# Anybody using a geothermal heat pump?



## daycab (Oct 19, 2004)

Hi All,

It has come time to replace the 40 year old oil burner in the basement. The past two heating seasons we've burned wood, but there will be no one here to feed the beast during the day this year. 

The search for the most efficient option points in the direction of a geo- thermal heat pump. Aside from the higher cost and the displeasure of using electricity to heat, I can't think of any drawbacks.

Anybody using one? What do you think about it?


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## Ross (May 9, 2002)

It's a good system, but yeah it's pricey. My MIL has one, it's been reasonably reliable, with no more break downs than any other system. They did have trouble getting it fixed once when the factory trained service guy was away for the weekend.


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## doing it in NM (Feb 5, 2007)

I've found sometimes the cost doesn't justify the means. Are you going to use a closed loop system or pump from a spring and return it. Closed loop is costly, but so is the cost of running 1000s gallons of water. SEER ratings for geo hp are 14-22, I've never seen one that has gone to 22. Most around 14 - 15 seer. Most likely you can buy a 16 seer hp for less than a geo with out the troubles of water lines and the added costs. With duct work a 16 seer system would average $3,000 per ton.


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## perennial (Aug 23, 2004)

We have a waterfurnace E series - closed loop system. We also
have the attachment/stuff to heat our water for free in the watertank when
we use lots of heat or ac. Last summer we shut the electricity off to our
85 gal water heater and let the geo heat it for free. It was hot enough - we need to be shutting it off now because the water actually has been getting too hot when you first put it on.

Our elec rates went very high here and they gov said they couldn't do that so we will be getting big refund next month. I'd have to ask hubby what the rate is. 

I'm still figuring out how much we are paying for heat/ac. But, i can say our
bills were less than my friends even with the crazy increase they tried. Also, we had ductwork issues that the heat people screwed up, so it ran lots more than it should have last winter and summer. They put flexduct in as the main feed from cellar to attic (which then goes to bedrooms upstairs). Well, the dumb guys "smooshed" the flexduct from 10" to about 5" where it went through each floor, so hubby spent all his vacation time this winter putting in hard wall duct everywhere he could and we have noticed a HUGE difference. We had resistance heat running because of that situation which increased our elec. bill (most times, with this unit, it NEVER even comes on).

So, we are still figuring out howmuch it saves us. This month, i paid 101.00 to elec. company, that's with 85 gal water heater and everything powered by elec. AND i have a baking business so my oven (convec) must have been going atleast 50-60 hours for the business). And, because i was crazy busy, i didn't hang much laundry out. And, we are still powering the water heater (i need to shut that off today).


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## SolarGary (Sep 8, 2005)

Hi,
The savings depends on what you pay for electricity vs what you pay for furnace fuel. GHP's have an efficiency (COP) of around 3.5, and good furnaces around 0.95. So, if your electricity costs 3.5 times more per KWH than your heating fuel, you would not save any money.

Electricity at 12 cents/KWH is equivalent to natural gas at $3.60 per therm, or oil at $4.85 per gallon. So, if your actual price per therm is about $1 per therm, then you would not save anything with a heat pump. 

If some form of carbon tax is placed on coal fired electric power plants (as seems likely), then electricity prices will go up -- probably more than other fuels?

This is just my 2 cents, but I think most people would be better off spending the heat pump money on things like better insulation, infiltration sealing, efficient furnace, better windows or storm windows, solar hot water, solar heating, sunspaces,... These all save on fuel costs and cut down your exposure to future fuel price increases. 
We did the insulation, window treatments, infiltration sealing and duct sealing cut our home heat loss about in half -- the total cost (with me providing the labor) was in the $1000 area -- payback was inside of 2 years.
You can use the calculator here:
http://www.builditsolar.com/References/Calculators/InsulUpgrd/InsulUpgrade.htm
to estimate what you might save for better insulation and windows.


Gary


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## Jim S. (Apr 22, 2004)

My BIL has a heating/ac company in northern Illinois. In that climate, the cost of the geothermals he installs is recouped in an average 10 years by an adequately insulated 2,000 SF home. 

There are other benefits to offset the high initial cost. According to him, the coils are a 50-years-plus deal, and most name systems will last 30-plus years as far as pumps and coils, etc. These are all longer service times than given for any comparable conventional system, in some cases double the service life of conventional equipment. The system serves to both heat and cool.

Also, he notes that if you have a pond on your place that is deep enough, you save the cost of the boring and excavation work for the coil. He simply submerges it. The pond must be deeper than maximum ice formation thickness, obviously.

If I were doing it and had the room, but no pond, I'd have one dug. It'll probably cost you about the same to add the water feature to your land as it would to bury the coils.

My BIL installs conventional, geothermal and radiant systems, so he has no biases.


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## perennial (Aug 23, 2004)

Well, we have been able to shut off the breakers to our 85 gallon water heater because the desuperheater has been heating it all for free - because we have hte ac on with all this hot weather.


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## joken (Dec 25, 2005)

High initial cost and high maintenance cost if not properly installed. See the message above about some hacker running flex from the basement to the attic. Flex duct was designed for sound attenuation and is recommended for the final few feet of the round duct run. Flex duct has allowed any idiot to become a HVAC installer and it causes many problems. Flex has a high resistance to airflow, mice like to go inside to stay warm, cats claw holes it. OOPS, got side tracked there. Geothermal is good if installed by experienced professional folks. Your first best investment is reducing the heat loss of your home. Less loss equals smaller equipment and lower operating costs. Go look at some installations before you choose a contractor. Ken


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## MELOC (Sep 26, 2005)

let's say i wanted to hack together a system using either a year round stream flow in place of buried coils or a geothermal well. using a closed loop, how much coil are we talking about? in an open system, how much water flow are we talking about?


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## perennial (Aug 23, 2004)

I can ask hubby, but i believe offhand that we have about 1200 feet of coil burried at either 6 or 8' in a 300' ditch, they went along both sides.

Whatever you do do NOT use flexline for ducts. Hubby spent most of the winter and all his vacation time removing crappy flex pipe and putting in hardwall pipe from our basement to attic. :flame:  I would research and
find ask for references to contact by phone. We were very lucky that hubby is very handy and knows his way around such things. He also had to put in a proper return in the upstairs.


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## perennial (Aug 23, 2004)

I will figure out what our elec. rates are and what it costs us - i do have a baking busines so it makes it tricky to figure out what elec. would be.


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## cathleenc (Aug 16, 2007)

can anyone direct me to a basic into to geo-thermal energy site? would love to learn more and I know nothing right now. thanks, Cathy


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## Wanderer0101 (Jul 18, 2007)

Try http://www.waterfurnace.com/residential.aspx


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## cathleenc (Aug 16, 2007)

Wanderer0101 said:


> Try http://www.waterfurnace.com/residential.aspx


thank you for that link. There's a dealer within 6 miles of our new place so we'll make a call once we get there. thanks!


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## Yeti (Nov 3, 2006)

I too have been looking at Geo units. I have been checking out forclosed homes and found one that didn't make sence. its huge and in great shape. the people just let the bank have it. then I started getting estimates on heating it with LP. its like $4300 a year... OUCH! If I could find a better heat source for it the house would be a great deal for the price.


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