Andy Andrews asked:

We’re going to have to replace our AC/furnace gas pack unit this spring. It’s a 8-9yo Bryant unit, but the coils in the A-coils are leaking and it’ll be $2500ish to fix. We currently have a dual-zone unit - downstairs and then we have a 300 sqft. bonus room above our garage. Currently the zone system isn’t very effective. The upstairs and downstairs can’t run concurrently so it never really stays comfortable up there. Would a heat pump or something of the like be too much? Our current unit is 3.5 tons and we’ve been told to replace it with the same (1830 total sq. feet). Could we get away with a smaller gas-pack unit if we added a heat pump? Would a better zone system do the job? Do they make them where they run concurrently? We also don’t have an “off” setting upstairs so we just have to crank the thermostat up to 90 in the summer and 55 in the winter to keep it from coming on when we don’t want it to.
Thanks for the replies. One company came out and measured all of the rooms and gave me all of these crazy charts and told me we needed a 3.5 ton unit and that the upstairs wasn’t large enough for a separate unit. If a dual-zone system is suppose to allow both to be on at the same time, we’ll look at replacing it (it has clearly been worked on as there was a spare motor and other parts in the crawl space for it). One company blamed it on gravity in that the air couldn’t get up the vents. Not sure if I believe that or not. Also, we’re in Nashville so nothing too drastic either way, but it sure can get cold and hot.

Question posted courtesy of: Courtney

devries992002 asked:

My heat pump is not working. Yesterday morning my house seemed cold and the unit was constantly running. My son said noticed that the aux. heat was on when he got up to go to work. I finally turned it off and used my stove to heat the house as the air coming from the vents was pretty cold. Yesterday evening I turned it back on and it seemed to be working. This morning, same story, cold house, aux .heat and cold air from the vents. The unit was installed brand new 2 years ago. Any suggestions???

Question posted courtesy of: Javier

1hotmama asked:

The outside temp in our area has recently hit the low teens. Since this has happened I’ve had problems keeping the house warm. The upstairs unit will still produce warm-hot air, but the downstairs unit will only produce cool-warm air. The upstairs unit is smaller, but as we know heat rises. I’m not sure if that affects anything with a heat pump or not. The downstairs unit has been unable to reach 71 degrees since yesterday around noon. This morning when I got up (12degrees) it was blowing cool air, but when I returned from taking my son to school it had warm air for a short time. I’ve changed the inside filter, and we checked the outside unit toward the end of the summer which appeared to have good air flow. So my ultimate question is should I call my HVAC guy, or is this normal for a heat pump?

Question posted courtesy of: Karl

MortgageGuy asked:

Can not get temperture to reach any more than 67 degrees, heat pump fan is working, air handler is blowing… cool air only. I cleaned filter, and performed general (novice) inspection. The last service left the rear panel off of the heat pump, and there are a few leaves and a little dirt at base of unit.

Thankz, a hot for your help

Question posted courtesy of: Darlene