The next round of research for energy savings....

[Dennis Peacock]

Well, the LOML and I have been talking things over. Due to the ever increasing electrical power rates and I know for a fact that our current A/C unit for the house is the pits for SEER ratings. A guy I work with had a heat pump system 2 years ago that's supposed to be so effecient that it far exceeds the SEER ratings by so much that it's not really rated. I believe it's a geothermal heat pump unit and it's also my understanding that these babies really cost some serious money. I believe that the guy at work stated that his was around $13K installed. Are these units so much better that the cost would be offset by long term energy savings on the cost of cooling and heating? Remember, I primarily heat with wood in the winter, but my cooling cost are very high and our cooling months are longer that the heating season.

What are your thoughts on this? Wouldn't it be just as good to get a Trane or Carrier unit that has an SEER rating of something like 17 and expect the energy cost savings to be about the same? I really don't know, but I'm hoping what someone here can help shed some light on this subject.

[Tyler Howell]

Hey Dennis,
I here good things about the Geothermal units. Big bucks is right.
but how about all the rest of the stuff.

• Windows
• doors
• calking
• insullation.
• sealing outlets and switch boxes.

Up here in the tundra you can just about see the dollars float out of the house during heating season when there's a leak. High efficiency equipment is the last thing we do up here.
I understand the payback is slow and repairs high for those systems too.
I know they are great conversation pieces you can show all your friends.
A buddy of mine draws off the lake for the heat pump. He eventually had to suppliment with LP gas.

Good luck, anxious to hear other opinions.

If the outer envelope is well sealed then

[Terre Hooks]

A geo-thermal heat pump is expensive because of the install. If it cost $13k, I don't think you can amortize that in your lifetime. There's 10-12 of them around here, mostly funded by the local power provider.

They aren't anything fancy. Just a regular water source heat pump with the addition of a series of pipes underground filled with water.


I couldn't justify a $7-800 increase from a 10 SEER (no longer available) to a 13.

How are you gonna do it with another $10,000?

The proper way to save money on HVAC is to have a properly sized unit, ductwork and supply/return grilles. It's a SYSTEM. 95% of homebuilders and residential HVAC contractors install a sadly undersized unit that struggles to keep a home halfway comfortable in June, July and August. If they would upsize most homes with another 1/2 to 1 ton of cooling, the power bills would decrease.

[Dennis Peacock]

Terre,

I understand very well what you are saying. But the boat I'm in right now is the aging A/C unit we have that was the lowest end of the A/C units when the builder built the house. We bought this house 2nd hand and have done several things to improve it's overall effeciency. What we are looking at now, as long as the current unit stays working, is replacing these very cheap windows with high effeciency, Low E windows. We KNOW that this has to be done as we can feel a breeze in the kitchen every winter when the wind blows even with all the windows closed. I just have a tendency to start researching and getting educated on something far in advance of when I may need to move on an item such as replacing an HVAC unit. I also understand that my duct work will probably need replacing or fixing. From all I've seen and fixed on this house, the builder did the absolute minimum to get this house done and sold. But dont' get me started on that. I did have the house inspected prior to the purchase, but many of these things we don't find out until the deal is done and a year of living in the house passed.

I'm just trying to get smarter about HVAC and energy costs/savings so I can become a better educated consumer for when the time becomes critical to move on replacement.

[Art Mulder]

Dennis... I'm a born researcher also. And I think it is a good thing. You see, I've heard just about the opposite of Terre -- at least with regards to furnaces. What I've read in several different articles, is that HVAC people tend to put in over-sized furnaces. It isn't always their fault, sometimes the homeowner insists. At first glance, they think, "Hey, I want a more powerfull unit, so I'm never cold." But the problem is then that the unit cycles on and off too much. It's so powerfull it is just getting going when the thermostat kicks it off. According to these articles, a furnace really needs to have longer and less frequent cycling, in order to run at the most efficient.

Now, does the same apply to A/C ?? I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised.

And ditto with opinions on slapped-together subdivisions. I fantasize about building my own place -- SIP's all the way, with 3' overhangs. And also some large trees nearby to shade the place in summer.

So, keep it up with the research! But in the meantime, plant a shade tree also!

...art

[Spence DePauw]

No personal data, but a friend's brother here in Illinois has a geothermal unit, in new construction. Cost in the range you mention. He's single, so not a lot of other loads. His electric bills this summer have averaged ~$25/mo. I don't vouch for that, but the conversation I got the info in wasn't one that would lead me to suspect bragging, or selling... I'd assume that gas is used for hot water, cooking etc, but don't know for sure.

Spence

[John Daugherty]

My wife and I just finished our house. The house is 2100 sq/ft on the main level and 2100 in an unfinished basement. Both levels are heated and cooled. Energy efficiency was my main goal when we decided to build. The main floor walls are SIPS. The basement walls are superior walls. The windows are all low-e argon filled and meet the energy star guidelines. The doors also meet energy star guidelines.
I was very anal about sealing around all openings. I invested in a foam gun and several cans of foam. I sprayed every crack that I could find. I had the band around the basement sprayed with foam by a contractor. The roof is a standard truss. I had R-40 blown into the attic.
I put in a Carrier Infinity system for the HVAC. It’s an 18 SEER dual fuel unit. This means that it heats with a heat pump until the temp gets to about 35. It then will change over to gas. The heating unit is 96% efficient. I also had an energy recovery ventilator installed. When my HVAC contractor calculated the unit size he said that my unit was about 1.5 to 2 tons smaller than a stick built house.

