Wow. So generous of you to post this-- I wish everyone did this after 4 years! It's quite different than "I've had this for a month and love it!" Very useful information indeed.

If the old heater heated the house,then why would you suddenly need insulation is what I'd ask. You probably could use more insulation, but that's a whole other topic. (search air sealing--lots of info on here about it.) Does it blow heat and just can't keep up? Did they undersize you? Do you know how big your old system was vs the new one? Hindsight is 20/20 but Costco may not have been the route to go....I doubt the contractors who hook up with Costco are the best and the brightest. The good ones don't need Costco to get business. Sorry :( Good luck. I am curious if your house is an example of what my dealer mentioned when I thought he was oversizing me a little. He said that he didn't want me calling when the temps got unusually low (like they have been here in NJ) and saying the house is cold. BUT, most people on here say oversized is bad so I guess you have to pick your poison. My heat is great, the ac works well, but if it was smaller it would run longer and take out more humidity. At least I'm not cold. I would not contract with any of these people you've dealt with if you decide to get more insulation. Ask for referrals on here and you might be able to find a reputable installer. Or, if you only want insulation you can diy it. PS. My contractor was one of the higher priced, in demand ones, and I STILL had issues. I think I got a new guy (just one) and a Friday, beautiful fall day (like lets finish up and go home kind of day!)I Have to remember never to do important stuff on Fridays in case something goes wrong. (contractors and surgeries) I guess it's buyer beware.

Yes, many herbs are amazingly simple to grow. The ones that come to us from the Mediterranean appreciate rainfall but don't need tons of it, like well-drained soil (just plant on ridges created by one of your plowing attachments/furrowers that you pull behind the tractor), and actually benefit from being sheared back occasionally. You cut them back, distribute the harvest at your food distribution points, wait a week or two or three (depends more on available soil moisture and temperature than anything else), harvest them again. Every time you harvest, you only remove some of the plant, and the rest of the plant kicks back into a highly vegetative cycle and quickly regrows tons of new growth. The easiest herbs to grow, in my opinion, are basil, parsley (but it is cool season and a biennial so keep that in mind), rosemary (as long as there is good drainage), and chives (cool season, grow like crazy and are perennial if you don't plow them up---you can divide a one year old plant into a million babies to replant). Sage also is easy but I have found that people generally only use it around the Christmas and Thanksgiving holidays so it might not be worth growing for a harvest that only would be appreciated for a briefer period. I have mixed luck with oregano and thyme---they seem to need better drainage than I can give them. There also are herbs you can grow for tea----just the leaves themselves steeped in hot water provide a nice herbal tea or, in the case of chamomile, the flowers are steeped to give you the tea. I like lemon balm and lemon verbena for tea, and catnip and chamomile. Many people appreciate mint, but be advised mint can be very invasive. Now, I don't mind invasive plants that want to run wild and grow everywhere because I have the dense red clay that tends to discourage invasiveness by causing plants to rot in wet weather. So, there's not much that truly is invasive in my garden. If it will survive the hot dry cracking clay soil in summer, it tends to die in winter's wet, soggy clay....and vice versa, but mint? Oh, mint has survived everything I've thrown at it here except for the summer of 2011. Mint can be used in tea or to flavor certain adult beverages (mojitos) or to add a nice little bit of flavor to sweet southern iced tea or as a garnish for fruit or melons. You could try a handful of different herbs every year to see which ones are appreciated and enjoyed by your clients, and which ones are duds. Most are easy from seed. Another great thing about the mints is that some of them flower and their flowers tend to be little tiny ones that are not particularly noteworthy but which do attract pollinators and other beneficial insects to your garden plot. I grow basil (one plant for every 3 or 4 tomato plants) with my tomato plants to repel tomato hornworms. I won't say it is 100% effective, but I grow about 100 tomato plants each spring, and in a bad year I'll see maybe a grand total of 6 or 8 hornworms all year long.....even though I see more tobacco hornworms than tomato hornworms (both feed on tomatoes) and maybe that's because I grow flowering tobacco (Nicotiana alata and others). I know lots of people who will see 6 or 8 hornworms on one plant, so I feel justified in believing my basil plants repel the hornworms, mostly, from my tomato plants. Cilantro is problematic. It is a cool-season herb that bolts in spring as soon as the weather warms up a bit. That is unfortunate because it is used in many recipes that use tomatoes (salsa pico de gallo, chicken tortilla soup, etc.), which are warm-season plants. So, I don't think it would be a good herb for your use. When dried, it turns bitter, so I don't bother drying it. I usually stop harvesting mine when it begins to bolt, and then I let the flowers go to seed and drop where they may. The following year I have cilantro here and there. That's not an issue in the home garden, but wouldn't really fit in with your rotation plan as it would be in the way of equipment needed to plow, plant or harvest. I think asparagus would be an awesome thing to grow, but it is perennial so wouldn't fit into a crop rotation scheme, and also would tie up its own growing area for 2-3 years before it could provide the first harvest. Or, you can take a page out of my dad's book. A child of the Great Depression, he developed a fondness for lambs quarters and poke salad that never left him. I have an enduring image, burned into my memory, of his lambs quarters plants that always grew out in the back corner of the yard right beside his compost pile. It can be hard to get people to try things like lambs quarters, poke salad or dandelion greens, but often they like them once they try them. Red Malabar Spinach or Green Malabar Spinach both are vining plants that need to be trellised, but provide a "green" for eating fresh or cooked in the summertime when it is too hot for most greens. With something like that, you might not want to introduce it for a couple more years-----wait until you get people hooked on eating and enjoying the regular veggies before you introduce some of the less common ones. You might want to consider some of the less well-known beans like favas or chickpeas.

