geothermal for new house??

[Kev Williams]

$26 grand? Whew... Glad my dad filled the attic with insulation in this house years ago. For years my natural gas bill has averaged year-round $2 a day with a $2200 furnace and a 40 gal. gas water heater, and that's with the original 47 year old single pane windows. (1250 s-f up and down)...

Think I'll stay with what's workin' for me!

[Steve Rozmiarek]

I've been extremely happy with its performance. The electricity bills have dropped between 1/4 to 1/3.

I am an hvac contractor and install geo thermal. Say you have a $200 electric bill. If you save a quarter of that amount you are looking at a 23 year payback, in my area. Most installs around here for geo are about $22,000. A really efficient gas furnace and 18 seer a/c would be around $8500. I like geo but some places just don't warrant installing one. In a small residence money would be better spent on foam insulation. When the unit goes breaks down in 15 years, and all mechanical equipment does, your savings go out the door. Parts and labor are not cheap.[/QUOTE]

Brad, don't know if I feel any better about it, but I'm glad to hear a pro say it too.

Phil, if I was building the house, it would have some warm flooring someplace.


edit - I don't know how to fix the formatting on this quote, was trying to quote Brad, not the quote Brad used... no quote butchering intended.

[Brian Elfert]

$26 grand? Whew... Glad my dad filled the attic with insulation in this house years ago. For years my natural gas bill has averaged year-round $2 a day with a $2200 furnace and a 40 gal. gas water heater, and that's with the original 47 year old single pane windows. (1250 s-f up and down)...

I don't where you are located, but I'm spending way more than $2 a day for natural gas here in Minneapolis. My house is 12 years old, is tightly sealed, and has a 92% efficient furnace. I also keep the heat turned down a lot of the time since no one is home during the day.

Geothermal makes more sense when you have to use fuel oil, electricity, or propane to heat your house. I looked at the cost of propane and it seemed to be cheaper to use straight electric heat as propane is so expensive.

[David Masters]

At the time I bought my system, people around here using natural gas were were experiencing $300-$400 monthly heating bills. Now that large reserves of natural gas have been found, natural gas is probably the cheapest option available. It's moot anyway because the closest natural gas connection to my place is over a mile away. Before I installed the geothermal system, I averaged $300 electrical bills in the winter. In January of that year, the power company was allowed to change their rate structure, and my bill suddenly jumped to $500 a month. I'm not living in a drafty old farmhouse. I have a modern well sealed home with adequate insulation. I figured I might be able improve my energy efficiency if I replaced the 18 year old heat pump I was using. When I priced an energy efficient multi-zoned air sourced heat pump system, every bid came in around $14k.

The bids for the same sized geo system came in between $20k and $26k before a 1/3 tax credit and the rebate offered by the power company. Even without the rebate and credits, the payback calculation I ran was around 8 years. With the rebate and credit, the geo system payback was immediate, as there was no difference to me on the out of pocket cost between the air sourced heat pump and the geothermal system.

At the time I started this exercise, I had no intention of installing a geothermal system. It would be tough to find a time I agreed with an environmentalist on any topic. I spent around four months researching the options available, obtaining quotes, and running financial models before deciding whether a geothermal system made sense.

My power company supplies a graph in each bill showing a year's history of my electrical cost. I used this to determine my savings month to month. In the first month the new system was installed, I showed a 25% decrease in my bill when compared to the year before when the rates were cheaper. In the winter months, I haven't had a bill over $200 since installing the geothermal system. I wouldn't want to promise similar results, so kept my estimated savings to what I've seen over the summer months.

If I lived in an area where natural gas is available, I would agree that natural gas would be a much cheaper option these days. But for a guy who only has a choice between propane and all-electric, a geothermal system isn't out of the realm of possibly being the cheapest option available.

[Ed Aumiller]

regarding warranty.. The company I bought mine from will.... www.MiamiHP.com.... and yes, basically the law says they have to....

[Brad Adams]

Read the fine print on the Miami heat pump warranty, it says only valid if installed by a licensed Contractor.

[Dick Adair]

We installed geothermal in April 2010. A Climate Master T27 2 stage with 10 kw auxiliary back up. They drilled (2) 250' wells, that are sealed, about 25' apart. These wells hit hit water about 35' deep and 60 gpm flow. I think the water may help with the constant temp for the lines. My cost was $15500.00 and got a tax credit of $4890. I have the back up heat disabled and our 1973 house house stays at a comfortable 69-71 during the coldest parts of winter. The summer air conditioning is very reasonable. Our monthly budget with a (gas water heater) was $118.00 last year. I had 3 heat pumps since 1978 and I am very pleased with the geothermal unit. I monitor the water temp into the unit and during the year in varies between 55 and 43 degrees. During these very frigid days we had during December and now, the unit runs almost continuously. We are in Central PA, not as cold as you are in Wisconsin, so your needs are different.

[Brian Elfert]

One thing I've heard about Geothermal is you want to keep the house at almost a constant temperature because the units don't have enough capacity to quickly raise or lower the temperature. Currently, with my zoned natural gas heating I only heat my first floor between 3 pm and 11 pm on weekdays. The temperature has dropped as low as 60 degrees on a really cold day and it can heat back up to 69 degrees in 20 to 30 minutes.

