole house with one of those, but it is OK for a smallish room. Exactly the same principle applies for cooling rather than heating.

As to the Stirlings being a good unit - I have found them fine on 3 occasions. Remember they are just cheap Chinese devices (but then they ALL are, with a few exceptions) Much of the added cost comes when a brand name is slapped on them. With this kind of generic equipment the compressor is likely to come off the same production line as a so-called Brand Name. I remember fitting a unit badged with a local company's logo (D.E.C.) and sold by an electrical appliance major and later finding out the user manual was identical right down to the cartoon illustrations with the manual for a Mitsubishi unit. In other words the Mitsi sold for a premium, the D.E.C. was just a rebadged Mitsi...or maybe it was the other way round!!

Aldi have a track record of selecting pretty decent stuff from amongst the "cheap and cheerful" ranges, and a pretty good warranty record.

Yes - these units are very quiet. With the normal household noise levels, I find myself holding my hand up to make sure it's running - even when on high speed. My wife did complain about a very slight whining noise coming from the bedroom unit, but I can only hear it if everything was dead quiet. It only seems to be present on that particular unit.

As I said in my review, the only problem is that they draw a lot of power for what doesn't seem like a lot of cooling when you have it in a room that's bigger than a bedroom.
I notice that Aldi does market bigger units (according to their website) - you just have to keep an eye out for when they come on sale. I'd be surprised if any Aldi store had any of this season's 2.3kW units left as of 13/02/17.

Thank you. Your description is very helpful.

I found the three I put in more than acceptably quiet. There is the sound of rushing air when the fan is on high, but I never found it sufficiently objectionable that I even thought about it. Mine were in an office and a dining room. A bedroom might be a different matter.

Hi Dave,
This is not a definitive answer but something worth trying. On the basis that with much Asian sourced equipment every designer looks over the shoulder of every other designer and copies what is useful, it is possible multiple manufacturers have used the same chip set in their controllers. That is true for wall ovens - from cheap to expensive - many seem to use the same chip. Here E0 may well be the flag for blocked condensate discharge pipe,

I have a portable that exhibits the same E0 message. The cure is to drain the condensate tank. In the case of a split you may find creatures have built a nest in the condensate discharge tube, or gunk is blocking its discharge somewhere. It is easy to check and eliminate as a cause. Of course there is no guarantee that your E0 is the same as mine.

If you do find out the actual meaning of E0 I would appreciate a post or PM telling what it turned out to be.

Aldi's service agents on their support line may also be able to tell you. It's quite a flaw not to publish the error codes.

Good luck,
P

Mate I appreciate your feedback and I will get back to you when I get the unit running again.

Dave T

Dave, did you ever find the problem, got home this afternoon and the breaker had blown and now the unit has the same E0 error

Hi Carole,
My recollection of the construction of the Stirlings I have fitted is fading as It was a few years ago and i have since sold the house - so I can't go and look. From recollection there should be panels/covers all round. Certainly the sides and front were panelled, and it would only be sensible to protect the delicate radiating fins from the back as well.

Tempo claim this is a design feature in the 3.3kW, altho' there's grilles fitted to the 2.6kW. I've escalated to Aldi mngmt because it's obviously a manufacturer error - mine has bent fins from a bump through the cardboard packaging.

No, you will kink it. You must buy a pipe bender to bend it at rightangle. If it is a one time use, you can get a cheap one on ebay for abour $15. Get the multi size that will bend 3/8" and 1/4" pipes (I think that is the pipe sizes from memory). Outside of this borrow or call a plumber/air-con guy if you are not confident.

Whether you will kink it depends on the bend radius you achieve. However it is highly undesirable to bend the pipes coming out of the evaporator (indoor unit) AT ALL. Not because of kinking, as much as never being able to service the unit by withdrawing it from the wall if pipes are passed through the wall then bent. Cut them short by all means, but allow that you may (small chance) have to pull the evaporator out at some time. If you are talking about a "simple" back to back installation then try to offset condenser and evaporator so the pipes don't need to be bent. I have found the evaporator pipes will bend without kinking if done gently and you don't try for a sharp bend. In theory kinks could upset the gas flow and the lubricating oil that is entrained in the flow. In practice I have not noticed that it happens, or if it does, has any noticeable effect. If I recall the Aldi units have a channel at the rear of the evap unit just so you can bend the pipes to exit from the other side. Not sure about that last, because it has been a few years since I put a Stirling in. If in doubt about the bending, get hold of a scrap piece of soft copper tubing and practice a similar bend as you intend and see the effects. Water pipe will do - copper is copper after all and air-con pipe differs (MAYBE!) only in the degree of impurity removal. It's all soft copper, so a lot more forgiving of bending than the hard drawn stuff.

Not done easily. Options are to put an isolator switch for that circuit or the whole system in the bedroom. I also am used to complete darkness so I throw a shirt over it. Maybe a piece of thick white cardboard would also do the trick.

Put black tap over it

They supply one short cable about 2m from outside unit to main power. You must supply all electrical & copper pipes between the inside & outside. Anywhere from 1m- 10m depending on location . Might also need draining pipe extensions. Only 2m supplied from memory.

