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This cooling season, the 5-ton whole house AC consumed 357 kWh. 480 kWh for the 1-ton window unit, and a handful of kWh for the window unit in my office that rarely ran. 72 kWh to run the air handler for the whole house AC (about 100 hours of use). Probably 1,000 kWh total for cooling this year, or $170.
Started heating on 10/19.
An HVAC estimator came out yesterday and said it's straightforward to replace the AC with a heat pump and add dampers/rearrange branch circuits in the existing ductwork to create 2-4 zones.
He suggested replacing the furnace with another 80% gas furnace, but I'm thinking to eliminate the gas altogether considering I have 2 gas fireplaces that can supplement heat. He explained the furnace is a comfort thing since heat pumps can blow colder than body temperature when it's very cold out.
He's going to quote a replacement of that wonky return duct.
Found out the furnace cabinet had vents allowing the return to pull in air from the burners, so he taped them over. When I asked him why people would install things this way, he said "I learned long ago to stop asking why and just fix problems".
Also, that upstairs return is 14", not 12". Since the restriction is the intake grill at 17"x20", I'm told I get 500 cfm from each of the returns, which the HVAC guy said was adequate for a 5-ton AC.
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