Marilyn, so sorry you lost your job... I once reentered the workworld ater 16 years as SAHM, and worked for a temp agency for a few weeks to get my bearings (and my confidence). I found they valued my worth higher than the permanent jobs I was offered even after I paid their cut. A lot of companies use temps around here so they don't have to pay benefits...but the temp agencies are anxious to sign you up if you have good education/experience/skills. I would think loan agencies or anyone offering credit would/could use you...today that covers the spectrum. Hope you succeed soon in getting settled. In my case I sold myself as an ad salesperson to a new city magazine...never had sold anything before...but proved to be good at it...even surprised myself. LOL So look around from another angle...I wonder if you could help people looking to restructure or advise re avoiding foreclosure. maybe a general credit counseling service...I'll bet those businesses are booming nowadays (sad to say). Another thought I had was if you could skew your resume away from mortgages in any way...no lies but just put more emphasis on other work you did. Sure hope something breaks for you soon. josh

>> Tdegen, Im curious through your readings if they addressed on tankless water heater installs, where the incoming water is extremely cold even in the warmer months, how that effects performance. I know it was a problem in the early tankless days, wondering if it still is. Thanks! Everything that I read indicated that the gpm (gallons per minute) decreased proportionally with how much you wanted to raise the temperature of the water. Assuming that most water coming into the house is around 50 degrees and you want a hot shower (about 105 degrees), you want to raise the temp about 55 degrees. This would give you a flow rate of 5.5 gpm. On the other hand, if you have really cold intake water and you want *really* hot water - and want to raise the temperature by 80 degrees, your gpm would drop to 2.2. Every tank is different, the more you pay for the tank, the less gpm is affected. All tankless heaters are rated in this fashion and you should be able to get the exact figures of the model you are looking at buying. The best thing that you can do for yourself is to try to figure out how many gallons per minute you would like to use on average and how important it is for you to be at a certain temperature with a certain water pressure. That is, I like my showers hot, and I like the water pressure high. So all of my calculations will be based on my shower. If my washing machine takes a little longer to fill up, I don't really care. For things like radiant floor heating or maybe a jacuzzi... that's something out of my purview. On a side note: unless you want to be cleaning the heater every month, you will probably want to buy slightly larger heater than what you need. No matter how clean your water is, you'll still get some calcium build-up on the heating elements. This will lower your gpm slightly. I'd suggest buying about 10% over what you expect to use.

75 kWh/day is total electrical usage during the single coldest month of the year, but let's say baseline (ignoring greater lighting usage in winter, most of our lights are CFLs) is 34kWh/day in spring when neither heat nor AC required, the heating system requires 20-41 kWh/day during the winter and maybe 10kWh/day for AC when very hot, but most of the time our monthly electrical usage (with 2 kids and an electric dryer doing average of 7 loads of laundry a week, 1 load of dishes a day) is in the 30's. Total electrical usage (not just HVAC) for past 12 months was 17,943 kWh - rates have varied but total paid was $2709.20, or average of 225.77/mo. Our current budget plan monthly payment is set at $236 - in August we will get a credit if we have paid too much since last August. I believe well drilling cost $9000 for 3 wells - but you may pay more than $3000 for 1 well, I don't know if we paid more because one well is 500ft deep and they had to frack, or if we got a "discount" since the rig was here and all 3 were drilled the same day. Prices also could have changed in 7 years. We didn't pay for trenching since my dad did it. You have to ask if prices include excavation/drilling. Estimates we got in 2007 included 4 ton Envision with 80 gal hot water heater app. $35,750 ), 4.5 ton unit (no specs) ranged from $27,500 - $32,500 (I'm looking at my notes), we went with 4 ton Climatemaster and the 2 80-gal hot water tanks, it was quoted at $27,773, I'd have to look at checks to see what we actually paid since that did not include grouting, etc. done by the well drillers. None of the quotes included well drilling or trenching, or electrical work. There was a $2000 rebate from CL&P at the time - federal tax credit was $500 according to quote - I think that was the max available, I'd have to check the 1040 for that year to see if that was what we got or if it was something different. Rebates/credits only figured on cost of equipment, not labor. Not sure what the credits are now.

Don't do anything "in theory". Load calculations have to be submitted to get a permit in California. The result is easily fudged by the HVAC guy. They often decide in advance what answer they want, and fiddle with the inputs to get that result. You really want a legit load calc done. The variables are size of the home, orientation, quality, location and amount of insulation, size location and nature of windows (double paned or not, well sealed, non-drafty or not), tightness of the home, and other factors. etc. Before load calcs became a standard practice of conscientious contractors and then required by law because of the hacks in the business, the rule of thumb sizing was always rounded up and always resulted in too large equipment. It's unlikely your house ever needed a 120K btu (which I assume is gross input, not output) furnace but if so, money is well spent now sealing up the house. Oversized furnaces tend to run frequent, short cycles. Like trying to scramble an egg using a large too hot blow torch when instead a lower gentle heat is needed for longer time. You do need a real load calc. Given that much of the heating season where you are is for cool rather than cold weather, perhaps there will be times when the heat pump's output will be enough. When it's not, have a gas furnace inline and connected to switch to - the right thermostat will handle that task when you want it to. Maybe one with 80K Btu output (at whatever efficiency you need to get there) or a bit smaller would be enough. The 120K even at 80 % is giving you about 100 BTU of output, probably way more than is needed. Longer cycles are more comfortable and provide more even heating. You can be sure that 60K coming from a heat pump will be running long cycles because the supply air from a heat pump isn't as warm as that coming from a furnace. The 5 tons is WAY oversized for AC use but you've said that's only a few days per year. No prblem. Good luck, find the right contractor and you will be in good hands.