Thank you for the responses! Brian Knight ~ Our home is one level (on a slab) with three bedrooms. It will be an open floor plan, just over 2,000 sq.ft. When I said "relatively" air tight/energy efficient I was referring to our quest to balance efficiency with using healthy materials (not a fan of spray foam for example). We do want to be mindful of proper ventilation/air exchange and have looked into doing something like this (copied from http://homeenergypros.lbl.gov/group/1000homechallenge/forum/topics/panasonic-whisper-green-w-ductless-heat-pump?xg_source=activity): "Some minisplits may have a small ducted system. Dave Robinson, www.GreenEarthEquities.com buys foreclosed homes in central California that he renovates, using two,1 ton Fujitsu mini-splits. He ducts one to the bedrooms and bath with very limited ductwork located in the hall ceiling. The other unit is ductless, and conditions the living room and kitchen of the one-story ranch homes. There are significant cooling loads with lots of 100 degree weather. His approach of combining ducts and ductless results in simple systems and homes with low energy bills. Dave has case studies posted on his website." Reply by Dave Robinson on August 31, 2011 at 10:12am "To be more exact, we use one outside unit (2 ton is the smallest they make in this model - so we use it on everything). One inside unit is the conventional mini split high on the side wall in the main room ... the one that everyone associates with mini splits. The other inside unit is mounted on the ceiling at the mouth of the hallway & delivers air to all the rest of the rooms thru a small duct system that we mount on the existing ceiling of the hallway. So the unit and all the ducts are inside the envelope. Then new drywall is added, reducing the hallway height about 10 inches. We throw the factory filter away and allow a 20 x 30 filter grille right under the air handler to provide a lot more filter area as well as access to the unit without breaking the building envelope. You can see pics of this hybrid duct design at A Good Business? How Long? Plus Ducted MiniSplit Update (Click the right arrow on the photo in the center of the page and it will take you thru a few other slides from that webinar and you'll get to the Mini Split photos). You'll notice we use galvanized pipe. That, along with the oversized return keeps the static way down which is essential for efficiency on these units. This unit has now been in two years. The owner loves it. Zero problems. Has utility bills less than half of his neighbors. This job also used a Panasonic ERV. We mount the ERV very close to the return of the ducted system and in the pick-up area of the wall mounted unit so all fresh air is circulated by the main system with no additional equipment needed. It works well for us and we have adopted this as our main system. It's the one we specify every time unless we are keeping old equipment that's not too old or too over sized for after our renovation. You'll also notice that we mount the outside unit on the roof instead of on the ground. Lots of reasons." We are thinking this might work with our floor plan: Kirkhall ~ Thanks for sharing your personal experience. I have read more on the HVAC forum. My interest in posting here was to see if ductless mini-splits were at all a preferred choice by those building new homes versus just being used for retrofitting/new additions. Niteshadepromises ~ "Based on all my research the operating costs are pretty substantially lower which we're looking forward to and hopefully might offset the initially higher install cost." This is in line with what we are thinking too! Good luck with your build! David Cary ~ The tax credits are wonderful, however, there is that pesky problem of having to pay upfront. With some budget reworking, this may be possible. However, my concern relates to your comment, "But I'm not sure getting all fancy is worth it.... R20 net walls, good southern exposure with some thermal mass. You won't need that much heat and you shouldn't need a/c." We don't want to pay for more than we need. The difficulty for us has been determining what our need is when factoring in the passive solar. I also agree with: "I've thought about this a lot and I don't know how cold you get but if you have total control of design and southern exposure, your best bet is lots of solar planning, tight house with thick walls. Cover the windows well at night. Then put the money in PV. Code will require too much of minisplits to be cost effective." To satisfy code, what would your recommendation be for a thermostatically controlled system that is reasonably efficient and cost effective (presuming we could swing the PV)? With good solar planning, another viewpoint is to put in some baseboard heaters to satisfy code. Is this reasonable or silly? Dekeoboe ~ I'm interested to know what you chose and why? Flgargoyle ~ As our heating and cooling days are very similar, it's good to know that you think it's a viable option. Though it seems I'm in the minority, I don't really mind the look of the wall units. Maybe it's because I don't find vents and returns all that pretty! Lori in the NW ~ Thanks for your opinion ~ they certainly are not for everyone! This post was edited by daisyblue on Fri, Feb 22, 13 at 17:45

