It's complicated comparing what we have now because what we have is three systems that combined are way oversized. The house is in Georgia so proper A/C is key. It's about 2700 sq ft, 1.5 story (meaning there are two small guest rooms upstairs but most of the house is on first floor) and has had foam put in the attic (same floor as the guest rooms). I'd go with a different contractor but SO seems to resonate with this one since he is so highly recommended by people who put in whole new systems like ours. He has done zones for others and we did see the Manual J. We even went to one person's house and looked at his whole system including the zoning to check out the workmanship as best we could tell. But I guess I'm wondering if either Amana or EWC has put out some new equipment that could account for us being the guinea pigs. Knowing this is a big investment we are keeping a long time, I want to do all I can to get it right. This post was edited by cas20 on Sun, Feb 10, 13 at 15:40

Tiger, where in upstate SC? I am originally from Greenville. First off, I am way in over my head. Even trying to input the correct figures into the cost comparison program required a herculean effort on my part. I don't know if I made it more difficult than it had to be or what, but it seemed I needed to do quite a few calculations in order to enter the information needed in the required form. Thus, I don't know how accurate the info I received was, but I figured that it would cost 1.47 for the heat pump compared to 14.02 for the gas. Does that sound anywhere near possible? Further, I'm in Athens and have GA Power so to the best of my knowledge we are not using TVA. We had a 4th company come out Friday, and I requested he do a manual j. He came out and measured square footage and windows, and said he would get back to me by mid-week. How does that sound? On a side note, esp. considering our old house and windows, as well as the fact that our current system was not working adequately, why was a manual j not the first thing any of them did? As far as our current gas furnace, I think it is an early 90's model based on the copyright on the manual. It is an Amana air command 80, one of the horizontal GSI models. Is it worth keeping if it is still working? I know nothing about the blower rated size. When you say replace both the inside and outside units for a complete matching system, what do you mean? Are you talking about replacing the a/c and the furnace, or are there inside and outside units of the a/c. Obviously, I am clueless as to what I am doing. lol Gary, I've never heard of and HRU. This is something you purchase as an add-on on the heat pump? Thanks for the links. I'll have to look into it a little more--I gave it a cursory glance to even find out what an HRU is. Sorry if this is disjointed and that it's taken me so long to get back to this. Thanks to all of you for your time.

Hello, I finally proved to myself that something is definitely ajar when my system is purely on first stage heat. I took a clamp meter and measured the current drawn from the cables entering and leaving the heat kit terminal. The meter read 60.4 amps!This current draw is consistent with the blower and heat strips operating, in addition to whatever my heat pump is using. I am half relieved as I knew I wasn't crazy about my calculations and trying to self diagnose the issue. On the wiring diagram, there is a note mentioning that for a heat kit greater than 13kW the W1 and W2 cables be jumpered to provide maximum temperature boost. I have a feeling it could be this. @weedmeister: 3 -3.5 kW sounds about right. It depends on the environment temp, which affects COP of the pump. At most, a 2.5 ton unit should not draw more than 3.6kW. As for the possibility of my unit entering defrost mode for periods longer than a few minutes is unlikely at my current location's temperature and relative humidity. @fsq4cs:Yup, my 2nd gen meter was swapped out back in early September. I based my energy consumption by recording the LIV values at specific times. Honestly, I only caught onto this problem when I saw my meter jump by 50kWh in a single day when I normally used 17. I have a pretty good idea of approximately how much energy is used when I'm at home or when it's unoccupied. I've tried dissecting the DMW to figure out how the hvac equipment is requesting 19.596kW! I backwards calculated the power draw over the 20 minute heating cycle and surely, I got 6.5kWh which appeared as a delta 7 kWh on the smart meter.

"I realize that the HPWH's draw heat from the basement which will be heated by in floor heat but is it significant?" I have a heat pump hot water heater in my basement here in Maryland. The heat pump has no measurable effect on basement temperature, however it does serve to reduce the basement relative humidity 3-5%. The walls of your basement serve as a massive heat sink and changing the room temperature of your basement by operating a relatively small "air conditioner" isn't going to happen. (If your hot water heat pump were installed in an upstairs utility closet, the cooling might be an issue.) In the limiting case of you actually not using any hot water, for example, any heat energy extracted from the basement air mass would be transferred to the heated water sitting in the tank. In the steady state, there would be as much heat being transferred back into the air mass as would be extracted from it. A heat imbalance is created when you use hot water and the heat is lost from the basement system via the heated water going to the sinks and the cold water entering the tank to replace it. My family of two saves about $50 per month compared to my old electric hot water heater. Also, there are frequently tax credits or rebates available.