A 5 ton AC for a 2300 square foot house seems over sized. Is this an old house? Do you know the amount of insulation in the exterior walls? What are your typical summer high temperatures?

Are you going to move the condenser from the roof to the ground?

Bottom of the line AS. Also, check the warranty situation on the condenser if you use a 3rd party coil (in any event, insist on the AS coil).

I'm guessing the house is a 1960's ranch somewhere in 'the valley'. If so, it probably won't have the greatest insulation.

just to clarify above post, the AC outside condenser is not builder grade, just low end as far as SEER efficiency. With the furnaces that I suggested, you would see around 15 SEER.

IMO

Just to clarify the above stement, I said "bottom of the line" not "builder grade" (although I don't think there's a whole lot of difference).

;)

Given that the AS "silver 13" units can't be sold in California (or most other states), the AS "silver 14" is their bottom of the line. I think the system is overpriced and recommend getting more bids.

I guess we can always wait until after they put it in, then you can take pictures of the compressor and we can determine from there how much of a builder grade unit is by what kind of compressor they put in it. LOL.

Climatuff Compressor? actual thing or just a trademarked name that means nothing.

Alliance compressor? Copeland compressor painted orange with Alliance sticker.

Or because orange is not really that big of a deal, a black Copeland compressor with an Alliance sticker on it.

Nothing is as it used to be... that's for certain.

California is one of the southwestern states that has a minimum EER of 12.2. That is hard to achieve with a SEER rating of 14.