What size home?

Age of home? How would you describe your home's insulation properties?

What is location?

Post back.

IMO

2,500 square feet (top two floors) with a finished basement, built in 1976. Have no idea on the insulation properties. Located in northern Virginia.

I would want to see a load calculation especially for heating. Perhaps an 80 K high eff furnace would be adequate for meeting home's winter heating load.

I like the Infinity quote the best.

You do want a whole house media filter cabinet.

IMO

It isn't worth the extra $700 to go from the carrier infinity 15.2 seer 2 stage, to the lennox 20.3 seer variable capacity? Or do you just feel carrier is that superior to lennox?

There are three major brands. Trane, Carrier, and Lennox plus the two sister companies Am Std and Bryant. In terms of quality, it is my opinion that both Trane and Carrier are superior to Lennox. It appears that Lennox is commanding top price for their HVAC.

Not a fan of the brand and in particularly their HPs. Just my bias.

If this was my home, I would want a quote from either Trane or AmStd equivalents on the XV95 furnace paired with XR17 heat pump.

I think the modulating furnaces like Lennox mdl quoted paired with a high eff heat pump is overkill particularly based on your location.

With a high eff heat pump, you should see some nice savings leveraged against the propane fueled furnace.

Let me know if you have further questions.

IMO

Do your own load-calc.

http://energycode.pnl.gov/EnergyCodeReqs/?state=Virginia
(2009 code; copy & paste in address window)

Here is a link that might be useful: Online Free Load-Calc

What are you paying for propane and electricity?

What is the likelihood of getting hooked up to natural gas?

If you are never going to hooked up to natural gas, it may make sense to not get a propane furnace and put the money towards an inverter type heat pump like the Carrier Greenspeed. This uses similar technology as the Lennox XP25. The back up heat source would be heat strips which will probably not be used too frequently.

I paid just over $4 this year for propane, but closer to $3 last year (Amerigas owns my tank). There is no chance I will ever get natural gas. My electric is running about $0.10 right now, but could get as high as $0.12 during the summer.

I would love to go off propane totally. The Lennox guy said I should upgrade to a 5 Ton XP25 if I want to go off propane for better heating (which he recommended). I would also have to run a 220V line over to my furnace for the heat strips, which he said would be about $1,000. His quote was for $11.8k with the heat pump, air handler, coil, etc. installed. That doesn't include the $1k rebate, or the cost for the electrical wiring.

I asked the Carrier dealer about going full electric, and he didn't recommend it with the propane already there.

I did get a quote for a Trane system, but the dealer had very poor reviews online and their system was $15k for an XC95m and XL20i heat pump.

If you want to save money on both heating & cooling then do everything tat is cost effective to reduce the Btu/hr it takes to heat & cool it.

Hopefully, Propane may not be that high again this coming winter season.

It seems to me that your home could be more energy efficient & the installed HVAC equipment may not be operating nearly as efficient as it should be..

"The Lennox guy said I should upgrade to a 5 Ton XP25 if I want to go off propane for better heating (which he recommended)."

This is very bad advice. The heat pump needs to sized for cooling. In addition I highly doubt your duct work is large enough to handle the air flow for a 5 ton heat pump.

The quote for $1000 to run the 220V line for the heat strips seems very high. Do you have to get a new breaker box? Perhaps you should get your own electrician to install the line.

You need to contact more HVAC contractors. I don't get a good feeling about the ones you have already spoke with.

Since you don't have access to nat gas, I agree with Mike about looking into a Carrier Greenspeed system. You will have to weigh the added cost of this HVAC plus any modification to your electric service versus operating cost against your budget. The conventional DF system with propane backup would offer some good savings over what you have now. I would expect the GreenSpeed savings would be better.

IMO

Thanks for all the feedback mike & tigerdunes. Unfortunately, I called all the HVAC contractors in my area who had good reviews online. That included 2 Carrier reps, 1 Lennox, and 1 Trane.The Trane bids were crazy high (min of $15k), and the second Carrier dealer proposed similar equipment to the first, but it was more expensive, and they paired a 4-Ton HP with a 5-Ton coil?

So I am still left with the question of the Carrier Infinity HP and Propane furnace for $11.5k (15.2 seer) or the Lennox HP & furnace for $12.2K (20.5 seer). The Lennox dealer has serviced my existing equipment and my families' equipment for decades...and we have never had a problem with him.

Interesting thing is that the Lennox quote was first, and I brought up the idea of going full electric (heat strips with heat pump) to both Carrier dealers and they recommended against it.