Air Conditioning - Calling all pro's! Can it be done? and how?

Here's my problem the wife likes it cold! I live in florida were the humidity is 90% or more with temps in the 90s all summer long. My goal is to have the inside humidity below 50% and the temperature at 72 deg 24/7. What is the ideal setup to accomplish this problem. I'm looking at trane or the lenox for the condenser and the air handler,but am open to other brands if they can do a better job. The house is well insulated single story 2200sq. Thanks for any help! Please leave model numbers and the brand so I can look them up and any other info I may need. :confused:

First of all is make sure the dealer does a heat calc on YOUR home. DO NOT let them say oh, this home will need x amount of ton per sq ft...

If they messure each room and check out the duct work, windows, walls.. ect.. and enters it into the computer program called manual J then they are doing what they are suppose to do.


If you guys like it cool, you are best to go with two stage system. Like I said in another post, the Comfort-R on the Trane will help. If you go with two stage, get a two stage t-stat.

72 degree may end up being too cool if you get a right sized equipement in. I used to be the person who would keep the A/C that low.. Now with my Trane, I've been turning it up to 76 to 78 degrees now. My humidity been kept around 40% to 43% (lowest I've had is 37%) The lower the humidity, the cooler the house will be.

Thanks jay! I was thinking the two stage compressor may have no benifit for me being it's so hot and running full blast all day long. I see now at night is when I whould see the most benifit of humidity control with the two stage compressor and variable speed air handler. Were you saying I should get the honeywell stat with the humidity control sensor instead of the one that comes with the unit? Also is that clean air electronic air filter from trane worth the 1,100 bucks,seems a little pricey. But with a 3year old,if it's worth the money I whould buy that also. If not is there a filtration unit I should consider? My windows are closed for 7months out of the year. :)

Good thing about the two stage cooling you will get a cooling effect on days where is no demand like cloudy /rainy days, and as you said at night.

The system may run steady in 1st stage on hot days, and that fine! You get your dehumidfation (SP) done that way. The honywell Vision Pro TH8321 (built in humidistat) will "over cool" your home to dry out. If you are concern about humidity, I'd suggest putting a humidistat itself on the return and set it around 40 to 45% and that will keep the blower at a slowler speed to dry out the air.

We do get our hot/humid days here in MN, and thought about the humidstat control, but didn't get it. The Comfort R seems to do a good job for me so far. They key thing is sizing the equipement right..

I like the sensor idea in the unit,very trick thanks. As far as brand name in the units theres know real diffrence there? Trane,lenox all about the same.

Both Trane and Lennox are good.. I just perfer Trane over Lennox.. Also, if you go with either one. make sure you get the extented warranity!

Jay what is the ideal humidity seting for summer time cooling?

40 to 45% when the a/c is running. otherwise you may see 50% when it's not running often.