Update. The unit was excellent this year. My guessitmate was between $300 and $350 on heating from oct to may. It was still making 110 degree heat at -9 . I did notice the rest of the house was chilly when it was around zero. The defrosts every 45 to 55 min were noticable when it was that cold Anyways that got me thinking about adding another unit to help ease the work during the single/teens temperatures on the unit and having extra heat. The only problem I do notice is since my unit I have know cycles too much when its in the 50s so a smaller unit for heating with a smaller low end heat would help, I am not worried about ac end since I was able too use one 5000 btu and sometimes two 5000 btu units to cool the house before. So I've been looking and seen the MSX muti zone units are out and new single units are out. First basement has not heat and stays in the middle 40s in the winter and around 64 ish in the summer. There a lot of mositure and a dehumidfier doesn't really work well until mid summer. The rafters are insulated (r13) and some of the walls are too. Anyways I was thinking of possibly adding a air handler down there for heat either a .75 or 1 ton. The main floor (drawing above) I was debating on a unit in the dining room (.75 ton) to heat the dining room and the kitchen. The kitchen was 60 during the negative degree days with the radiant heat set at 60. When it was in the upper teens it would stay around 63. Then the spare bedroom I was thinking of putting a .75 ton unit to blow out to the hallway and push air to the bath room and bedroom. The spare bedroom was set to around 50 with the radiant and the door shut while the other bedroom I used a box fan to push the cold air down the hallway and the warm air would enter above. I'm debating on heating the basement and if I do `I was think a 20,000btu dualzone for one area on the main floor and one down in the basement or do a 24,000btu tri zone and heat all the areas listed. Or I could do one of the single zone units (FH9000btu) and just heat the basement area or on the main floor since they are the most cost efficient though.

I thought the LG Art Cool heat pumps are not as good as Mr. Slim or the Fujitsu units???? Yea I am sticking away from that company. But I think I should try and get a few more prices from differant companys or contractors that sell these units from the Fujitsu website.. I am also having someone from Homedepot that sells the Mr. Slim brand to give me a price in a few days...Jt

Hi Elmer I read through your comments strongly supporting NG over HP option due to its cost advantage. Do you know a 10 KW solar system can be installed in CA today for $15000 after tax incentive , which will generate approx. 15000 KwH of electricity per year ? I am exactly doing this for my 1995 built 3375 sq ft home in bay area as this appears to be the cheapest route to bring down my energy cost as compared to other options like improve insulation, change windows or upgrade 1995 installed 80% efficient NG furnace etc. Till my NG furnace is alive and kicking, I plan to use it minimally in the morning to take the chill out of the home and rely on supplemental electrical heating ( resistive ) to keep the house warm . Resistive heating is inefficient, but ok as stop gap option particularly if my electricity is coming from solar. When it's time to bid farewell to these antique NG fired machines, I plan to take HP route for my home heating and air conditioning. Even without any of these actions and just install of solar, my current electricity only bill will be reduced from $2800 / year ( 10000 KwH ) to zero. That will pay for solar install cost in just 5 years. Add to it cost saving from an electric car ( which I don't have at this time ), payback is even shorter. My yearly NG heating consumption is 700-750 therms. The baseline consumption of 20 therms / month or 250 therms / year will always remain due to NG cooking appliance and NG water heater. But the rest 500 therms / year NG consumption can be eliminated when I replace central ducted existing NG Furnace / AC system with ducted heat pump (no splits). There will be more upfront cost to install heat pump as compared to NG furnace / AC option , but I am hoping this differential to be in the range of $2-3K , particularly if I go with heat pump option like MrCool Universal ( will work well in temperate Bay Area weather ) instead of fancy Fujitsu or Mitsubishi heat pumps. And saving of $1000 from eliminating consumption of 500 therms / year should help offset this cost sooner rather than later. Due to these considerations, I decided to go for 10KW Solar System that gives me enough capacity of solar generated electricity to meet these loads. Time to give a fresh look to all ( almost ) electric home with recent price reduction ( actually since June, 2020 ) in solar install cost.