Geothermal Heatpump

[Qweaver]

We have decided to install a geothermal heatpump.   I was going to dig my own trenches but we have a certified geothermal well driller that comes highly recommended and he will do our wells and bring the lines into the house for $4000.  We are still getting quotes and have not decided on the brand and installer yet.  My original plan was to do the entire job myself but we are getting some pretty good quotes and I have plenty of other jobs to keep me busy so I'm going to pay for this one I think.  The 30% tax rebate makes the cost of the system look a lot better.
I'd like to hear testimonials from other geothermal owners.  Chosing which brand to use is hard.  We have talked to a few local owners that are well satisfied with some older systems and the newer ones are said to be even better.
Quinton

[scsmith42]

Hopefully Bruce (Submarinesailor) will chime in - he knows more about this topic than anybody that I know...

[Kansas]

I have gone geothermal on the house I am building. I'm using the pond I put in in front of the house for the coils-laid them at the bottom and covered with gravel. I discovered two more cost incentives I didn't know about when I started this. The local REA gives a rebate check for 250.00 for each ton of the unit. Also, they lowered the electrical rates from about 12 cents a kilowatt hour down to 9. You might check with your electric company to see if they offer this, because the unit has to meet certain criteria.

[submarinesailor]

Quinton,
The units I have installed in a pass life was Waterfurnace, the link below has a good conversion about Trane vs. Waterfurnace.   As for going to geothermal, I KNOW that it is a very good idea on your part. 

Back in early 2000 when I was still in the Pentagon Energy Office, I attended an engineering meeting on the new Remote Delivery Facility (so no bombs in the building).  The size of the building is about 234,000 sf.  We, the people in the Energy Office, tried like #ell to get the heating and cooling for this build to be Geo.  But the Corps of Engineers flat out stated that it was too big to do geo.  I left the Pentagon a short time later and after being here for a few months, I ran across and article in a trade rag that talked about heating and cooling a 770,000 sf medical facility with geo for a 38% of the national average for medical facilities.  38% of the national average!!! I could hardly believe it, so I made a call to Jack over that the geo associate.  And it's true.  The medical facility is somewhere up around Rock Island, Iowa.

If you go with the vertical wells, PLEASE make sure the installer uses the proper elbows on the lower ends.  Back in the early days of geo, the biggest problem was installers who used cheap elbows and they would blow out due to the weight of the fluid.  The problem was solved by redesigning the whole lower price, making it one complete unit with 2-90 degree elbows built right into the unit.

If you go with the trench method, the main thing is to make sure they/you compact the soil around the coils completely.  If you don't, you can get air around the coils causing a lost in efficiency.

I would look at these 3 companies; ClimateMaster, Trane and Waterfurnace.

Here is the link:  http://www.thathomesite.com/forums/load/energy/msg060953234972.html?20

Hope this helped you out some.

Bruce

[submarinesailor]

Quinton,

You can also get some info from the 2 site listed below.

Bruce

http://www.geoexchange.org/

http://www.greenbuildingtalk.com/Forums/tabid/53/view/topics/forumid/13/Default.aspx

[pineywoods]

Here's a link to a real good source for all things geothermal. www.hydro-temp.com.
Small company locater in Pocohuntas Arkansas. Sharp bunch of folks.

[iffy]

We put in 4 dry wells and a 4 ton water furnace unit. Just living in the basement for now, so just running it on low speed. So far so good, we really like it. I also used the "super deheater" option which allows you to use the excess heat going back to the earth to heat a preheat tank for our water heater. We are on REA here, so we got our lifetime water heater at half price and we got back $1200 because we put in geothermal.

[Flatheadyoungin]

great thread, we've decided to go with geothermal for our new house in a few years, we just don't know how to size it or what brand to go with.....i really WANT to do it myself.....all but drill the holes.....i don't think i want the coils, they would use too much of my land.......the only benefit, is i have a dozer and a hoe, so that would save me quite a chunk.....so, i guess i'm open to anything....

thanks to all for the info.

[Shotgun]

Howdy Flat,

Here's the text of a post I made a number of years ago about my experience with geothermal heat. Thought you might be interested.

Re: Groundwater Heat Pumps

We built a new house in 1990 in Traverse City, MI, and natural gas was about $50,000 away from the house at the time. Decided to go with a groundwater heat pump.  Took water from a well, removed a little heat from it and returned it to the ground via a 100' perforated open ended pipe.  We live on a sand hill so no problem getting rid of the water. It never did come out the far end. We got a special power rate for having an all-electric home, and back then there was still a tax incentive for using the geothermal unit.  Used the unit for 10 years and it worked well from a heating standpoint. It was great from an efficiency standpoint. It lacked a little from a maintenance standpoint though. Had two 80 gal. water tanks to reduce pump cycling.  It also heated the domestic hot water.

House is 2,400 sq. ft.  Total electric cost was about $1200/year, which I thought was fantastic.   During the summer the unit (reversed) was a very nice air conditioner. I was more than happy with that as our total utility bill. We also have an irrigation system that comes from the same well.

