"trader_4" wrote in message
...
On Monday, July 27, 2015 at 9:03:28 PM UTC-4, Ralph Mowery wrote:

From what I read about 10 years ago when looking to put in a new
heat pump it seemed that anything above a rating of 14 was really a waste
of
money. YOu may save a few dollars on power,but the price jump would take
years to pay back.


I went through that analysis about 4 years ago and came to the
same conclusion for my AC. I got a 14 SEER too. It's not hot
enough here in NJ, nor are our electric rates high enough to
get a reasonable pay back. The only thing I might reconsider
paying more for would be a two stage, so that it can run more
on days where you just need it to take some humidity out. But
even that isn't really an issue here. If I drop the temp 1 or
2 deg, it's enough to get the humidity down enough.

Glad to see someone in agreement that going above 14 seer at the time was
going to take too long for the payback.

The two stage would be nice and as someone mentioned a 2 speed or variatable
speed on the outside fan. I don't recall those being mentioned when the
system was installed. As humid as it is around here, at 85 deg outside you
sweat and hard to get cool. The air needs to run a lot to get rid of that
humidity without cooling down too much. Then it may hit high 90's and we
need more cooling than the smaller unit can provide.
Whoever sized my unit (2.5 tons) seems to have it about right for around
here. The thing runs a lot when it is over 95, but runs enough at 85 deg to
knock much of the humidity out .