As with any humidifier, be willing to do the necessary maintenance to keep them reliably working. With bypass humidifiers, you should plan to replace the water pad once a year or so depending on your water quality. With steam humidifiers, quarterly or biyearly cleaning may be required as mineral buildup does cause issues (dependent on a home's water quality). I've been happy with a simple bypass humidifier. Steam humidifiers are nice, but they don't eliminate the need for maintenance. In a sense, they require more maintenance to work properly. Since you currently have a bypass type, what issues are you experiencing? Average winter home RH%? I assume the pad has been recently replaced, as that will improve your evaporation capacity. Lots of people expect their humidifiers to do more than they really can in "solving" humidity problems. The need for humidification arises from poor air sealing/excess dry air infiltration into the home. Humidifiers help, but if your humidity is so uncomfortably low then you might look at other avenues beyond a more expensive humidifier. This post was edited by ryanhughes on Wed, Feb 27, 13 at 10:18

If both furnaces are installed in the basement, more rigid duct work would have to be installed, but the lineset and the wiring would shorter. I don't think there would be much difference in materials. There would be more labor. It takes more work to run the duct work up from the basement versus running flexible ducts in the attic. I have no way of estimating this. I would think an extra 2-3 days of labor should do it, but I could be way off. The plans would have to modified. You second quote for the HVAC equipment is $21,850, not $26,000. I like the second quote with the 2-stage furnaces. Remember this quote is for over sized furnaces and condensers. I don't understand why there is a separate quote for gas lines. Is this considered an option? I am not convinced you need a humidifier. You can always get a stand alone dehumidifier later if you need it. The kitchen hood is good if you like to cook.

Yeah, it doesn't show the size of the furnace anywhere in the 1st quote, all I can find is "SL280V 090V60C 2-stage 80%" everything has been 80k or 100k BTU so maybe one of those? I'll call the guy tomorrow and see if he can tell me. I'm really not sure about the house, probably a good 10 years or so at this point. Some of these quotes have a Fed Tax Credit and some have "and/or" Manufacturer Rebate. The first Lennox quote says $400 from Lennox + $400 from the power company. So $6,780-$800= $5,980 in the end. The guy that gave me the 2nd quote had a few other options, one was for a $10,000+ Carrier system but the other two quotes were: $6,912 Carrier PG92SAS60120D 92% 1 STG 120K BTU Payne PH13NB048000 4 Ton Condenser AC Carrier CNPVT4821ALA 4 Ton Evap Coil $8,217 Carrier 24ACB348A003 4 Ton single stage AC Carrier 59SC5A120S24-20 120K BTU Carrier CNPVT4821ALA 4 Ton Evap Coil I don't know why 120K BTU when everyone else was 80K but surely there's similar models that are smaller along that same line. All of these prices are assuming I'm paying full upfront, some quotes give 5% off if you pay in full, others took $500 off the equipment, etc. so I'm showing the lowest possible quote.

I have just read through this string- bold_as_love, with a few months of cooling now under your belt, have any further comments on the BOSCH system? I am in NJ and have just completed the second phase of 22kW (64 total panels) of PV. Here in NJ we have net metering, and an decent SREC price to drive the ROI to about 6 years. Late 2016 we had 10.4Kw installed on a detached building, and we were extremely pleased with the installer. So I re-roofed the house and had them back to bring us to 100% of our usage. We only had problems with the power provider, who seemed to turn a deaf ear to the fact that we had already installed 10.4Kw of solar, and they declined the approval until we showed "Usage at the meter" We installed a heat pump on the pool, and electric boiler for a three seasons porch that I had roughed in radiant tubing when I built the house in 2001. Once those two were running, the usage seen was justified, and the utility approved our application to expand. We have plenty of power, I am still not desiring to "waste" that power, and I really like what I am seeing with the BOSCH unit, but I have a concern that everything is getting so complicated, I am destined for future, unfixable by me (incurable DYI guy) My local Unico installer is dead against using the Unico / Bosch combo and wants to use a traditional HP . The existing Lennox / Spacepack system is getting dead-sticked into a final resting place, this year, the start of the cooling season has come early, and hard, Many trips to the local supply house and some sweaty evenings W/O upstairs air. We are running now, but need to pull the trigger on the direction to go, so any input is welcome.