Kitchen - Aircon splits

[Makeit go Right]

Has anyone had experience with aircon splits in Kitchen areas.

Customer has a hood extract and tempered supply air ducted system, which works fine in itself, but there is no cooling on the system and the kitchen gets very hot. Adding some cooling to the AHU is a possibility but what’s wanted is to add two 10kW splits, without all that cool air racing straight up the hood before the caterers get some benefit.

There is the Mitsi 7kW under-ceiling unit model PCA-RP-HAQ, which is a stainless steel jobbie, intended for kitchens and designed for easy/thorough maintenance/cleaning, but they only have the 7kW size -- nothing larger – and are quite costly (especially as they would require 3x systems instead of two). But three of those is option-A. Anyone maintained/worked on these units? Any comments tips etc?

Option-B is the more regular 10kW wall-mounts, that could be stripped down during regular thorough maintenance visits. Wall-mounts seem better for deep cleaning than cassettes or u/ceiling units – comments? And I understand the MitsH wall units are not so friendly for this kind of deep cleaning – any other tips or good suggestions (Mitse/Daikin/Pana/Fujitsu)?

[chemi-cool]

Kitchens air is dirty and full of burnt oil mist, it will block the evaporator in no time.
Best cooling for kitchens is 100% fresh air cooling unit and extractor fan on the other side.

[al]

I've a site with numberous kitchens with dish washers and door open most of the day, i've had all manner of wall mounts installed, mitsi, tosh, daikin, none of them can be stripped easily to clean fan blade and more importantly the back of the evaps. 2 units that have worked really well though, daikin ducted unit (filter if much better than wall mounted one and easily cleaned, plus above ceiling so limits dirt into it, the other is one of those stainless steel units, great air flow and filter media is easily replaced, they don't get gunked up like the wall mounts.

[Brian_UK]

I agree with Al, wall mounts are 'non-cleanable' in kitchen locations. Too much oil/fat mist and/or flour dust to clog up a "domest9c" unit.

I've worked on Mitsi s/s under ceiling hung units and they are far better.

You might get away with a void unit if you fit decent filtration but ongoing maintenance will bite you.

[Makeit go Right]

Thanks all. Good info and comments. Very helpful.

[r.bartlett]

Tend to disagree, Because of the heat and humidity (and lack of maintenance here) we have a lot of experience in heavily clogged fan scrolls so have the stripping down to a fine art.

A Daikin wall mount comes apart very easily without degasing. You can get the fan scroll out in 15 minutes. Into the dishwash or sink and it comes up clean as a whistle

Site them as far away from the cooking area as possible and with the extraction should keep out most of the grease. If you want you can add a better filter but nothing too fine as these fan motors are low wattage..

If you already have a SS Mitsi in I suggest it's not the usual pub grub environment so will probably be quite large airy and clean..

[Makeit go Right]

I've worked on Mitsi s/s under ceiling hung units and they are far better.

Hello, Brian. These Mitsi s/s units come with oil-mist filters (about 6mm thick, only, and don't look like much) and they should be washed weekly. With your experience with these units (or anybody else jump in), can you say what maintenance is needed, over and above the weekly wash of the filter media?

No two kitchens are the same, of course, but I expect the weekly wash of the filter media is not the whole story: from time to time there will need to be some occasional deep cleaning inside the unit, to deal with the fat/oil etc that gets past the filters - what sort of frequency is likely, would you say? (... just speaking of the units you have serviced.)