It's a pretty complex system and relies on the fact that it all works and continues working. Had to have it maintained about twice a year. Even with routine maintenance, it needed a little special tuning at times. Thus the downfall. It involves a pump in the well, a condensor, circulation pumps and selenoids to control the valves, and a take away pump to move the water to the dispersal line. When everything works properly, fine.  When it doesn't, you have a problem. It had a supplemental electric heat, that seldom was used. If you turned the temp down, it didn't come up again real fast.  Instructions were to set it and leave it. I ahd to have it serviced a couple of times a year.  Each trip was a couple hundred to $500 or so.  It never had a problem at 9:00a.m. on a Monday morning.  It always happened between 3:00 & 5:00 a.m., and always on a Saturday or Sunday morning.  Well you get the picture.

Life changed over 10 years. Bottom line, I didn't feel that I could depend on it while we were in FL for the winter.    During that time the natural gas became available with someone else's $50,000 (A new subdivision). In 1999 I took it out and replaced it with a high effeciency gas furnace with an igniter.  Had to install an air-conditioner too--spoiled by that time, even in Traverse City.

All in all, we paid for the increased original cost. Not sure I'd do it again, given the availability of natural gas. It was interesting though, and I proved it worked in this far north.  There are a number of them around, and they're still installing them.  I feel much more comfortable with the dependability of natural gas when not here for an extended period, though.

This was my experience.  Just wanted to pass it on.

Norm

[Lud]

We've got gas here on the farm but the well head or the logic circuit would occaisionally freeze up so I put the geo in mostly as a heatsource backup in 2002.  If the gas quit coming , the Geo would kick on.

Then having the cool thru the summers really sharpened my appreciation.  You could hardly make the dogs go outside.  The loop is so far down ,  the farmer only skipped the one season to let it settle.

Earlier auto controls failed but manual modes working fine.  As long as you plan staying someplace the payback is simple and the comfort is good .  We love our Geo,  tho free gas heat makes it easy.  We have no electric coil due to the  free gas.

Now the wife is talking putting up a wind turbine !

[Qweaver]

I now have a couple bids.  The best one is $12,750 for a 2 ton Climate Master with all metal insulated ducting plus $4000 to drill two 200' wells and bring the tubing into the house.  Probably @$17,000 by the time all is said and done.  With the 30% tax rebate the final cost will be $11900.  I can buy the equipment myself, dig my own ditches and do my own install for less than half of that price. 
Building the ducting is a major problem for me even though it is a very simple layout.  I just don't have the shears, brakes and rolls that I'd need to do do the job out of metal.  I'd have to use duct board and I really don't like the idea of that. 
This seems like a lot of money to spend on a system that will probably not get a lot of use at least until we tire of the pellet stove.  Our new Breakwell pellet stove is working great by the way.  Much easier on pellets than the 6 year olf Whitfield and flawless in operation. 
I will probably decide to go ahead with the Climate Master but I think there is an awful lot of profit built into this price.  If I had less work to do, I'd certainly do it myself.
Quinton

[jimgerken]

"an awefull lot of profit built in"
Yea, that's an understatement.  These things are not much more complicated than a packaged unit (think hotel room heating and cooling).  But priced about twice what they are worth.

[Traditional Toolworks]

I now have a couple bids.  The best one is $12,750 for a 2 ton Climate Master with all metal insulated ducting plus $4000 to drill two 200' wells and bring the tubing into the house.  Probably @$17,000 by the time all is said and done.  With the 30% tax rebate the final cost will be $11900.  I can buy the equipment myself, dig my own ditches and do my own install for less than half of that price. 

Quinton,

Curious how this ended, and not sure but you might have the geo installed now.

I've been doing research myself on geothermal, and have an opportunity to use a closed loop in a lake, my concern is that the lake is about 600'-700' (at 50% slope most of the way) from the building pad. I was at a blacksmithing conference, of all places and met a professor from Berkeley who had researched geo quite extensively, and he thought I could use a small pump and that it wouldn't be a problem. I'm still researching...

I have property at a lake where a volcano feeds into the lake, which forms a natural hot spring. Although the lake is big, the next bay over is where it enters the lake, so I figure the water should be fairly warm.

Other than the one professor I spoke with at the conference, I am not aware of anyone around the lake who uses geothermal, most of the homes have been built years ago, I happen to have one of the undeveloped pieces of property. I was hoping I could get my costs down a lot lower than the numbers Norm mentioned ($2400/year), that doesn't seem as good as I have heard from modern pumps. I'm trying to understand what the total cost would be for install, and how much additional it would be to get the water to the building pad, using a pump. I own Riparian Rights to the use of the water, which could turn out to be an incredible resource for energy.

If you have your geo installed now and are using it, would love to hear what type of numbers your getting on your bills.

EDIT: Quinton, I see you started another thread...I should have just replied there...oops...