david Baldloonie is giving excellent advice. An 80% eff VS furnace with high eff HP is the way to go considering your location/climate and if you are interested in best operating costs. I would not have Trane's XL16i mdl in either AC or HP condensor. It is a problematic unit plus dehumidification is not as good as the XL15i. Why will you not replace your refrigerant lineset? You should unless there are building obstacles. Trane is falling behind on dual fuel eff-I would get a quote on a comparable Carrier or Bryant. You need a load calc for the main floor to verify sizing. apprx 3000 sq ft? five tons? hummm. IMO

I am feeling a bit stressed - and wishing I had posted this a few weeks ago. I'm going to attempt to post interior pictures I just took. The Dining Room (listed as dining/living on the plan) is right off the kitchen and we use it a lot (eg, entertaining) so I'd like to leave the main kitchen area close to it. We also had not planned any work in the 'music room' -- we don't need it incredibly quiet, it's just where my son plays the piano (and I read) but somehow the architect called it the music room. The powder room and front hall closet are existing. As far as other aspects of the plan, I liked the idea of my office facing the backyard. Re the comment about carrying in hot grill items from the backyard around the kitchen table - we will still have our grill on a deck that is out the door near the pantry. However, we did plan to have our 'adult beverage' mini refrigerator along the wall in the breakfast room. Here are some photos of what we have now. http://s732.photobucket.com/albums/ww326/betsybags01/current%20interior/?action=view¤t=IMG_9106.jpg http://s732.photobucket.com/albums/ww326/betsybags01/current%20interior/?action=view¤t=IMG_9107.jpg http://s732.photobucket.com/albums/ww326/betsybags01/current%20interior/?action=view¤t=IMG_9109.jpg http://s732.photobucket.com/albums/ww326/betsybags01/current%20interior/?action=view¤t=IMG_9110.jpg http://s732.photobucket.com/albums/ww326/betsybags01/current%20interior/?action=view¤t=IMG_9112.jpg http://s732.photobucket.com/albums/ww326/betsybags01/current%20interior/?action=view¤t=IMG_9113.jpg

indeed. my apologies. i was reading extensively on this sub forum...i screwed up somewhere.

A modulating furnace is a higher end furnace that has additional efficiency when it comes to producing heat. These are a more high end, high efficiency when it comes to heating, but this doesn't do anything for you in cooling mode that a two stage variable speed 80% efficient furnace wouldn't do. So you understand the difference a two stage variable speed furnace efficiency starts at 80% efficiency. The modulating furnaces are typically 90% to 97% efficiency. But those efficiencies only pertain to the furnace in heating mode, not AC mode. Once you get to the 97% efficiency of a gas furnace there is an extra heat exchanger down stream of the main one, where the flue gases are cooled even lower to use as much heat as possible. The majority of the waste by this point is mostly condensate water vapor. If your concern is mostly along the lines of cooling only, the modulating furnace is probably more than what you truly need.