Ok glad you found that useful. I decided to see if I could find some proof of the same ole shenanigans... yep sure did. Heavy on marketing and gimmicks low on realism and truth. But who needs truth? Now does this mean I am bashing Trane or Am. Standard? Only to the point in which they think their product is better than something else. The marketing gimmicks. They have to do that to charge more. If they told you 'hey our products are good, but you will pay more over the life of the equipment' would the you still buy it? But Ray, why wouldn't you just shut up and sell it anyway? This comment right here: 'Hey, you sold me this equipment --- you said it was the 'best', what do you mean the indoor coils are leaking freon? What do you mean the compressor is making noise that will eventually lead to it's death? This equipment is still new... if it was the best why am I having all these problems? That's why. --- no HVAC equipment is immune to failure. none. So sorry, Trane / American Standard is just as good --- or as bad as anything else. It will cost more to repair it. Marketing gimmicks cost money. -------- But what should I do then? Focus on design. Things like zoning / how it is going to be done. What is the better way for the project to be done? Sizing of the equipment. Don't over size even if you are buying 2 speed equipment. (A half ton over size is fine. Nearly 2 tons over size? uh---- NO.) Things like how much equipment versus controls --- further from that lay out. Ease of future service, the ability to easily repair the equipment, replace when that time comes. Things to reduce maintenance problems and or expenses. These things are fleeting when trying to get the 'cheapest price' outside of what the equipment costs. Because design is the skill level attained by 'experience'. With that said, new construction is often times none of these things. It's more along the line of sell the system(s), hire the sub contractor to do it --- and that sub contractor makes more money by completing as many jobs as they can. More often than not new construction has little to do with great design. Because of that I would zone the new construction home with 'equipment' as opposed to controls especially because you have the room to do so (5k sq ft) If you want zoning, add it later with someone who has in depth knowledge that it's even feasible. Experience is gained over years, decades in the HVAC field. As noted previously I do not do new construction. I come after the builder is long gone... in some cases as little as 1 year after the house was built. I service the Katy, Texas area.