Timeline of events ------------------ Moved in to ground floor of 4-floorcondo mid-2010. Heatpump on roof, furnace in unit, lines run from heatpump on roof to/fr furnace in unit. Condos built in 2004 so system is 10 years old. Freon replaced in mid-2010 and it worked the rest of the summer. Freon replaced in mid-2011 and it worked the rest of the summer. Technician says need whole new system at $10k. No freon replacement since the end of summer-2011 and it hasn't been working since. Summer of 2012 & summer of 2013 we sucked it up sans A/C. Last date of inspection on contract (Apr/May 2014 timeframe) Technician stopped by and said the vents were clear. This summer has been extra toasty and we turned it on. It runs nonstop and to get the temperature down the 80 the thermostat is set down to 63. The bill has tripled (from ~$50/mo to ~$150/mo, ouch) Any ideas on what's wrong and a possible DIY fix? I've run a heatpump to a furnace in a house with a crawlspace and wired the thermostat to the furnace with help from a buddy but that was over ten years ago and I forgot what I did but I think I could follow directions if need be. Thanks

My wife and I are shopping for a new house for our family. We looked at a existing house (built in 2003) on Saturday. While looking around, I noticed there seemed to be a lot of air returns. I finally counted them and came up with 5. 1,2. There were 2 in the master bedroom (on the same short section of wall, one about 2 feet up, one about 8 feet up - cathedral ceiling) 3. Another return in the family room on the common wall between the master bedroom and family room. 4. One in the area between the kitchen and laundry room 5. One in the bonus room above the garage. This was a single story house with a bonus room above the garage, about 2500 square feet. It has an outside AC unit with a gas furnace in the attic area accessed through the bonus room. There might even be more air returns that I didn't see. The current residents are renting the house and have a fair amount of stuff already boxed up and stacked. Our current house is a 1600 sq ft cape cod with 2 air returns - one upstairs and one downstairs for the electric heat pump and the air handler is in the crawl space. Do you need more air returns because the AC and heat are separate instead of being a heat pump? Is this a good thing? I'm inclined to think it is. I've never noticed so many returns in any of the other houses we've looked at, but I've never made a specific effort to count. Thanks in advance for your answers.