I live in the Seattle area as well, and I was considering the same thing last year. I went with Heat Pump and 80% for a variety of reasons, but the main one is that relatively speaking, our electricity is cheap and you have more redundancy with Heat Pump and 80% furnace. 95% of the year, the heat pump gives me enough heat to keep my house at 71 degrees 24/7. When it gets below 32 degrees or so outside (which isn't very often), the furnace kicks in to supply heat. If the heat pump ever fails, you can use the furnace for heat at any temp. And since 95% of the time, you are running on Heat pump anyways, the gas usage of the 80% eff furnace isn't going to matter much. Remember that because a heat pump gives you MORE heat energy than you put into it (by moving heat from the outside to inside), it is over 100% efficient! No gas furnace can make the same claim. I went with a Bryant Evolution system though and not any of the brands you mentioned. Their evolution control is the best in my opinion and I have been totally happy with it. Whichever way you go though, you do definitely need to make sure you have enough air return. No matter how good the system, an insufficient return will cause all sorts of problems.

enrico. I used Home Reports, Home Services Review, Kudzu.com, BBB, to read about companies and their customer feedback. Nate certified & Trane certified installers, contractor warranties, company responsivesness to questions, evaluated the knowledge level of everyone I dealt with. Once we decided on the type of equipment we wanted, I asked each contractor to quote me on that equipment, specifically listing all model numbers. Things can get lost in the translation if equipment descriptions are vague. Looked at their prevent. maint. contracts. Specified that I want the best of their best in terms of installation teams, even if I had to wait a few extra days. How long have they been in business? In terms of pricing, we're near the higher end of your range, which for us, besides the furnace and AC, includes a 5" media filter cabinet and upgraded t-stat. In addition, the XV95 is a little pricier than the XV80. Also, I got connected with the co.'s Operation Mgr. for more technical questions that the sales guy wasn't sure about. I like that he's responsive. Our install hasn't been done yet, so I can't give a final report. I'm hoping some of this extra digging will pay off in terms of satisfaction. Good luck.

1. Why are you replacing your existing furnace? Is it age? Is it because you want higher efficiency? 2. Each manufacturer does it a little different, but generally a variable speed fan will run for 10 minutes at 80% speed, then increase to 100% if the thermostat is still calling for heat. At 80% speed, the motor will use about half of the energy as it does at 100% speed. The variable speed fan will also slowly ramp up when the furnace turns on and slowly ramp down when the furnace turns off. This makes for quieter starts and stops. Also, variable speed fans create more even temperatures between upstairs and downstairs because the fan is running mixing the air in the house for a longer time period. 3. 90%+ furnaces will cause some of the water in the exhaust to condense into a liquid. There is increased risk when dealing with this condensate because it may can cause problems if the condensate drain line plugs, or if the condensate, which absorbs some of the nitrogen in the exhaust gas to form nitric acid, causes corrosion in your sanitary sewer pipes. Normally, these things arent a problem, but do understand that 90%+ furnaces are more prone to problems. The 90%+ furnaces use stainless steel secondary heat exchangers to make sure the condensate doesnÂt corrode the material. Stainless steel is much more expensive than plain steel. This is one reason they cost more. 4. 90% furnaces have powered combustion fans and will exhaust through PVC pipe out of the site of the house. 80% furnaces can exhaust through your existing furnaces stack through the roof. 5. IÂm in MN too. I recently replaced an aging 80% furnace with another 80% furnace. I did my own payback calculation on 80% vs 90%. Here are my data for my 2,000 sf house: Installed cost: 80% = $2650 90% = $3200 Yearly operating cost with $1/therm gas based on my actual meter gas usage: 80% = $606 90% = $539 This makes the payback 8.2 years. If you get the 90%+ furnace and ever need repairs due to items in #3, it will never pay for itself. 6. There is a difference between the peak efficiency that the manufacturers use to sell their products, and the actual operating and seasonally adjusted efficiencies that you will see. Payback analyses generally overstate the actual savings you will realize. 7. In a new house, the high efficiency furnaces make a lot of sense because you donÂt have to run a 4" double-wall stack up through the house and through the roof, which saves a lot of money and mostly negates the additional cost of the high efficiency furnace. However, in a retro-fit like we have, you already own the stack so you wouldnÂt realize these savings. In fact, there is additional cost for high efficiency because you have to run a new PVC exhaust pipe when you could have just reused your existing one. 8. If you post your monthly gas usage every month for the last year, I can tell you what it will cost you to operate both furnace options for each month. IÂve got my old spreadsheet already set up, I could just plug in your usage numbers. 9. If you want to go high efficiency because you care about the environment and want to use less energy that is fine. Just understand that financially, high efficiency doesnÂt make sense in every case. IÂm a HVAC engineer in MN, if credentials matter.

lroz 1 and 2 are identical furnaces-three stg top of line Carrier/Bryant. 3 and 4 are two stg furnaces. 1 and 2 will require the Infinity/Evolution controllers which can be pricey. are those controllers included in price? no substitute here! with an existing 30 yr furnace, I do think you should strongly consider upgrading now and take advantage of all rebates/tax credits, etc. what about AC? IMO