Anyone have this in your home? Experiences? We're considering a new home that has it as part of its build package.
Geothermal Heating/Cooling
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I looked into doing in in my old house. Very cool setup for my neck of the woods, but it can be spendy. If it's part of the build package, I would do it if the cost isn't much more than a standard system.
What's the secondary source of heat? (on the heat pump, not in the house) A heat pump in VT climate will need some sort of reheat coil to supplement the heat function of the heat pump compressor, unless the house is so tight and well insulated that the heat pump can function at the lowest design temp.
If the secondary source is an electric resistance coil, could be costly to operate, but not sure without heat loss calcs and a bunch of other info. If the secondary source of heat is nat gas burner, this could be a nice setup for this climate. I'm curious of the SQ FT of the house and BTU rating of the heating side of the heat pump. More info needed.
If the secondary source is an electric resistance coil, could be costly to operate, but not sure without heat loss calcs and a bunch of other info. If the secondary source of heat is nat gas burner, this could be a nice setup for this climate. I'm curious of the SQ FT of the house and BTU rating of the heating side of the heat pump. More info needed.
I think Damo has one in his place in Morzine?
He seemed pretty stoked with it when I was there.
He seemed pretty stoked with it when I was there.
It is a great Idea but make sure you do the math on the investment vs pay off. I have work in quite a few houses that have had it installed over the last few years. It does work well but one that comes to mind was a LEED certified house right on the coast. The home owner was so proud of her Geothermal system. She paid over 50k to get it installed and her monthly electric bill in the winter was over 1k a month to run the pumps. She could care less because its green and she was off oil but I know that you can heat your house with just electric heat for way less than that a month. FWIW.
What if you can do a lot of the work yourself. There has to be ways of making it cheaper than 50K?
The price reflects how much rock/ledge you have to drill thru. This house was on the ocean and there was a lot of drilling. I have seen other systems that were closer to the 30k range installed.
This is why I was asking what the secondary heat source was. The main compressor in the heat pumps was not causing the extremely high electric bills in the case you mentioned, the secondary heat was, (electric reheat coil).
Heat Pumps work really well in moderate climates (say mid atlantic states, or north west states etc) that require HVAC equipment to serve both a heating and cooling season, but in colder winter climates like northern New England, a heat pump is not the most efficient choice (residential), because it will typically require a secondary heat coil/source to attain design BTU output requirements.
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Here we have the WNC Greenbuilding Council and they are phenomenal. They can break down all the costs to savings ratios. We have a customer who uses geothermal heating that is supplemented by solar hot water tubes on the roof. It all ties into the hot water heating system and radiant heat flooring. Crazy efficient.