Comment by jauntywundrkind

There indeed are plenty of mini-splits you can just buy & install.

I would too. Alas mom lives in a northerly area, and we really would prefer something high efficiency. There's some rebadged 37mpra units about that are 35+ SEER2, which if the number means anything is a colossal leap. The good stuff though doesn't seem to be directly purchaseable. I'd be happy to lay the concrete bed, set it up, drill walls, mount the ductless... Getting help actually vacuuming would be good but I could do it.

But I can't go purchase the system.

It's all deeply infuriating. This is just such a rude awful thing that American society keeps having to put up with such deeply captured deeply absurd base costs everywhere. These tradespeople deserve to make a living, I don't bergrudge them that, but this feels like there has to be so so much more going wrong for these prices to escalate like this.