Anybody got geothermal?

Was talking to a plumbing contractor last nite and he mentioned how busy he was installing geothermal units. (We're in lower Michigan just outside of Detroit area). Said the payback is about 7 yrs if you convert from natural gas, 3 yrs for propane and 2 yrs for fuel oil. Also said that the best savings are if you install it in new construction. Anybody in the same climate region have it and do you see the savings he talked about? He said that they only go 12' down.

I have a Econar geothermal system in SE MN. It was put in in the 1990s and has been trouble-free (mostly). I don't even think the loop is 12ft down, but it's buried into the wetland (before that was made illegal). They just dug down to the water table (6-8ft?) and laid the loop into the water. The original plan was to use my artesian well instead of a loop, but since it only flows at about 5 gallons a minute, it wasn't enough volume for the application.

I still heat the house with passive wood heat and just use the geothermal for a backup. I have doubts about how much it would save over Natural Gas because when it's 30 below, the unit I have runs non-stop and can't keep up. That's a lot of electricity. Still beats LP or Fuel Oil easily though. If you have Natural Gas available, I don't think geothermal would be a good move economically unless the price of NG goes up.

It sure is nice for the central AC aspect during the summer months.

With all the Natural Gas that has been recently found, the price of Natural Gas is not predicted to go up much at all for at least 10 years, even if they increase use alot. We currently have a surplus of Natural Gas which is good for the consumer, bad for those of us that just happen to sit on property around one of those new wells, as we won"t make much on it....

We put in a geothermal heating system in our workshop 4 years ago, we added a 40x40 foot building to an existing 20x40 that was heated with oil. Heating costs have dropped by half over the old oil system and we"re heating 3 times the space (no cooling). It cost nearly $30,000 by the time we we done (pipe, heat exchanger, labour etc). At a $250 per month saving, and 8 months heating (I"m in Manitoba Canada) it will take 15 years to pay it off, but that doesn"t include any costs for a heating system upgrade to cope with the bigger building if we"d stayed with oil or changed to another form of heat.

forgot to mention, our loops are 6 feet down, just below the frost line.

Last winter in SE Mi I used about 1250 gallon of propane at 1.60 gallon. That's 2000 dollars.
How is a 20,ooo plus geo system going to pay back in 3 years?
With electricity costs, interest and higher maintenance the pay back is closer to never. Mark

Ours was installed Aug of last year(2010). We had propane furnace and propane hot water, both original to house built 22 yrs ago. I have been tracking my bills and just got the last power bill. For 2010, electricity and propane was $3,369.91- Aug 2009 to July 2010. With the new system Aug 2010 - July 2011 $1958.37.
I am located in Ashland, VA just north of Richmond.

I'm building a new house close to Warsaw, Va. and am considering geothermal. What contractor did you use? E-mail: [email protected].
I'm having a time finding someone that knows what they're talking about and is competitive.

I had one installed in 1994 for our new home. It worked pretty well with a few problems but then the manufacturer went our of business and when I had to replace my heat pump I couldn't find anyone to do it that I felt comfortable to know what they doing. Luckily I was able to change over to NG and never looked back.
If you are lucky and it runs forever trouble free you might make out but it will probably break sometime and you will have to have it fixed. $$$

My sister and her husband have a HVAC company in northern Indiana. They sell a lot of geo's. There was a tax break and the electric company also gives you a break. I'm not a fan of heat pumps because of the maintance and short life, 15 years at best on the compressor and leaks in the pipes.

Also, heat pumps are a cold heat source. If the room temp is 70 you are lucky if the heat from the heat pump is 90. A geo is better than an air-air heat pump. Most air-air have to go to electric back up when the temp drops and they ice up.

You won't find me investing in a heat pump any time real soon.