[David Masters]

One thing I've heard about Geothermal is you want to keep the house at almost a constant temperature ....

I'd agree with that to a point; certainly compared to a gas furnace. If I alter the temperature more than two degrees upward, my aux heat pops on, which is the last thing I want to happen. I've read where some disconnect their aux heat if they have it, to prevent this from happening. When compared to my old air source heat pump, my geothermal system heats the house much faster.

[Lee Schierer]

I'd agree with that to a point; certainly compared to a gas furnace. If I alter the temperature more than two degrees upward, my aux heat pops on, which is the last thing I want to happen. I've read where some disconnect their aux heat if they have it, to prevent this from happening. When compared to my old air source heat pump, my geothermal system heats the house much faster.

My thermostat allows you to turn off the back up heat strips. I believe there is also a set point where you can set how much temperature difference there needs to be before the heat strips turn on. I set back the temps in the bedroom(s) simply by closing the air register in the bedroom(s). I don't recommend getting a system without the back up heat as the circulating pump may die on a weekend and you would be without heat. At least with the back up strips you still have heat and can chose whether or not to use it. In the 35+ years we've heated with geothermal we used the back up heat maybe 3 times. Twice on a power failure when the house dropped down to 45 degrees to allow us to recover more quickly and once when our water pump died and it took 2 days to get it replaced.

[Jeff Nicol]

I worked in the HVAC world for 30 years but mainly in the commercial end the last 25 years, but here in WI and most northern zones the heat pump of early years was just not viable after it got below say 20 degrees because they were taking the residual heat from the air and not the ground where the temps stay pretty consistant. With that being said and after living in a number of different houses with prety much every type of heat source available. What I have learned is that for my $$$ I would put in some sort of in floor heating wether it be from a gas fired boiler, wood fired, or from a geo-thermal system. The reason is that once that mass of the floor is warmed it is much easier to keep it warm and when your feet are warm the rest of you just goes along with it. The first and best thing is to put as much into insulation and the sealing of the home because heat loss is your major enemy in the heating battle. The passive solar of having a large wall facing south to gather the suns warmth is a positive in the winter but a detriment in the summer as the sun does not know you want it cooler in the summer. So with all of that being said with in floor heat and then having the forced air heat/cooling from the geo-thermal unit you can keep a very well regulated temperature all year and the AC portion of the system is probably the best portion of it.

My buddy just built a new house in River Falls WI with a geo-thermal system, the thing that he had questions about were why it ran a lot and of course that has been mentioned already and that is due to the fact that the air coming out of the vents is not "HOT" but just warm enough to tell that it has a higher temp than the surrounding air. This is how it maintains the temp in the house. The one thing that he is seeing right now is that with the very cold temps he is getting condensation on the windows due to the new construction and there being moisture in the building materials and the concrete in the basement drying out as the winter goes on. I asked him if he had an "Air to air heat exchanger" installed and he did not. These will help with the newer homes being sealed up very tight to take moisture out of the home from cooking, bathing, plants and so on. It is also possible to help this by bringing in some outside air into the return air to be heated and blended before suppling the home just to keep the house from getting "Stuffy".

So good insulation, some infloor heat, the sun is can be your friend, good luck with the new home to a fellow cheesehead!

Jeff

[eugene thomas]

Lot of food for thought here. I have in floor heat in my grage so know about the idea of not changing the temprature during the night and all. going to have in floor heat in basement and main floor bathrooms. will have propane furnace as back up. I talked to a heating company and he will do what he called a Manual J heat loss /gain. He mentioned the air to air heat exchange and even though not want to spend around $1800 or so more will have to consider it. The tax credit would be nice but seems the irs decided to re inturpit the way law was writen (contractors words) so as of last november guess only can get tax credit for the actual geo stuff not the whole heating system in new house. As to doing the tubing geo install myself. I really dont have the time or the KNOWLAGE.

[Lee Schierer]

[QUOTE=eugene thomas;2213901 He mentioned the air to air heat exchange and even though not want to spend around $1800 or so more will have to consider it. The tax credit would be nice but seems the irs decided to re inturpit the way law was writen (contractors words) so as of last november guess only can get tax credit for the actual geo stuff not the whole heating system in new house. [/QUOTE]

Just be aware that conventional air source heat pumps do not work well when temps fall below 40 degrees. Many add outside heat strips to warm the air that the heat pump is trying to pull heat from, which is not very efficient. I would check with a tax professional on exactly what portion of the system you can claim before claiming a tax credit.

[eugene thomas]

Called my propane company today not out but their cash price is $3.94 today. Geo sounds little more enticing..

[David Weaver]

One of my news tickers said a million BTUs of natural gas on the spot market was at $135 sometime recently. Most contracted rates are probably around $5. It's a bad time to be buying energy right now. I'll bet even at $3.94, they have plenty of people calling and saying they don't have a choice but to buy right now because of the temperatures lately.