Gas and Oil Home Heating Furnaces - 10seer vs. 12seer ac unit.

I don't know much about this kind of stuff. My wife and I are having our first home built. The house comes with a stardard Trane 10seer a/c unit. We have an opportunity to upgrade it to a 12seer unit for $1150. This is a two story 2095sqft home. Would it be worth upgrading to the 12seer unit? We plan to live there at least 7-10 years. Any suggestions or comments are welcome. Thank you.

I have always been confused about this question. In the heatloss program that I use to size equipment, there is a usage estimator. I can input the cost of gas, oil, propane, and electric and get an estimated annual cost for heating. I can do the same with heat pumps by putting in the cost of electric and the SEER of the unit. What confuses me is that at .08/kwh electric in my area, upgrading from a 10 to a 12 SEER unit would NOT be paid back in 10 years. Either I'm not looking at this equation correctly or many people are paying thousands of dollars on the assumption that they will save more than they are paying.

The only reason I like the more efficient heat pumps is because they usually defrost on demand instead of time and some have diagnostic indicators to alert you that there is trouble and what that trouble is.

First you dont say your location. That means a lot on your A/C.We dont put in lower then a 12 seer. A 14 or 16 dont pay back for us.
Now if you have a long summer think about a hot water recovery put in with this A/C. This will give you free hot water and at the same time kick up the seer on the A/C unit you have.So you save more $$$$$ .;) ED

sorry guys, i'm located here in San Antonio, Tx. long hot summers. upgrading to the 12seer is my only option upgrade. i was just wondering if it's worth it. it that 10seer can do the job just as well then i'll just stick with the standard. if it's not going to pay back by 10years then i'll just stick with the standard.

Ok then you have a long run on the A/C go for the 12 seer but do add on the hot water recovery unit. Im in Fl. right now and we have a 8 months run on the A/C here. I turn the electric hot water tank off and I have free hot water at a 140 d for the whole time with 3 in the home.Cant say for sure just how much it kicks up the seer on the A/C unit. But my elec. bills are lower than others here that dont have the water recovery on there A/C.
;) ED

ok, i'll look into that hot water recovery addition. i don't think my builder offers that as an upgrade. they didn't mention it, but i'll ask them. if not then i guess i'll have to contract someone to come out and do it... if that's possible after the a/c installation. thanks for the info.