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After some deliberation, I’ve decided to put my heat/AC system out of it’s misery. Or should I say, out of my misery! It was an oil fired forced hot air furnace to which air conditioning was added later. To be fair, I’m surprised it’s worked as well as it has. Since it was originally installed for heat only, there’s only two returns per floor, and the registers are at the baseboard. The house is about 2700 square feet, 30 year old 2 x 4 construction with moderate insulation and pretty good windows. In the winter it gets into the 30’s, ocassionally dipping to 0, in the summer highs of 90-100. I’m thinking I’d like to stick with the oil for heat when it gets really cold, but go with a heat pump for air conditioning and spring/fall heat. Is this a reasonable setup, or do I need better circulation/insulation scenario for the heat pump to be effective, keeping in mind that I’d use the oil when it got really cold. Any input is appreciated. Oh yeah, it’s a 2 story, the furnace/air handler is in the basement.
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After some deliberation, I've decided to put my heat/AC system out of it's misery. Or should I say, out of my misery! It was an oil fired forced hot air furnace to which air conditioning was added later. To be fair, I'm surprised it's worked as well as it has. Since it was originally installed for heat only, there's only two returns per floor, and the registers are at the baseboard. The house is about 2700 square feet, 30 year old 2 x 4 construction with moderate insulation and pretty good windows. In the winter it gets into the 30's, ocassionally dipping to 0, in the summer highs of 90-100. I'm thinking I'd like to stick with the oil for heat when it gets really cold, but go with a heat pump for air conditioning and spring/fall heat. Is this a reasonable setup, or do I need better circulation/insulation scenario for the heat pump to be effective, keeping in mind that I'd use the oil when it got really cold. Any input is appreciated. Oh yeah, it's a 2 story, the furnace/air handler is in the basement.