Adding Central Air

rondo

I'll try to make this as brief as possible, but I am running in the dark, so bear with me.

Installed a new natural gas FA furnace about 6 years ago (upgraded when we switched from propane), and without having the paperwork in front of me, I'm thinking that it is either, AC ready or, prepped for AC or something like that. Anyway, I also picked up a central air unit a few years ago when we got rid of my mother-in-laws place. The unit was less than a year old and I've had it in storage ever since. Now the questions start:

Whats' the best way for me to know if what I have will work as a system? What should I look for? The furnace obviously needs to have certain things to make it compatible with AC - I just don't know what.

Besides the furnace and AC unit, what do I need to make a complete system?

If I can't make things work, I'll look to a pro, but even in that case I want to be at least conversant in how things work, so I really need information. I'm fairly mechanical, but clueless with HVAC so any help will be appreciated.

Thanks.

mrtech

I assume you want it done right. You want it to operate efficiently. You want the system to last.
The first, is to see what can be done to make the home more efficient, such as adding insulation, correcting window propblems and taking care of any infiltration propblems.
The second, is to do a heat load on the home to verify the size system you need.
The third, is to check all the ducting, that it is the proper size and if it needs to be sealed, upgraded or replaced to meet the requirements of the A/C systems cfm and static pressures.
The fourth, and most important, is to find a good HVAC company to advise you and to install the system.
It takes many years and experience to know the proper way to install a system correctly and this is not a weekend DIY job unless you don't care how it is done or if it will work properly.