Thanks everybody. I didn't start collecting the Hallmark Houses until the early 90's so this was a special find. I have 22 of them now. I have done my best over the years to keep them in business, LOL. Merry Christmas, Candy

Hi - I'm in New Hope, probably not too far from you. I'll give a few ideas here, but I'll also refer you to my website. I'm an energy consultant and have worked with quite a few people this year making the exact decisions that you're trying to make now. As noted, the oil prices are super low now, so the equations have shifted considerably. For a place like yours, a high-end, properly sized heat pump, at PECO's discounted electric rates, cost about 1/2 the cost to operate than did the oil system, even at $2/gallon oil. At $4/gallon, it was a no-brainer. The critical considerations for effective heat pump operation in our climate: - I would only consider a high efficiency, two-stage heat pump, with variable speed air handler. This is a top-of-the-line system, but there are good reasons to go this route in our climate. - Make sure your house is well insulated and properly air sealed. The tighter the house, the more effective and comfortable the heat pump will be. - Make sure that the heat pump is sized properly for the heating load. Most HVAC companies size for the cooling load. In our climate, this vastly undersizes the heating system and it will switch to expensive electric backup heat. With a two-stage heat pump, the first stage will be used to satisfy the summer cooling needs properly, the second stage will come on below 40 and, if sized properly, will allow the heat pump to satisfy all the heating needs down to below freezing. I can't overstate how important this is! There are some subtlties to this too. I worked with one client who had huge electric bills even though he had a top of the line heat pump. It turned out that when they installed it, they didn't configure it properly, so, even though the heat pump was capable of supplying heat down below freezing, they had it set to run backup heat below 40F! In our climate, 80% of the heating hours are above 35F-40F. If you can run the heat pump down to 30F, then you satisfy 91% of the season's heating. The improves to 95% if you can get it down to 25F. This might not seem significant, but if your electric heat comes on for an extra 10% of the season, it will drive up operational costs much more than 10%. You also asked about single vs. multiple units. Since you've already got two zones, I'd keep it that way. Especially with heat pumps, the delivery temperature is relatively low, so they're much more sensitive to duct losses. It will cost you more to have two systems installed, but doing a properly zoned system, tying the two zones together, will cost you a few thousand $, so I don't think it's worth the savings to end up with a compromised system. An option, if you don't switch to heat pumps, is to get an Energy Kinetics System 2000 oil boiler with hot water coils in your air handlers. You could use a single boiler and run water lines to each air handler. It would also supply your hot water for domestic use. I don't like recommending oil systems these days, but this is an option, and if you stick with oil, it may be a very good option. Unfortunately, the terms of service of this group don't allow me to mention my website because they consider that advertising. So I'm not sure how I can let you contact me directly for more personal recommendations. I'll do what I can via the forums. You can find me by googling "Ted energy audit bucks county, pa" but I don't think I can say more than that without getting thrown off the forum. I'm not looking for more business. It's just that sometimes people's needs are best met with some direct face-time so that I can tell you about the best contractors etc. in the area. Best regards, Ted

Not specific to Halloween but my parents watched Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock in the 60's. Outer Limits too. The one with the spiders gave me nightmares. I still watch Twilight zone on Sci-Fi sometimes, bc it is usually more of a moral message than scary murders. I just watched again Johnny Depp in Dark Shadows and then Sleepy Hollow. Tim Burton movies are always well done. I used to watch the Dark Shadows soap opera as a kid. Like some of you I prefer some humor with the spookiness, like Young Frankenstein and Little Shop of Horrors. And Buffy the Vampire Slayer never ceases to amuse me.

snmanning, what did you go with? How has your floor stood up to wear and tear?