I presently have three zones for cooling and four heating zones. The cooling is provided by two American Standard 2.5 ton units feeding 3-ton evaporator coils. The house is a single floor ranch with a 2nd floor bonus room, 3718 sqft total, excluding a large basement. The extra cooling zone (for the upstairs bonus room, I think) is handled by a Honeywell HZ311 controller operating two Honeywell ZD 12x8 dampers with one zone on the supply and one on the return for the upstairs. We presently have an oil fired Buderus Hydro-Air boiler. One of the four heating zones is for the indirect fired hot water tank. The other three are for the two air handlers on the 1st floor and a final circulator for the 2nd floor bonus room. Natural gas is available on our street, and we're getting that installed in June, with something like a Carlin EZGas Pro gas conversion burner for the Buderus. I don't know how long it would take getting hot water from a heat pump to pay for itself compared to just using the existing direct fired tank and a cheap fuel source like natural gas. So one question I have is: How does the price look? And: It sounds like this guy wants 75 percent up front before the first nail is driven. That seems like a lot. And: Any reason this all couldn't be accomplished with one Series 7 and an Intellizone2 with six zones? I feel that the two big single-speed air handlers I now have are a bit of a waste. I also don't think that there should be as many unknown costs as I see here. Why can't the wiring for electrical be quoted? This has been done many times before. Any reason I can't know what that will cost in advance? Thanks! ----
I have a 5 ton 7 series horizontal in upstate NY and paid a fair bit less. A portion of that is horizontal vs vertical, But even the vertical quote I received was a bit less. That being said, Boston is an expensive city, so there is bound to be some location expense built in there. Aka, I cannot help much. I do however have a question. Is your electric rate really $0.22/kWh? Also, I see no reference to a buffer tank for the desuperheater (that looks to be referenced in the report). Most people on this site like an active water heater and a buffer tank (fed by the desuper heater) in northern climates.
SA the water heater mentioned is a heat pump hot water heater, there is no mention at all of a desuperheater. Yes New England is at .22/kwh or about. Location price difference absolutely. I'm in RI and compared to what I spent 6 years ago, like you I have horizontal, and being a 7 series, that's not too far off. Sad but true. With natural gas available and being in MA, has good incentives last I knew, I would look into spending money on solar PV. Mr. Lasitter, if the 2.5 ton a/c units are still working well you could consider PV to offset the electric use. You could get a lot of PV for 49,000! ChrisJ in RI
Not sure why he chose Boston as the reference city. Maybe that was the closest city in the Geolink Design studio. We're actually just 12 miles northeast of Springfield, MA. Just down recently from $0.34/kWh. Massachusetts had a crippling emergency rate hike. It's supposed to go down in July, but we had a bill for $500 in a single month just a couple months ago. The Buderus G115/5 is my active water heater and would be powered by natural gas as well. I think I know how desuperheaters work, but what I'm unsure of is why you'd need a desuperheater if you already have the Series 7. It seems that it should be possible for some plumbing to warm up some water in a buffering tank. Then your gas water heater could lift that temperature the rest of the way. At my last house, without geothermal, I had a standard natural gas water heater generating most of the heat and then a tankless electric water to take over if needed from there. At $3k, a separate desuperheater seems a significant additional expense ...
Just got my quote for that a few days ago ... Sage advice, Chris! I was in Providence and Pawtucket for 20 years before moving here. How about you? The two units we have were installed when the house was built in 2003. I was thinking that with all the tax breaks going on, if you were thinking about geothermal, then now would be the time. After next year and one (or both) of your orphaned regular units tears up, you're left holding a bag full of non-tax preferred repair expense. But if they do run forever, and you have 8kw in solar panels, then you're running them on free electricity.
The 7 series can probably be ordered with or without the desuperheater option, aka hot water generator. Your quote has no mention of it so the optional heat pump hot water heater (AO Smith for $3000) would be a stand alone water heater you could use instead of the Buderus. Unless he is thinking to run the DSH directly to the AO Smith tank. In that case, like SeekingAdvice said, using an inexpensive electric tank water heater to circulate water through DSH in the 7 series and back to the preheat tank. The DSH only makes warm water when the 7 series is running and there will lots of time during which that water will be a lower temp then the water in the AO Smith, making it turn on to heat the incoming cooler water. Edit: I guess I missed the 4th zone being an indirect hot water tank. AO Smith HPHW would be replacing the indirect. I live in the Foster/Glocester snow belt of RI area. Have lived in RI since 1969. Chris
