Mini Split Installation in Maricopa, AZ
A new system here will heat from November through March and cool from April through October every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Pinal County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Maricopa asks a mini-split to run almost year round
Cooling runs April through October here, seven months straight, with summer afternoons averaging 101°F. That's most of the year the outdoor unit spends working hard. Winter is shorter and milder, five months, with nights averaging 40°F, but the same unit still has to switch over and carry the house through those months too.
A new mini-split installed today has to meet the federal minimum for split-system heat pumps. That's 14.3 SEER2 for cooling and 7.5 HSPF2 for heating. In a place where cooling is the main job for most of the year, that cooling number is the one worth checking on whatever unit goes in.
- 5 months
- November through March, your system heats
- 7 months
- April through October, it cools
- 40°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 101°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
Arizona requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
Licenses are issued by the Registrar of Contractors.
Look up a contractor's license on the Registrar of Contractors' website.Sources: Arizona State Legislature · Arizona Registrar of Contractors
- Is a mini split worth it?
- For most homes here, yes. Maricopa needs cooling from April through October and heat the other five months, so a system doing both jobs well earns its keep all year. A mini split puts heat where a room actually loses it or gains it, instead of pushing air through ducts that lose some of it along the way. It's a good fit for a room addition, a garage that was never on the ducts, or a house that needs zone control because one part of it never feels right.
- How many rooms can a mini split cover?
- A single outdoor unit can run several indoor heads at once, so one system can cover more than one room. Each indoor head handles one room or one open area on its own thermostat, so the more rooms you want covered separately, the more heads the system needs. A contractor sizing the job will look at the square footage and layout of each room to figure out how many heads and what capacity the house needs.
- Can a mini split heat a whole house?
- It can, if it's sized and placed for that. A multi-zone system with enough indoor heads can heat every room in the house, and heat pump mini splits are built to do both heating and cooling rather than just one. Winters in Maricopa average 40°F at night, which is well within what these systems handle. Whether it makes sense to heat the whole house this way instead of running mini splits alongside existing ducts is something a contractor can work out room by room.