When researching ductless heating and air conditioning systems, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Mike Cappuccio, owner of N.E.T.R., Inc. talks about why he believes the Mitsubishi Electric ductless system is best. Listen or read more to find out about the Mitsubishi ductless systems.
John Maher: Hi, I’m John Maher, and I’m here today with Mike Cappuccio, owner of N.E.T.R., Inc., a heating and cooling company in Massachusetts with a focus on Mitsubishi ductless heating and cooling products. Today, we’re talking about Mitsubishi ductless systems versus other brands. Welcome, Mike.
Mike Cappuccio: Hi, John. How are you?
John: Good. Mike, why do you recommend Mitsubishi for ductless heating and air conditioning? I know there’s a couple of other brands of ductless systems that are available out there.
Mike: Well, there’s probably now, John, there’s probably over 100 brands available in the ductless systems in the United States today. When you go to the ASHRAE show, you go down to that and every year you’re looking and you just see more and more ductless manufacturers now coming to the United States. I see brands now — I don’t even recognize the names on them. I don’t even know who they are. I’ve never heard of them. It’s amazing what’s happened with these products in the United States in the past — I’m going to say 10 years.
But I mean, Mitsubishi’s been in the United States now with the ductless heating and cooling products for well over 25, I think almost 30 years now. I got on board with this about 20 years ago, and I mean, I saw the opportunity for this coming to the United States that this was going to break open, and it’s broken open now. People are seeing that this is definitely an option for their home to heat and cool it. I mean, you go overseas, this is all you see.
My big thing with Mitsubishi Electric is I’ve been with them for a long, long time, and they’ve been in the United States for a long time. Some of these other manufacturers that have come to the United States have come, they’ve stayed for a few years, and then they’ve left. And then they’ve come back again, and they’ve come back again for the third time, some of them.
I look at a lot of them and they’re years behind in what we need for the contractor. From a technology standpoint, a lot of them are right there. A lot of them have a lot of good technology, but what they don’t have is they don’t have the support network. What do I mean by the support network? Mitsubishi Electric, like I said, has been in the United States for a long time now, and I’ve been to Atlanta, I’ve been to headquarters many, many times. I’ve worked with Mitsubishi Electric in helping contractors throughout the country, and I’ve got a great, great relationship with Mitsubishi Electric heating and cooling products. I know a lot of people there. I’ve seen the technical support group.
As far as why do I promote the brand, well, if something goes wrong in your home, I know who I can pick up the phone and call. I know I’m going to get the attention that I need to call, and not just being just who I am and the company that I run and for how long I’ve been doing this, but they’re like this with every contractor. I mean, they’ve got great technical support from a training perspective. The training center is local. It’s here in Massachusetts. We have our own training center as well now. We train our own people on our own products. But it’s the support network. It’s the support network and the product, you know? Nothing’s perfect. I’ll be totally honest with you, but when something isn’t right, they don’t run and hide. They’re not the company that’s going to run and hide.
I’ve sold other products, I’m not going to lie to you. I’m not going to sit here and tell you I have not sold other products. I have, and it’s amazing that everyone wants to sell you their products, but when something goes wrong or you need to get ahold of someone to ask them certain questions, they’re never available, or “oh, you’ve got to talk to this guy”, and you’re calling Japan and you’re calling China and different places. They’ve got engineers on the street. They’ve got just the support network. I can’t tell you how advanced it is more than any other manufacturer in the United States today.
Mitsubishi is More Expensive, but for a Good Reason
John: Yeah, it’s certainly an important consideration.
Mike: It’s huge, it’s huge. Yeah, is Mitsubishi Electric a little more money than the other brands? But there’s a reason why. I mean, I just had a lady into the showroom this morning and said to me, she said, “I want a Mitsubishi system.” She says, “I heard they’re the best. I’ve been online, I’ve looked at the reviews. I’ve talked to people. I see this product everywhere,” and there’s a reason why.
Maintenance for a Mitsubishi Ductless System
John: Right, right. Is maintenance a factor also in choosing Mitsubishi, and how should I maintain my Mitsubishi ductless system if I do get that installed? What’s involved in that?
