View attachment 545598
Shui - I am surprised at the recommendation of 16 SEER since you are up north and do not use your AC as much as someone down south would. How long is the payback for that upgrade? Aren't heat pumps a lot more expensive than just AC units? Your comments intrigued me.
SeaBee - What does the "condensing" type mean? How does it differ from a regular gas furnace?
Okay so I'll try to cover as much as I can,
First of all, by the chart and feedback the trane is the best deal here in my opinion. the brand is very reputable and overall. Good and was part of my considerations when I was looking for my central unit.
Secondly, while we don't use AC as much as you guys, the higher SEER ratings go hand in hand with EER and COP ratings, so a higher SEER unit will be more efficient in cooling and heating.
Why 16? Well I had the choice between three machines from 3 brands and the difference in price was under 1000$ to bump it up from 13-14 SEER to 16.
Will I ever see this return in my pocket? Probably not at the current price of electricity (0.058$/kwh) but here if you burn over 30kw the price goes up to 0.087$/kw and around 0.10$/kwh after 50kw a day. (0.12$/kw in the winter once you pass 50kw). The higher SEER value means i wont pass up to the higher cost electricity and therefore I'll never "earn my money back" because I burn the 5c power and not the 12c one. However if I was paying 12c instead of 5c then the savings would be around 100$/y with my consumption.
However electricity prices do tend to go up and that simply means the savings would come sooner (by my estimate around the 6-7year mark).
As far as a heatpump, you have all of the essentials and therefore it shouldn't be much more of an upgrade doesn't hurt to ask for a quote . Don't forget that a heatpump works by being the reverse AC meaning the outdoor coil is cold and inside one is hot. The greater the temperature difference the higher the efficiency is. An HVAC system is almost twice as efficient as using electric resistive heating in the house. Meaning that the heatpump extracts the heat that's available outside (even if it's just 20f) and pumps it into the house at a lower cost than heating with electricity. Now at a certain point they stop being efficient (around the 5-10f mark) and the backup system kicks in (gas or electric).
I'm going to assume that electricity is cheaper than gas there and therefore think of all the days where it is above 10f where you can be heating your house to 70-72f (or whatever you set your temperature to) with electricity instead of gas.
I have one system that has an AC with a natural gas furnace and one system on a different house that's heatpump and propane, and while the house with the natural gas piped in would save some money on the gas bill, the price difference was not worth it at the current rates here) (figure propane I pay around 3$ a gallon and natural gas is 16c/m3 or figure 16c a gallon. While the unit does consume more, it still is nowhere close to the 3$ mark or the 10kwh it provides of power (which is 50cents while gas is 16). So it depends on your rate and type of gas , and electricity in order to help you decide which system would be better suited for you.
Variable speed units... everyone told me to stay clear of them due to the nature of living in a place where power isn't "clean" meaning the units are sensitive to voltage fluctuations and the fact that we have short power outages often (a second long) it's enough to cause issues later on. A 2 speed unit will be more than comfortable, reliable and energy efficient in almost all scenarios as opposed to the variable speed units which may save a fraction of the monthly bill but one simple repair to them and the savings will be down the drain.
Lastly a condensing type of furnace is a furnace in which the exhaust (or heat transfer) is "long" enough that all of the heat is transferred to the air (or water) and that at the exhaust you have relatively just condensation with almost no residual heat. Figure any furnace with a 90% efficiency and above will be a condensing type while anything less is considered to be a standard furnace or medium efficiency..
Hope this helps
Edit: I saw that op mentioned that he had natural gas so the variable I would be missing is the price for the gas and electricity to help compare, but say if I was paying 1.30$/10kw and gas was 20c/1m3 and propane was 1.50$/gallon then the obvious winner would be natural gas, however if the gap becomes bigger (as it is in my case with propane) then a heatpump becomes a better long term solution while if the gap between electricity and NG becomes bigger then a furnace and conventional AC would be the better long term solution.
On a side note, I'd stay away from humidifiers and dehumidifiers, the AC removes humidity as is and a humidifier is generally more of a bacterial growth promoter than comfort increasing feature. What I would add to the HVAC system is a good air exchanger that can take outside air and mix it, when needed in order to help play with humidity levels.
But be careful, you need to get a GOOD unit with a good heat exchanger and have a drain as these too are prone to growing bugs if they have stagnant water/condensation inside of them.
Edit 2: I think you guys buy your NG by the cubic foot instead of m3 so the price of 16c/m3 (0.16$/m3) is 0.0045$/cuft
Or 4.5$/1000cuft
