I understand your question on the heat side in northern climates. I represented Fujitsu for 12 years and covered the 6 New England States. Serious heating territory. I am no longer affiliated with any mshp manuf. What is actually happening in that territory is that people are buying mshp's for the heat. I told my contractors and consumers to "buy it for the heat. I'll give you the cooling for free". The heat savings are where the return on investment comes in. I have a friend who has a big old farm house overlooking Lake Champlain just south of Burlington, VT. He has oil fired radiant and a quad Fujitsu. With the specs on his system, he runs the mshp down to 15-20* and olny fires up the oil below that. As the vast majority of heat hours, even in VT, is above 20 he is running the mshp probalby 80% of the winter. He has over the past 5 years reduced his oil consumption by 70%. I don't know his dollar ot dollar savings but he says they are significant. He paid for the system in 3 years according to him. As to whether the single unit operation on a multi is efficient, I would say that while there may be a small penalty, it is unlikely that a unit would be run in that configuration for extended periods. If it is, then it is mis application. You have to understand the way people are living as a part of equipment selection. For instance, I put in a 24 dual for my upstairs bedrooms. I run the one bedroom this time of the year (100* today), but didin't turn the heat side on all winter. The 25 SEER/12HSPF unit downstairs runs every real hot afternoon in the summer and every day in the winter. That is the best combination for comfort and efficiency for my home and use. When I talk about the duct tests, it is going to become a part of the codes. It is in CA all ready. to replace a furnace or heat pump you have to have a third party come in and test the duct. New construction must achieve no more than 6% leakage. Retrofits must achieve 16%. These duct repairs are costly to do. I spoke with the local fellow who does these tests and virtually every house requires significant repair. The unitary manuf can put all the technology the want into their boxes. The problem is they cannot deliver it as the duct systems stink. Consider the national energy impact of that. It is a big issue that we have been sweeping under the rug for a long time.

Catching up on this post from yesterday… it just gets progressively funnier. Since we’ve bypassed delicacy, I’m not actually concerned about the *need* for an exhaust fan… And I agree that I don’t expect a guest bath to see much use…just the general strangeness of sitting on the sofa chatting with friends, while some one is in the bathroom two feet away. How often that would be a problem? Probably never… like you said, they can go upstairs. Bellsmom-- I’m impressed with your photoshop skills. That looks really nice!! Thank you! There really isn’t another spot for a powder room. We had considered moving it to the other end of the kitchen, where it could be aligned with the fridge and you wouldn’t see it as a boxed-out area, but then it’s really IN the kitchen. And disrupts the whole layout of the area. We’ve gone back and forth on the backdoor. Bumping it out to square the room would be ideal. But it would require adding a foundation, and also removing the concrete and brick stairs that lead directly down to already existing concrete patio. So it’s not just the door… it’s the other twenty things it affects. I wanted to square the room, and put French doors on the right hand wall, but there is a tree there, and adding steps down to ground level would require removing it. I love seeing it out the window, and was unsure I wanted to take it down. The problem with this project is that we are trying to fix someone else’s poor design rather than doing it right. Which may be only marginally easier than starting from scratch. Thank you so much for sharing all your thoughts!! I will upload a photo when we have some kind of mock up of the wall… hopefully it will give us a better idea of how it might look in reality. Bellsmom’s photo kind of looks too good to be true. And I liked the idea of bookshelves, although the wall would probably be better as a sofa wall, since the room is long and narrow and the sofa depth would be better not sticking into the room.

I guess it's still not clear. The 2 story would NOT be adding onto existing foundation. It would be a two story addition on a whole new foundation and I'm trying to figure out if it's cheaper to do one large room addition (new large foundation) or a totally new two story addition tied it into our current house (new smaller foundation). I'm located in the northeast just outside Boston. I would try to plan on just a slab foundation, we already have a basement, and there's no reason to enlarge it. The plan would be for a single floor addition: expand the half bath on the first floor to a full bath and add on a family room and small bedroom. For a 2 story addition, have the family room on the bottom floor and the bedroom above it. We could still either expand the 1/2 bath on the first floor to a full bath or add on a small full bath upstairs too. (we already have a full bath upstairs, but we'll really need an additonal shower in the future as the kids get older). It seems like there's conflicting info here....with a 2 story it would be less foundation and less roofing, but I know a two story addition probably requires a stronger foundation and the strength of the ceiling to hold up the second floor.

Joanna, I'd suggest completely redoing the closet with double hanging bar and wire shelving - right now, it's not a very efficient use of the space. The systems from Rubbermaid and ClosetMaid are both good. You can draw it up and then get the shelves cut to desired length at Home Depot or Lowes. There are also kits, but those tend to not to result in as an efficient use of the space as something you design yourself, IMHO. The systems are very easy to install - basically fasten the top bar from which all the uprights hang to your studs, install the uprights and then shelf supports (which are all moveable) and the shelves. You might be able to get rid of at least one of the dressers with a better use of the closet space.