Living in PA, we have a 60's built ranch home with no ductwork. My husband had one of these systems put in this summer (Fijitsu wall mounted system) to cool our main living area. It works great. It is quiet and works very well cooling most of the house although we only needed it for living/dining/kitchen. I had hoped for the best when I reluctantly agreed because I HATED how it looked. I had seen these units in other peoples homes and hated them then. People (especially contractors) assured me that I would get over this. It has been since June and I still hate how it looks. When friends and family (admittedly mostly female) see this unit, their first reaction is negative on how it looks. They try to be nice about it but when I ask their honest opinion, they say it is ugly. I really regret having this installed. The few short months that we use it was not worth the eyesore it is in our house. I am trying to come up with ways to hide this beast for the 8 or 9 months of the year that we don't use it. I am writing this only to forewarn anyone who has concerns about installing these units because of the looks. My advice would be if you have white walls and high ceilings, then this would likely be less noticeable. If you have lower ceilings like I do and have a wall color other than white or light, this is going to be noticeable. Also, I would suggest do whatever you can to find a wall that is not a focal wall to install this beast. My was installed on a focal wall which only adds to the problem.

I wouldn't be too concerned about the cooling system itself but rather the quality of the insulating properties of your windows (glass), walls, floors and roof. Imagine setting a Yeti cooler and an Igloo cooler side-by-side outside under the hot sun for a few days. Both cooler brands are capable of holding ice just fine. Although, which brand will keep the ice from melting the longest? It comes down to the quality of the insulation and the seal itself, where cold air can escape and hot air can enter. Yes, the Yeti cooler will usually cost two to three times more than the Igloo brand. The same goes for your choice in windows. You will pay for more up front for the higher-end windows but you should save even more in the long run when it comes down to cooling costs. Just my opinion and no bias here. I own both a Yeti and Igloo and put them to work regularly. Congratulations on your new home! Saludos, Ernesto P.

Well competing technologies win out and defeat other competing technologies. Or the flood of cheaper panels cause companies with greater cost panels to go bankrupt. There is a technology that could eventually win out again and clean the field again... probably more than that after that and so on. You say how robust the panels are, they withstand hail. They do this, they do that. None of you *that I know of* actually install solar panels and deal with potential problems. None of you *that I know of* perform warranty calls on installed solar systems. Certainly neither do I, but I know from my experience as a HVAC Service Contractor that crap happens. Things go wrong. If the things you say didn't go wrong... what pray tell is the purpose of the warranty? Hail? how big of hail? pea size. Yeah no specifics from none of you. I've seen softball size hail in my life time. I've seen golf ball size, pea size. The larger the size the more the damage... Million dollar homes have solar panels & ugliness. My personal opinion is that they don't look any more ugly than anything else on a roof. Ugliness is a matter of personal opinion. I live in reality. In that reality I know that if I were to buy solar panels I am not going to drive them down the street. But if I start hearing that solar panels on roof tops are catching fire OR the myriad of other problems that *that could happen* --- my goal isn't to bury my head in the sand and call these sorts of things fairy tales. The con is lets put this contraption on a million dollar home, because it will save a fortune in utility costs (which it may) ---- but then because we are so focused on saving a buck lets not maintain it. It just sits there on the roof... (it's not a car or truck) Then mysteriously we drive home one day...... 5, 10, 15 years into the wild blue yonder to see a black smoke over head. All that money we saved on utilities or what we thought we saved. Don't worry homes burn down (million dollar or less) for other reasons than having solar panels as an ignition source. So feel free to use that excuse if you want to. Technology is a beast unto itself. Boom to bust. One tech gets swallowed by another. 30 years is a long time in the tech realm. To put that into perspective that smart phone you have thinner than a stack of cards --- didn't exist 30 years ago. The energy market (electricity creation) is probably easily a $Trillion$ dollar market. In high tech world... that doesn't spell anything good for a 30 year solar panel in *todays* world. There's some problems with newer competing tech, but it's just a matter of time until something better comes along. What is top notch tech today, is dust tomorrow. Boosting Solar Production to over come Tariffs

Mini splits are best suited for 'spot cooling & spot heating'. If you don't consider all 'spots' in the structure then you will have hot spots and cold spots within the structure. While 1200 square feet isn't all that large it's large enough to pose challenges to mini split design. What does comfort mean to you? That's the whole reason we put systems in our homes to be comfortable. It's one thing to be in your living room, quite another to be in the bed room trying to sleep. You spend 1/3 of your life in the bedroom sleeping. If all you had was one room in your house, mini split would be more practical solution. The more rooms you heat and cool, means more heads you need to heat an cool. The more equipment you have, the more maintenance, breakage and so on. This is why ducted HVAC systems are best for a house.