Tinan

You have a very basic furnace, quite small, 80% eff, around 35 KBTUs in output. The furnace has a two ton blower which means you can't go higher than a two ton outside AC condenser. Because the furnace has a conventional blower motor you should stick with a good basic 13 SEER unit with matching indoor evap coil.

I like the way your dealer sized you on the furnace taking into consideration the moderate climate you have based on location.

How do you filter your return air?

My suggestion is to call back your Bryant dealer and get a quote on a 1 1/2-2 ton condenser. Any idea what similar sized townhouses in your development have in AC size? Ductwork should be examined by dealer.

I would get a price on Bryant Legacy 113a or Preferred 123a with matching ALA evap coil. Pricing is difficult to say because you live in expensive Ca. Where I live, cost would be around $3-4 K. The Preferred model is a bit quieter and has a much nicer cabinet compared to the cheaper Legacy model. I don't think the Legacy has pressure switches. Both appear to have 10 yr warranty. This should be verified.

IMO

good info tigerdunes.

Thanks for the excellent info. Yes our climate is temperate enough that A/C is really a luxury that we'd only use part of the year, but we do like to sleep cool and my husband is working from home more these days so we would enjoy keeping the house a bit cooler. We currently have a portable A/C in the office that does keep that room and most of the upstairs cool, but it's pretty loud (too loud to use in the bedroom at night) and ugly looking, too taking up part of our sliding glass door.

We have installed a retractable awning and heat reducing film on the SW windows, this has cut down considerably on the afternoon heat from the sun. Therefore, the house never gets above 80 even when we get a heat wave, and most days stays in the 70s. In addition the air is dry in summer, not humid. So the load on the A/C would not be as heavy as in many climates or home. Your suggestions sound right on.

We were happy with the HVAC company that installed our furnace - he did discuss options with us but considering it rarely goes below 50F here except at night in January, the furnace is more than adequate for our heating needs - and we did mention that we would be interested in adding A/C in the future so we wanted one compatible with a suitable system. We'll definitely contact him again for a quote on the A/C addition.

Our furnace has a filter on the return grille right now, I assume that's not ideal for an A/C system and we might look into getting a filter box added under the furnace.

Does anyone here have recommendations in the SF bay area on other vendors/installers to get quotes from?

This post was edited by tinan on Sun, Aug 18, 13 at 15:42

How many returns do you have for your home?

IMO

This post was edited by tigerdunes on Sun, Aug 18, 13 at 18:04

Just one return, below the furnace. Open floor plan.

Tinan, have you installed the central a/c? I'm looking to do the same around the bay area so do you have any companies you would recommend?