It comes with what you need. The electrician and plumber will take care of the install. Mine cost 700 all up to wire and plumb

They are good for a bedroom. He's right because mine is 5kw and does the area you want to heat and cool very well

Recall that an old fashioned 2 bar radiator gives off around 2KW of heat. So a 2point-something KW air-con unit, (whether heating or cooling) has a similar effectiveness. It's hard to relate KW to subjective heating or cooling, but a pretty good guideline is "would a two bar radiator heat this space enough for me?"

Whether you are heating or cooling is fairly irrelevant - it's all about how much heat energy you are putting into a room (heating) or taking out (cooling). And remember the quoted KW capacity is NOT the same thing as the electrical power drawn.

That is why the 2.3KW Aldi units are pretty right for a small to medium bedroom, but under powered for a typical living room.
PAFMelb36

Germany

Aldi is a German company. That does NOT mean their goods are made in Germany. The Stirlings (an Aldi brand name) are almost certainly Chinese. According to The Economist, 80% of air cons are made in China. Reference FYI http://tinyurl.com/pnt6fos

Should be fine. Mine is 3 years old and no problem with insects or mice ruining the electronics.

The external unit is well sealed so I dont see a problem here. The internal does have some smaller wires which lights the LED with temperature. If mounted tight to wall and the area around cables & pipes coming in is sealed well there should be no problem.I understand your concern but I think controlling the vermin is the real answer. I suggest a good physical and chemical barrier. I have had no problems in 3 years.

For a replacement remote control, enter the make and model number of your air conditioner into Google (or whatever search engine you use) along with the word Remote. You will be offered many varieties of remote from original manufacturer units, to copies, through to generic units which will work on a variety of air conditioners. Best to match the remote to your particular model of air con. Prices will vary - I found a non-brand name remote for less than $20.oo (delivered) which has performed flawlessly for at least two years.

Hi Rex, I can't comment on the fan noise improvement but would assume that this issue is resolved after 4 years of r&d. My split system easily heats and cools a 10 metre long by 8 meter wide room. This unit will easily do a 10 to 11 square home. Hope this helps

It cools about 60m2 in our house (with full roof insulation). Fan noise is pretty quiet. Cannot hear from inside and outside it's a dull murmur. Hope this helps

Thanks folks. We have a long narrow living space - 12 m x 3.6 m - and have been advised by other suppliers and installers that we need a larger capacity system e.g. 5 kW or 6kW for our heating / cooling. We have opted to go with two smaller - 2.5kW - units which will give us the option of heating / cooling one end of the space or the other at any one time. This suits our living style too. We can be comfortable in either the Dining space or the TV / sitting space for the cost of running just one unit at a time. Their lower power needs also better fit our 3kW PV production, particularly using the cooling cycle in the summer.

2KW is just about what an old fashioned double bar radiator puts out. Heat output is heat output whether its positive (heating) or cooling (negative) 2KW is fine for a small room. and because an aircon has an inbuilt air mover (fan) its output will fill a space better than just by radiation and natural convection. A 2Kw unit won't make much of a dent in a large room. Rex, you are on the money with using two units and your thoughts re PV output and scaling down to use one unit on milder days. Although 2 small units will cost more to buy and install than one of equivalent combined size, and inverter technology has thrown out some of the older wisdom re power consumption, multiple units means you are not left toasty if one unit fails, and your energy management is much easier.

Important thing to remember about aircon is the KW cited is always the heat pumping power, not the energy consumption. You are not turning electricity into heat (or cool). You are using it to extract heat from the inside air and moving it to the outside. That is a MUCH more efficient process than the way a bar radiator works - hence the discrepancy between electrical consumption and cooling/heating effect. Remember they do call aircon "Heat Pumps".

Rule of thumb is divide the rated power by 3 to 3.5 and you get the electrical power consumed. So a 2.5Kw aircon will consume about 750 watts. Pretty good. The gain factor is called the co-efficient of performance (COP) and is a measure of the efficiency of a unit.

In another post here I stated I was very happy with the Aldi units for performance, but dark on them for reducing the power of their offering from 6KW when they first came out, to 2.3Kw and keeping the price at $599.00. Maybe they thought no-one would notice.

You need to press mode until you see a sun ☀ icon in the top right hand corner of the controller . Then set to desired temperature on controller

Thanks but I tried mode but cannot get heat sign up

There is two buttons on the remote termed 'Cool' and 'Heat'. Push the 'on' button then press 'heat' button. It should start on a default setting of 28 degrees C. Adjust by moving up and down arrow in the centre.

No luck both switches are to the left on the back of the controller have hit mode but heat Light does not come up

Problem solved took battery out replaced heat symbol came up works ok thanks

Depending on the refrigerant, some older units are R 22. The new units are either R410 or R32. These are not compatible and require new pipe work. The electrics should be sufficient.

23 when 30 outside and 26 when 40 outside! This won't run your outlet into ground nolene!

Yes it does

23 glenda when its over 30 digrees outside! And 26 when over 40 digrees outside

Mine is the 5kw unit

I stated 5kw in the review