Mike: I mean, from a maintenance standpoint, there’s filters in there that need to be cleaned. There’s deodorizing filters that need to be changed every so often. There’s some carbon filters in there that we might want to change every couple of years. The homeowner can do that themselves if they want. There’s a lot of times we just ship the filters out to them. They wash them, they clean them. And they wash their outdoor unit as well and they kind of check out their own thing.
But we do have maintenance plans that we sell with every one of our systems. What happens though, is if you don’t maintain it, okay? If you don’t fully maintain a system properly . . . what I mean by that is you’ve got to be in there every two weeks, two or three weeks, and at least just pulling the filters out, give them a quick wash. It will take you two or three minutes to do. But if you don’t do that for several years, even months, then the mold and the dirt starts to get built up on the blower wheel. The drain pan starts to get clogged and you start to get funny smells coming out of your air conditioning. I can’t tell you how many times you get a phone call and people say like, “Oh, my unit smells like dirty socks. The air coming out of it smells like dirty socks.” It’s called dirty sock syndrome, and it’s you haven’t cleaned your air conditioning system for four to five years. We look back and no maintenance has ever been done and now you’ve got mold in there, and now we’ve got to come out and take the whole unit apart, clean it, remove the blower wheel, and we don’t recommend that.
We recommend once a year, if you’re using this for heating and cooling, clean it in the spring. Clean it in the fall. Have a . . . deodorize it. Take the wheels out. Clean them. Clean the pans. Clean the condenser. Check the charge. I mean, it’s not real hard to do. It’s about an hour. It’s almost like would you drive your car and not change your oil in it forever?
John: Right.
Mike: It’s the same thing.
John: Every kind of mechanical or electronic thing like that needs some maintenance on a regular basis, right?
Mike: Yeah.
Using a Remote Control for Comfort
John: So, is the Mitsubishi remote control that controls that indoor unit, is that well designed, and what types of controls does that remote offer?
Mike: Well, there’s a couple of different remote controls. We have the handheld remote control that controls the indoor unit. On some of the single zone one-on-one and the GL series, is what we call it, which is your basic series, has a basic handheld remote control with heating, cooling, fan speed. It has a dry mode on it as well. The basic handheld remote control has a 24-hour programmable timer on it. It’s not seven days.
When you get into the more advanced units, the FHs and the EFs and stuff like that, they do have a more advanced handheld control that does have some different fan speeds, some different things going on it, and it does have a seven-day programmable remote control on that.
John: Okay, so I can have it set like on Saturday and Sunday when I’m home more. I can have it set different for those days than during the week when I’m at work, that sort of thing.
Mike: Yes, yes. The other ones are only a 24-hour programmable timer. Then we do have additional options. We have a wireless thermostat we can hook up. It’s called the MHK1 thermostat, that we can hook up to your indoor unit, and that looks just like a Honeywell thermostat, very standard thermostat. We use a lot of these in homes where people want an ease of use with the remote control. Sometimes some of the remote controls are very complex and hard to use, where this is a little bit easier to do programming on and turning fans on and off. It actually says heating and cooling on it, and a little more simplified.
Then we have the kumo cloud that goes on each indoor unit too, as well, that you can operate from your smart phone, and that’s really simple. The ease of use on that is so easy it’s not funny. You look at it and it has heat and cool on it. It shows you the fan speeds on it, and that allows you to operate it from your smart device to do what you want to do from any time or place or whatever you’re trying to do at that point.
John: All right. Any sort of final thoughts on Mitsubishi ductless systems versus other brands?
Mike: My preference is buy Mitsubishi Electric, I’ve got to be honest with you. Like I said, I’ve sold other brands in the past and it has not turned out good. It’s the best system on the market today with the best warranties and the best support network you’re ever going to find.
John: All right, that’s really great information, Mike. Thanks again for speaking with me today.
Mike: Thanks, John.
John: For more information, visit the N.E.T.R., Inc. website at www.netrinc.com or call 781-933-NETR. That’s 781-933-6387.
