Thanks guys for the comments. I just want some professional advice before I make my final decision on the furnace. I know the best choice is a variable speed, 2-stage but nobody makes them in a 45K 80%, period. They are all 65-70K or bigger. Bryant makes a 2-stage 45K (312AAV) but it only has a bad old PSC motor. I could ask the installer about replacing the PSC motor in the 312 with a 'green' variable speed motor (www.evergreenmotor.com) as he gave me a brochure on it, but replacing a brand new motor doesn't sound very wise. The Bryant 313AAV has an ECM (X-13) motor but only a 1-stage 45K burner. I looked at the spec sheet on the Trane XV80 (somewhere on the net) and the smallest size I saw was 60K, no 45K model in the XV80. Did I miss something? I know probably the low stage (32K) of a 45K 2-stage burner would likely be sufficient 90+% of the time. The furnace usually runs Nov-Feb and perhaps a bit in March depending how could it gets. This past March it never ran at all. During April, May, Sept and most of Oct. i rarely use any heat and not much AC in Sept. The condo mgmt. sent out a notice last year that if our condenser units needed replacing, that we would have to replace our evap. coils at the same time (the coil would be at our expense-$400-$800, the condenser at theirs). I figured it was because the new condensers would all be R410 and the old R22 coils in current use would have to be replaced. the installer said he would replace my coil with a R22/R410 compatible unit so I will already be taken care of when the condenser finally fails. Yes, I thought on my own that the new coil might be too much of a strain for the old condenser. However, if I want the condenser replaced now I have to pay for it. As long as it is working they will not pay for a new one, even if I am getting a new furnace and coil.

I work almost everyday so home time is precious. There is never a lack of something interesting to doing. Books, gardening, pets, home improvement, yard work... the list is endless. I go out to the bar on Wednesday and Sunday just to keep myself somewhat social. In 2007 I should probably resolve to spend more time visiting friends. : ) michael

I wonder if the inside of the root ball had some die-back, possibly several episodes, from getting packed & hydrophobic (very difficult to accept water again, like a hard, dried sponge) over those years? If it's as hard & tight as I've seen on other larger woody plants, it may not ever be getting wet thoroughly (and would have a very hard time drying if so.) If it's completely solid, like concrete, in the middle, I think that could cause this kind of issue at the tips. No experience with a Scheff of such age in particular to have seen such a thing for sure, but this is what I suspect from reading your entry. To help get your plant on its' way back to health, I'm pasting some info from Al (Tapla) that can explain how & why to give your lovely plant a real repotting. Quote: Trees in Containers A discussion about maintaining trees in containers over the long term It's not much of a secret to many, that a good part of what I've learned about plants and plant-related science has come as an outgrowth of my pursuit of at least some degree of proficiency at bonsai. Please, make no mistake, the principles applied to containerized trees under bonsai culture can, and in most cases SHOULD be applied to all containerized trees grown for the long term. Because of the small volumes of soil and small containers these trees are grown in, you might look at bonsai as a form of container culture taken to another level. Before most of the plants I grow become bonsai, they often undergo many years of preparation and manipulation while still in the same size containers you are growing in, so while I am intimately familiar with growing plants in bonsai culture, it would have been impossible for me to arrive at that familiarity w/o an even more thorough understanding of growing woody plants in larger, pre-bonsai size containers like you grow in. This thread is a continuation of one I previously posted on the same topic. I grow and manage a wide variety of temperate trees and shrubs, both deciduous and conifers, and 75 or more tropical/subtropical woody plants. I'd like to invite you to join the discussion with questions about your own containerized trees and/or your tree problems. I will try to answer your questions whenever I can. The timing of certain procedures is closely related to energy management, which gets too little consideration by most growers tending trees in containers. Because repotting and root pruning seem to be most misunderstood on the list of what it takes to maintain trees that will continually grow at close to their genetic potential, I will include some observations about those procedures to open the discussion. I have spent literally thousands of hours digging around in root-balls of trees (let's allow that trees means any woody plant material with tree-like roots) - tropical/subtropical trees, temperate trees collected from the wild and temperate nursery stock. The wild collected trees are a challenge, usually...

Without photos of the subfloor, we won't be able to help. But I would look at removing/replacing the subfloor. Those straight shank nails are 100% the noise problem. Get rid of the nails/nasty plywood and you get rid of the problem. The vinyl planks will telegraph EVERY SINGLE IMPERFECTION of the subfloor THROUGH the vinyl. It will be HORRIBLY visible....to the point you will want to cry (and I'm not kidding about the crying bit....there are dozens of threads on houzz about bad looking vinyl because of the bad subfloor). So....once the new subfloor is laid and SCREWED into place (every 6" in the field and every 4" at the seams), the entire thing will be coated in self leveling compound (SLC). This is the only way to get a quiet, smooth, flat, perfect subfloor ready to create a new, smooth, flat vinyl floor. Vinyl requires perfect subfloors. If you are seeing "nasty", you will need to fix it...completely.