The best time to start for grass was 5 months ago in August. At this point, though, all you can do is run with what you have. I suspect most of what you have is either dormant for winter or not growing much. Spring is a terrible time to seed, but if you can afford sod, it is fine to do in spring. As to your hard soil, I wonder if you have construction rubble out there? The worst part of construction rubble is when they dump concrete. If you have a metal pole you can go around the yard looking for that. Whack it into the ground listening for the sound of metal hitting rock. When you hear that, dig around and see if it is concrete, rock, or just a little rock. Dig out all the big stuff. When you have all the real rock out of the yard, then spray it with baby shampoo at a rate of 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet. Spray the shampoo and water it a full inch. Then two weeks later repeat. You can measure an inch using tuna or cat food cans. Time how long it takes your sprinkler to fill the cans. It takes my sprinkler 8 hours, so this is not something you can hand hold. Get a hose and turbo oscillator sprinkler if you don't have anything else. Don't get a mechanical linkage oscillator, because the linkage is prone to failure. Turbos work great and last many seasons. When spring comes and the very first plants start to green up, start watering a full inch once a month unless Mother Nature gives you some help. When the temps warm into the 70s, bump up the frequency to once every 3 weeks. With temps in the 80s, water every other week. Temps in the 90s go to weekly watering. Don't fall into the trap of watering 1/7-inch every day to get a full inch per week. That method is guaranteed to give you a crabgrass lawn by July. The surface of the soil should be completely dry for days before you water again. And remember to skip a period when the rain gives you the full inch. Let the yard green up before you attempt to kill the weeds. Set your mower to the highest setting and see what survives 4 weeks of weekly mowing. Many plants will die immediately after the first mowing, but many will not. There's a pretty good chance that many of your weeds will choke out others leaving you a very limited variety of stuff. While you are mowing and working around in the yard, find all the holes and hills you might want to fill or scrape off. Keep track of those or fill them with sand/topsoil at your earliest convenience. If you fill holes with sand you can fill them to grade. If you use topsoil, fill, water to let the soil settle, and repeat until you have it filled to grade. Then heap it up just a little more (1/2 inch?). Trust me, it will eventually settle down to be level. Hills you can just cut off the top with a shovel. Also do not be tempted to rototill this yard if you ultimately want grass. Rototilled soil takes years to settle back to a normal structure. When it does it will be bumpy. Right now...

An update: I need some more advice I did go ahead and buy the 3T RUUD unit last year as guided. It has worked very well and I got the tax credit too. A/C worked well last summer however this past winter we had a reasonably cold February here in Houston. The HP did have to "work" long cycles to get the area somewhat warm. I am concerned about the unit having to really work long cycles and produce not really warm air. Is running a lot - to warm the space... The performance seemed to be much better when the temperature went to 40F during the day when the units would kick on. During the coldest part of the snap it struggled to get adequate heat into the space. The last heat strip units ran 25 years and did a good job, however much more expensively. Going forward I is trying being as efficient as I can be. I have a second unit to replace...I nursed that old 2nd Lennox HS unit thru this past year and don't believe it will last at all this season. I recognize that I have another unit to buy and the HP did save $$ on the heat and A/C side this year. Markedly... Besides Texas still have funds left for rebates on efficient units. Want to get that B 4 it runs out. So I need to act. Since I am all electric (NO Natural Gas), I am looking for another unit at 2.5T for this other side of the home. Manual J says 2.5T is needed. The rooms in this living area are the sleeping quarters, bathrooms, master BR and showers along with the den. I need to make sure that the heating aspect will provide more heat than what I experienced with the 3T heat pump in the main room this past winter.... I need to feel warm in the winter in this other space since there is a risk of catching cold / other by stepping out of the shower. if the heat is not present in qty. AND another consideration - when we get up to go to work its usually in the early AM, when the temps are most likely to be at the lowest part of the day and the HP will probably be the least efficient that is when the heat is needed. I need to address this aspect in the choice I make today... Contractor who did the last install did a good job... I have no issue on getting another RUUD and using him He is quoting another RUUD 2.5T HP similar setup as last year's 3T HP UPQL-030JEZ AH RHKL-HM3617JA 7.5KW HS 15.5 SEER / 13 EER New supply and return Plenums 5" Pleated Filter System New Copper Lineset Crane for roof Top Mounting $7,000 installed to code If I look at the RUUD website, the unit is not rated as an energy credit qualifying unit. In addition the warranty that is published ion that unit is only 5 years as the warranty on the other units is 10years. The last units I had that were HS Lenox units lasted 25 years. I want to make a wise investment so the unit I will buy is a solid sturdy unit that can last a very long stretch.. 5 yr stated warranty seems light to me.. Can you give me some insight on the unit quoted..?and some suggestions on what other Ruud units might be "A Step Up" and sturdier and a "value". Manufacturers update lines all the time. Maybe further improvements were made on some Ruud units ..AND - Maybe he is quoting a good solid workhorse unit and that's fine.. A good solid unit is what I want. Increase HS capacity to what level? Can the other unit be retrofitted w additional heat capacity? Vertical Vs Horizontal AHRI Data will be a great help on your suggestions. Thank you in advance...

Ryan, thank you so much for the feedback. This is such an great informative forum and I'm glad I found this site. Yes, they have to over-size the furnace to just be qualified for the tax rebate. Blame on Trane for their current lineup I guess. Not best situation to be an honest Trane dealer if you have to either over size something or use a third party products to take advantage for the tax rebase. The load calc says "Total Heating Load = 61506" so 120-140k BTUH sounds way too much. Plus, I'm concerned now you pointed out the furnace will likely need to move much more air than your current ductwork can handle. What's my alternatives if I want to stay with Trane 3 ton Heap pump either XL15i or XR15? Regarding the IAQ may not be used to trigger to slow down the blower when combining with zoning. Where do I check to be sure? Also, does the triggering even possible with XR15 like it does with XL15i? I think the reason I try to go with a Hybrid system (duel-fuel) is that over here in central NC it does get pretty chilly during Jan and Feb with temprature down to single digits at night for a few weeks. It seems to me it will be prudent to have some sort of back-up heating during this periold. And if adfing a heap-strip with Heat pump/Air handler, I think I have to add a circuit break or something. At least that what I had been told. To other folks on the forum, do you have your advice on choosing a dual-fuel hybrid system vs just heap pump + heap strip? Specifically, anyone in the same area that has done this before? Today the Bryant dealer came and spent only 15 min looking at my attic. He took away my drawing of the 2nd/3rd floor plan with window and room sizing and said he would run it over the weekend through a load calc program to see what's the corect size and propose some setups for me. I guess I won't know any details for a few days. Again, thanks for the feedback. If I don't get to talk to you again here, have a very nice weekend Ryan!

Thanks Dave. I was about to post when I saw your post that the price did not include $2000 in tax credits and rebates. So that would take the cost down to $6860. I don't know the tons. The furnace I posted above is 353AAV Preferred series Plus 90x gas furnace. The web site says 38,000 - 112,000 BTUH They didn't say anything about the 265A model. I assume that would be more money. But also when he was running his numbers on our house in his computer (they measured rooms and windows, etc) he used different combinations of pumps and furnaces, and some of the better models didn't offer more in savings. He came up with what gave us the highest saving off utilities. He had an evolution controller on on of our options, but not this one. I think he just matched up a Preffered control with a Preferred furnace. Should we get that instead? If you put in a tonnage that seems to fit (our house is 1500 squ. ft.) does this sound reasonable? I will get someone else to come out though.