Any HVAC guys here?

Carrier
Rheem

96% efficiency or more.

Bungalow? Unfinished basement? If you have access to your ductwork have it sealed and taped.

Make sure you have the right size air conditioner. Too small and it'll work overtime and kick in all the time.

15 SEER or more.

Venmar HRV.

Went through this last year, ended up with Amana.

https://m.vitalmx.com/forums/Non-Moto,21/New-AC-units,1316854

The only thing I really care about, is I buy from a supply house that is close to my work and have Saturday hours, I work on my own units and need easy access to parts. Have three rentals.

https://www.remichel.com/Webservices


Everything you asked for, plus free delivery.

I am a huge fan of my carrier heat pump system with natural gas back up. However, being in NY it may stay too cold in the winter to really make sense for you.

Well, aside from being a bit more complex, you have one of the most efficient systems out there foot.
And really, him being farther up north, won't get your bills, but compared to his neighbors, still really good.
They call them hybrid systems around here.

I tell you foot, me, I'm old school, keep it simple. But, I must admit, some of the stuff they're coming up with does work.

Was at a Carrier school maybe 10 months ago. Used to be, Carrier was Carrier and that's all they sold.
Well, apparently they realized they are kinda missing the boat with selling aftermarket stuff. So, they gave
about 30 of us these Ecobee thermostats. All they asked was we installed them in our house. Apparently they sell them at Lowe's and Home Depot also, and are having a hell of a time with people screwing them up, sending them back, not taking the time to set them up right, whatever.

Complex. I don't give a crap what they say, they can do so much, it can be kind of overwhelming.

Wiring it in, no problem. But, then it needs to be configured to your type of system, Take your system foot.
There are 2 common ways to control it mostly. One, the most common, the room thermostat falls 3 degrees below what it's set at and poof, it knocks off the heat pump, which isn't keeping up, cause it's too cold outside, and brings in the gas furnace, which will, no matter how cold it is outside. It heats the room up and you go back on heat pump till it can't keep the room warm again. The second way, is an outdoor thermostat, set at say, 35 degrees. The outdoor temp falls below 35
heat pump locks out, gas furnace comes and stays on, as long as it's under 35 outside.

Simple. The trick is to stay on heat pump as much as you can, because cost wise, it's more efficient than gas.

Me, I'm all electric heat pump. The electric heat strips in the indoor unit do what your gas furnace does, but
cost 3 or 4 times as much money to put out the same amount of heat a hpump does.

Well, the Ecobee, The way they do it is they hook in to your WiFi. Which is hooked into your local weather station,
At 35 degrees outside, my thermostat sees that, and, if heat pump isn't keeping up, brings in electric strip.
Before, if I raised the temp more than 3 degrees, or somebody left the door open bringing in the groceries and the temp
dropped, the electric strip would come on. Now, unless the weather station says so, I'm always on heat pump.
Before, bills just under 300 a month for an all electric 2200 sq ft house.
Now, I average 160.

It's nice, it can be configured for most any type of system. Gas, oil, boiler, heat pump, hybrid whatever. It can be programmed as an automatic set back, raising and lowering the temp when you get up and go to sleep. It won't work on baseboard electric heaters. You can configure it to be monitored and controlled off your smart phone, which I do, which is kinda neat, but not easy to set up imo.

And the thing that bugs me the most, but they tell me a lot of the younger population like, is it can be set up to be voice actuated. You can link it to Amazon, as long as you have Prime, and not get off the couch to raise or lower the setting.
All you gotta do is say, Alexia, raise the temp 2 degrees, and it will.
Thing is, there are real people in some warehouse, that hear the command, and raise the setting the 2 degrees.
Alexia, that is the people in the warehouse, also hear everything else you say,

Everything.

You mention pizza, 3 days later you'll be getting google ads on your computer or phone for Papa Johns.
You're taking about buying a new dirt bike, same thing, a few days later Yahoo will have ads for the new RMZ.

I had to dig this out of the Ecobee rep. Man, was he evasive. Said sure, all the smart phones, TVs and phones do it.
And the people in the warehouses, Alexisa, they're all screened, unless major crime or something like that is being discussed, they ignore all the other stuff. It's not an issue. No government official will be listening in.



Donna said what's the big deal, we've already got AmazonPrime, just activate/configure it for that, might be neat to not have to get off the couch when we feel chilled.

Alexia was not configured, and a piece of foam tape went over the microphone hole in the back of the Ecobee.

It was just too complex, couldn't figure out how to do it.

I've got the smart thermostat as well and love it. Had an issue last winter with the heat pump kicking out too soon, but got that figured out and now I hardly use the fuel at all. Stays in heat pump most of the time. This spring I also installed a hybrid heat pump water heater because I have been so impressed with how my heat pump takes care of my house. What a work of art!