In order to maintain the temperature of a 3400 sq. foot house on both floors, it is best that each floor have its own heating and cooling zone. The best option is to have a separate furnace and AC condenser for each floor. The second option, which generally costs less, is to have one furnace and condenser and the duct work zoned with dampers controlled by a thermostat on each floor. You have to find a HVAC contractor who will do a heating and cooling load calculation. This will determine the proper size of the equipment. Equipment that is too big is just as bad as equipment that is too small. The duct work must also be properly sized. The calculation should be done with a software program specifically for this purpose. This is known as a Manual J calculation. The contractor measures every room, window, exterior door, and inputs the insulation values and the direction of the house. The program calculates the number of BTUs needed to heat and cool the house. The equipment is then sized to match the need. Trane and Carrier and their respective sister brands American Standard and Bryant make very good equipment. You should be able to find good contractors that sell that equipment. Get some quotes and see how they compare in sizes and options. Stay away from the low end equipment. Make sure the quotes include all model numbers and sizes.

What should I look for to find info on 'heat pump mini split'? Any particular brands of other considerations? My walls are 74" high. I will be hanging ceiling joists on top of the cap rails at 16" oc and covering top with plywood or osb for loft storage. That will probably only be about 4' deep on each side of the building leaving me with 8' of overhead to play with. I don't really want to wack my head on lights, so I can embed them between ceiling joists or recess them or whatever. I don't want to have any question about seeing anything, or safety. So I will not skimp on them. However, I don't want to go overboard cost-wise. So I would like good bang-for-the-buck... Where possible, I will do my best to comply with NEC2011 above and beyond my inspector's requirements. I don't see anything they are requiring that is above what is in NEC so far. Now that once again the idea of home runs to each outlet has been raised, what does that suggest about the size of panel I need? In theory, I could put a box (4 gang?) every 16" with a single 250 outlet above it or perhaps 6 gang and have them all together. So I could have 4 120's plus 1 240 every 16". But wait there's more! Initially I wanted to have knee level outlets as well as counter top level outlets, and what the hell, how about a ceiling one as well. That would come to 12 120 outlets and 3 240 outlets every 16 inches (with the exception of the wall with the double door and where the single door is (and the windows, would not really have a counter top level position. That would add up to a severely ridiculous number of outlets, and if they were all home runs, I thing would require a panel the whole size of one of the walls. That said, 'you can never have too many' is probably incorrect, though idealistically I can agree. Realistically, I need to come up with a reasonable number somewhat less than that. :) It seems reasonable that I can get a panel that has 22 slots. I assume that gives me up to 44 circuits on 120 tandems, or up to 11 240 circuits, or more likely some combination thereof. because I am a cheap b*d, and I had to yank 2 perfectly fine 15 amp cutler hammer breakers to put in a tandem so that I could even fit a 100 amp breaker in the house panel, I will be purchasing a cutler hammer panel, and using those 2 15 amp breakers. I assume they would be fine to run lights and perhaps a smoke/fire alarm. I think I would have to be running a bunch of 500 watt halogen work lights to toss the breakers on that, and I don't really intend on running halogens in there anyway. I will wire the runs with 12/2 or 12/3 anyway, so when those breakers do give up the ghost I will not feel bad replacing them with 20's... just because. That does away with 2 slots leaving me with 20. If I put in 6 240 circuits that would leave me 8 slots and I could tandem them to 16 120 circuits. Obviously, I could have multiple outlets still on such a layout, but I obviously could not use them all simultaneously without going over the 100 amps. But, let's see where I can go with this. If I go to 4 gang plus 1 per placement that would give me 4 circuits per box duplicated above and below and on the ceiling and same for the opposite side of the room. This could be repeated 4 times down the length of the building giving me a plug point every 32" that will give me a choice of 4 different circuits or a 240, with the understanding that so long as nothing else is plugged along that 'longitude' it will not share the same circuit. This also leaves me with 2 additional placements of 240's that perhaps could be reserved for special purpose things, such as a welder, or climate control unit or something of that ilk. That is not counting the GFCI, but that is a detail. So we are talking about 48 split duplex 20 amp outlets, and at least 12 20 amp 240 outlets and perhaps a 30 or 50 for good measure. That is the closest I can get to overkill and still feel like I am describing a somewhat sane layout. Still, it seems almost double what I will more likely do. I assume there is a limit to the number of wires that I can fit through a hole in a 2x4, and again, if I am using 4 gang boxes to put 4 separate circuits in each one, I am not sure I have the confidence that I can fit all the pigtails and wire nuts inside the boxes and still have room for the outlets themselves. Is there a tool for planing the layouts/runs online or on the computer other than just pencil and paper? Am I just getting silly, or would someone actually wire a shop like this?

Well, the Pissed Off comment has to do with alot of the Previous Owner's "Upgrades". Example, I just finished replacing a "Brand New" 10 year old roof that had the shingles disintegrating. Brand new was his description. Inspector caught that, so I knew it the day I bought the house. (Improper installation was the roofing companies comment, no ventilation, baked the shingles off the roof) So is this in the ballpark of over 1k, or under 1k? I know local market, deterines alot of this, but I figure an estimate can't be too far off per region.

air sealing comes first. have a blower door test done to find house leakage. make sure that you follow the tester around & write down leakage areas. keep a roll of tape handy to stick a piece of tape @ leakage site. if you get 'free' utility audit, you will have to be there and slow it down long enough to get an idea of where the leaks are. to be told that you have an ELA (equivalent leakage area) of a 3'x5' hole in the wall is not telling you where leaks are. find out. step one. heat loss/heat gain is through ceiling. air seal from inside attic at attic floor & from inside by caulking window/door moldings to walls, ceiling moldings at top to ceilings, bottoms to walls, caulk floor moldings to walls & floors. if equip/ductwork is in attic, make changes there before adding insulation. ducts can be tested for leakage also. mastic materials should be the only material used for a long lasting seal of ducts. air seal at attic floor, then add insulation. windows will get you between 7-14% savings. not much for the thousands of replacement costs. air sealing saves you the most then insulation. central hvac is biggest user, followed by water heaters. invest in efficiency. closed cell foam for under floors if on crawlspace. not sure what payback for insulating walls would be. here in my hot humid climate it isn't worth it, but if it is for your area, hire it out. the company can drill holes & pump in insulation. vett insulation companies carefully. is the house balloon framed? if so recommendations change. your house is eating up propane costs because your house is like a leaky box. stop the leaks, insulate & heat will stay inside house instead of escaping through openings. tell us more about hvac system type & location of heating system & ductwork. where are the return air(s)? radiant barrier plywood will provide some savings in summer, if house is in full sun. little to no savings in winter. just fyi best of luck.