We just got our first electric bill with us in the house for the entire billing period (31 days). It was 63 dollars.

[Norman Hitt]

My wife and I just finished our house. The house is 2100 sq/ft on the main level and 2100 in an unfinished basement. Both levels are heated and cooled. Energy efficiency was my main goal when we decided to build. The main floor walls are SIPS. The basement walls are superior walls. The windows are all low-e argon filled and meet the energy star guidelines. The doors also meet energy star guidelines.
I was very anal about sealing around all openings. I invested in a foam gun and several cans of foam. I sprayed every crack that I could find. I had the band around the basement sprayed with foam by a contractor. The roof is a standard truss. I had R-40 blown into the attic.
I put in a Carrier Infinity system for the HVAC. It’s an 18 SEER dual fuel unit. This means that it heats with a heat pump until the temp gets to about 35. It then will change over to gas. The heating unit is 96% efficient. I also had an energy recovery ventilator installed. When my HVAC contractor calculated the unit size he said that my unit was about 1.5 to 2 tons smaller than a stick built house.

We just got our first electric bill with us in the house for the entire billing period (31 days). It was 63 dollars.

John, to put this in better perspective for everyone, (since the cost per kwh varies so much around the country), what did your bill show that you are paying per kwh on that bill? As a side note, my current electric bill showed our current rate at $00.152/kwh, (which varies NOW and is higher for the main HOT months and the main COLD months).

[Jim Becker]

Dennis, you have to look at the payback time over the actual projected life of the new system. There is a big jump in price when you start getting up to the very high SEER ratings, yet the system life is about the same...10-15 years typically. Sometimes a "normal" system is actually more cost effective in those terms.

[Bob Aliano]

Dennis, when we bought our house it was all electric and had a heat pump heating-cooling system. Everything was OK until it got really cold out, then an auxilialry electric heater in the air handler kicked in. Our electric bills would go out of sight during the colder months of winter. We have since switched to gas for heating and cooking and are not paying nearly as much as with the heat pump. If your temperatures don't get much below 32 F in the winter you might be OK. I'd talk to the energy company and a couple of heaating contractors first.

[Al Willits]

You live south of Tyler and I, so a higher seer rating will pay for its self, 13k for a heat pump is insane, your never gonna get your monies worth, considering they are a higher maintance item than just a standard A/C unit.
Also you can't just upsize a unit and expect better results, A/C units use a great part of their colling power removing humidity from the air, to large a unit will leave ya will cool wet air, not good.
System are rated in tonnage or BTU's and each area probably has a reccomended tonnage for the house it's trying to cool, most salesmen will have a heat loss program and should be able to help ya.
Least they do here in Minn....

There are several decent manufactur's of A/C units, where I work sells Carrier (same as Bryant and a few others) and Ruud (same as Rheem) and my next AC will be a Ruud, fwiw

I have the feeling if I lived down where your at, a 17 seer A/Cc or greater would be my choice.

Al

[Cecil Arnold]

Dennis, I don't know how humid it gets there, but in the high humidity we have here a 17 SEER unit would not run enough to take the humidity out of the air. That, as you can guess, makes it feel much warmer than it would be with dryer air. I don't know how much you have done to improve things, but if you don't have trees overhanging the house you might want to consider a spray on radiant barrier in the attic, ridge vents with additional soffet vents, and there is a high-e film you can put on the existing windows or you might think about solar screens.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Dennis......I'm with Tyler this time. When I built my shop I installed R-19 in the walls and R-40 in the ceiling. It was wrapped with a Tyvek type material and has insulated doors and windows. I put 4 mil plastic underneath the wall and ceiling coverings (plywood and wallboard) and sealed the openings in the outlet and switch boxes after pulling the wire. This afternoon I went in there, it was 96 degrees outside temp and 81 degrees inside the shop. I've seen the temperature differential in the 18 degree range.

As stated, it'll take forever to get the payback on your geothermal unit ESPECIALLY if your house is leaky! I'd put in some insulated windows, doors, seal around outlets and seal the outlet boxes. After you make your house as thermal efficient as is reasonably possible .....then I'd consider putting in a normal heating/ac unit that is properly sized for your house. Don't forget to make sure the roof is correctly vented and maybe consider a vent fan to remove heat from the attic during the hot months.

Good luck with your decision.

[John Daugherty]

Norman,
My current rate is 0.1029/kwh

[Karl Laustrup]

Dennis, I like you am looking for every way to save a buck or two, especially on energy consumption. When I had our house built this past winter I looked into the geo-thermal way of cooling and heating.

First, cost was prohibitive when figuring in initial cost versus savings. It would have taken more than 10 years to payback the initial investment. I was also told that while the geo-thermal would do fine in the summer, I would have to have a supplemental heat source for the winter. This further took it out of contention as a viable solution.

Because your cooling season is longer and hotter than ours, I would personally opt for as efficient an a/c unit as is resonable, keeping in mind that the units initial cost goes up considerably for each 1 SEER increase. I opted for a 13 SEER, which is the minimum now, and put the money into a more efficient heating unit.

Finally, I would do all the things mentioned here already. Windows, which are expensive but will serve you well for many years. I wouldn't scrimp here at all. Pella, Eagle, Marvin, Andersen come to mind.

Good luck and keep us posted.

Karl