>Should I be looking at heat pumps instead of traditional systems?
>
>Anything else that I don't know that I don't know?
>
>And, in case it makes a difference, I am in Pennsylvania
>(New England, the eastern coast) in the USA.
>

We're just about to replace our heat pump, we're in Maryland just 
south of the PA line. I'm not sure where in PA you are, but we're 
about at the northern limit of where heat pumps make sense. Our 
system is 13 yrs old, and has a leak. It doesn't make sense to try to 
find and patch it with such an old system, and a new heat pump will 
be about 50% more efficient (so they say) anyway. My folks (also in 
MD) replaced theirs a few years ago, they got a Trane and seem happy 
with it. Our current system is a Bryant. We got a quote last fall (as 
we knew ours was starting to fail) for about $5600 for a new 3 ton, I 
believe from Carrier. Time to get some new quotes.

Where in PA are you? If you currently have natural gas, my 
understanding is that would be less expensive to operate than a heat 
pump.
-- 

---
Chris Smolinski
Black Cat Systems
http://www.blackcatsystems.com
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