Does anyone have a Geo Thermal home heating and cooling system?

[NNN0LHI]

Going to need a new furnace and air conditioner in a couple of years and am wondering if Geo Thermal might be the way to go. Anyone had any experience with these systems? Good or bad?

Thanks in advance.

Don

[uberblonde]

1. I don't but a friend does.

And she has these really tiny heating and cooling bills.

[tismyself]

2. depends

For one thing, where are you? And two, if you are talking about a retrofit, it could turn out to be cost prohibitive. Sometimes, not always, geo thermal is more cost efficient in new construction. Another question would be how long you plan on staying where you are.

[sinkingfeeling]

3. I have some literature on them. It's expensive to put in. Requires them to basically dig up

your yard to install the pipes and gravel beds, etc. I think they told me years ago that it would start at $15,000.

[safeinOhio]

4. I was told $20,000.

So I just replaced to old with a 25 year newer gas furnace and AC. $5,600 total. 3 ton air and 85,000 btu heat for about 1,900 sq ft.

[MuseRider]

5. I do and I love it.

We sunk our coils in the big pond and it works very well. I can write more later if you need anything more than you get here this afternoon.

[NNN0LHI]

7. How much did your heating and cooling costs go down if you don't mind me asking?

I have been told it should be about a hundred bucks a month at most here where I live with such a system.

Yours coils are underwater? I was told I would need to have mine put into the ground 110 feet down. Four of them. Oh, my poor lawn.

Don

[MuseRider]

8. You are farther North that may make a difference.

I really do not know. Here is the deal. We built our house so it was easy to put it in and we are about 80 feet from a 5 acre pond. The water does not freeze all the way to the bottom so if the coils are sunk with most of it at 8 feet or below it will maintain a temp above 32 in the winter and will stay cool in the summer (I don't know the degree). Our bills have gone down. They probably should be a lot lower but I live with a husband who is eminently more concerned with his minute by minute comfort level so there are always doors or windows open that are not closed when he leaves the room until I find them. That hurts the comparison. Still they are lower, much lower, at least half what they were. The funny thing is that I hate, absolutely hate air conditioning. This feels so much better that what we had before. I do not know why but it just does.

We will pay it off in about 9 more years (10 total) considering the price of Propane now it may be sooner. It would have been Propane or Electric both of which would have cost a lot more and been less green.

If you can afford it and can stand your yard being dug up I say go for it. It was much cheaper doing it with a new structure than it is to do later so we went for it. I have friends who do not have a pond and theirs is sunk in the ground and they feel the same way about theirs.

If you have questions send me a PM. This was kind of my husbands thing so I may be late getting back with the information if I do not know it but I will get it to you.

[MuseRider]

9. Don

I just talked to my husband and our bills are indeed about half what they were at the old house that was a bit smaller than this one. We were told that we would pay it off in comparison to Propane in 3 years, I was wrong about that before. Propane is now almost a dollar more than it was then.

We are going to add solar panels, the house was built with them in mind, if and when we ever sell our old house. Ha, like that is going to happen. Anyway, we may be very close to off the grid with them.

The big difference we had that you do not is that we were starting from scratch. We did not have an old system to deal with, the ground was easy to dig from the house to the pond since there was nothing in the way. It just made it all so much less expensive that way. It is worth it though. It feels good living in it and it feels good in my soul. :)

Good luck.

[conscious evolution]

10. Who is

the manufacturer for your system?
I have a client building a new house and they are interested in such a system and need info on them.

[MuseRider]

14. The system is

WaterFurnace. http://www.waterfurnace.com/

[SoCalDem]

6. It's good enough for Bush's pig farm..Must be effifient & profitable to use..

:rofl:

[Tesha]

11. Don, what kind of heat have you got right now? (Fuel? Method of distribution?) (NT)

[NNN0LHI]

12. Forced air. Natural gas for the furnace and electricity for the air conditioning

[Tesha]

15. That's good.

> Forced air. Natural gas for the furnace and
> electricity for the air conditioning

That's good.

Groundwater heat pumps are much more widely available
for forced hot air/air conditioning conversions than
they are for forced hot water conversions.

Meanwhile, this Wikipedia article details the three
main methods for collecting the heat, at least two
of which have already been mentioned in this thread:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_heat_pump

Finally, if you want somewhat lower installation cost
at the price of somewhat lower "efficiency" (CoP),
you might consider this air-to-air heat pump:

http://www.gotohallowell.com/

Tesha

[davsand]

13. The biggest knock on them (other than cost) is the lack of warm blowing air.

The only complaint I have heard from anyone that has a geothermal system, was from a woman who wanted the immediate gratification of feeling warm air blowing out of the vents when she turned up her thermostat. Other than that, I have never heard anyone with anything bad to say about a geothermal system once it was installed. Seems to me that a hot water system (radiant heat) would offer that same limitation, and I have NEVER heard anyone complain about it in that context.

I talk to several homeowners every year, so I think maybe I'd have heard all the beefs if there were any.




Laura