When we decided that we were going to stay put, we also decided that we weren’t hassling with big heating and cooling bill any longer either.
My husband and I had kids young and worked hard to provide a nice home with central air conditioning for our children.
And they all turned out great and headed off to college and a life of their own. But that also meant that we were with and empty nest in our mid forties. So we upgraded the HVAC equipment and sold that home. We made a good bit of profit there and with that, we bought the home we have now and the 22 acres that go with it. The plan was to renovate and then sell again once we retired. But that all changed once we became grandparents. This was not something that we could have anticipated. But once we started having grandchildren, we knew there was no going south to all that air conditioning. So, we decided to stay right where we are and gladly be part of all our grandchildren’s lives. But since we’ve been here more than a decade, we had to replace the heating and cooling equipment. One of the few things that we didn’t have to renovate when we got this house was the HVAC unit. We actually inherited one that was only about 8 years old and one of the better residential HVAC models out there. Since we’re going to be staying put, we really decided we wanted to chop a huge amount from our heating and cooling costs. We also wanted this to be the last time we had to fool with an HVAC replacement. The geothermal heat pump that we decided to go with has checked both boxes.