About Mini Split Data
Mini Split Data compares ductless mini splits on what their manufacturers publish, measured against what the rest of the class publishes. We do not install or test them.
Why this site exists
A mini split listing puts a BTU rating and a square footage next to each other and never reconciles them. The same 12,000 BTU head is sold for 550 square feet by one manufacturer and 750 by another, and both figures are presented with equal confidence. One of them is a bolder claim than the other, and nothing on the page says so.
Reading one listing tells you very little. Reading 91 of them, normalised into the same units, tells you what an ordinary unit in each class claims — and which listings are claiming more than their own capacity supports. The median here works out at 16.0 BTU per square foot.
What we do
We collect mini split listings, extract every specification the manufacturer publishes, convert them into consistent units, and compute a baseline for each BTU class, room-size band and circuit type. Every page then measures individual units against the baseline for their own class, and every unit carries the sizing check its own two figures imply.
What we do not do
We do not physically test mini splits. No unit described here has cooled a room for us. We say so on every page rather than implying hands-on experience we do not have.
We are not installers, and nothing here is installation advice. The sizing check is arithmetic on two published numbers, offered so you can spot a listing whose figures disagree. It knows nothing about your ceiling height, insulation, windows, climate or orientation, and all of those change the answer. A Manual J load calculation is what sizes a system properly. Refrigerant handling requires EPA certification, and the electrical work requires an electrician.
We do not publish star ratings or review counts, and we do not publish exact prices. Where a manufacturer has not published a specification, we print not stated.
Who writes this
Saoirse Bell, Editor, is the byline on this site. Saoirse is a pen name, and we would rather say so plainly than let a fabricated biography do work it has not earned. There are no trade credentials behind it, and there should not be: a site that states on every page that it does not install equipment has no business presenting a certified technician as its author.
What stands behind the figures is the method, not the persona. It is written down, it is repeatable, and where it fails we would rather publish the gap than paper over it.
Why baselines, and not verdicts
Most buying advice ends in a ranking. Rankings are useful when someone has genuinely tested the field. Where nobody has, a ranking is an opinion dressed as a result, and the confidence it projects is the part that misleads.
A baseline makes a weaker claim and keeps it: here is what an ordinary unit of this class claims, and here is where this one sits against it. That is a fact about the market rather than a judgement about the product.
The limits, stated plainly
This site inherits every weakness of its source. If a manufacturer publishes an optimistic coverage area, we repeat it — the sizing check is the only challenge we can offer, and it measures internal consistency rather than truth. If a listing omits a specification, we cannot supply it.
Coverage is uneven in ways that constrain what can be compared. HSPF2, which describes cold-weather heating performance, is published by barely one listing in ten — so this site offers no heating comparison at all rather than one built on that fraction. Line set length and air throw are in the same position.
Corrections
If a figure here is wrong, it is worth more to us to know than to look right.