Do your homework and look closely at Geothermal. Talk to your local electrical company. They typically have a lot of information.
We built a new home in 2001 in north central Minnesota with a ground source heat pump as the main heating and cooling source. The system also heats the garage slab to about 35 degrees.
The system has been mostly trouble free and dependable. We do have a propane backup. The local electric utility does have a dual fuel rate for geothermal with a non electrical backup and I have my geothermal pump metered separately to track usage and costs. The dual fuel rate is about half the normal rate. I don't have the exact number at my finger tips. Actual pay back on the system was about 4 years, but I did some of work myself. It is not that complicated. At -30 degrees it does run a lot, but at 300% efficiency, I don't worry about it. The backup is always turned off unless we will be gone for several days.
My total electrical costs for last year Jan 1 to Dec 31 which would include heating, air conditioning and most of my domestic hot water was just under $ 500.00. This does not include the costs to run the blower motor in the air handler. In a typical winter month it consumes $50-70 in electricity.
The key with geothermal is to find a installer that truly knows geothermal. I highly recommend it.

Seen dozens of them go in the last 3 years, anyone building new out in the country here in MN seems to go with them.

--->Paul

As a heating contractor for the past 20 yrs, geo makes sense, not because I sell them, but because of the lower utility bills my customers show me. I will admit R.O.I. (return on investment) is longer on Natural gas than Propane, but if you dont have Nat. available its almost a no brainer. For an online caculator to figure out your savings, go to www.waterfurnace.com, go to the savings caculator icon and input your numbers, its not exact but it will give you a general idea. Just remember, the best piece of equipment will run like crap and be expensive to operate if installed wrong. Make sure your contractor knows what he is doing.

We put a geothermal system into our house about four years ago. We are located in central Michigan. Ours was a retro fit, with a propane backup. We have an open loop system, where the water is drawn from the well, used to heat/cool, then discharged into the adjacent stream. Our system cost $13,000 installed, and I figure we save about $1,500-$2,000/year over just using propane for heat. That make it more like a 7-10 year payback. The best part is the cooling effect you get, the air conditioning is very efficient (we did not have air before) so if you factor in the cost of installing central air, the price looks a little better.

Our system has required almost no maintainence, and if I were building new, I would do it again.

The neighbor put in a geothermal unit and has sky high
electric bills. We put in a hybrid heat system with air to air
and lp. We have had really good luck with ours. Use about
400 gallons or so of lp and our electric bill hovers at about
$90-$120 in winter. WI winters also. Avg. house temp is 66

I live in Madison county Iowa just southwest of Des Moines. Gets cold here in the winter. I built my house about 14 years ago. At that time I went with geo in an all electric home. They made two trenches 7 feet deep in the front yard about 18 inches wide. Put 4 runs of pipe in and ran it out about 300-400 feet. Back filled 2 feet and ran the pipe back to the house at 5 feet deep. Everything joins in a hole in the front yard. One 2 inch pipe into the basement and one out. Has worked great for me. I don't have a cost savings number for you but my only other option here was propane. Check with your electric company and other sources for rebates. I got about a fourth taken off my total due to rebates and other incentives in place at that time. My friend had his total installation paid for by the local co-op. He just has to let them use his setup as a model display up to 4 times a year. It has worked fine for him too.
It makes good sense and seems to work great for us. Look for rebates and other incentives for your installation

We renovated our house a couple of years ago. Tore out the plaster and lath, new insulation and windows here in west MN. We went from using 400 gallons of LP every 3 weeks from Christmas to the 1st of Mar to using about 200 gallons every two weeks. Then we put in a new high efficiency furnace. Now were burn about 150 gallons per month over Jan and Feb. Rest of the cold months are a little less. Don't know if geo would be worth the money. I did talk to one installer who says that to be really effective it has to go in deep.

Rick

I live in nothern ohio,put geo in 3 years ago,already paid for it's self.I use the well water system.My electric bill went up 25 bucks a month,but that's the only heating and cooling expense i have.The people that put it in have over 200 systems installed.

I retrofit geothermal in 95 (replaced a nat gas furnace, did not have central air) I have a closed system with tubes buried in a trench. doubled the size of the house in 2001 (they sized the unit in 1995 based on cooling load and in 2001 I reinsulated, all new windows, and addition is cement filled foam blocks) I'm sure by now it has paid for itself. only expense was a couple years ago the control board in the furnace went bad and the 2 speed compressor would only run on one speed. the installer came back and rebuilt the control board unit using off the shelf parts works great (cost $600 this is the only expense other than filters). Biggest thing I like about it is how quiet it is, no noise outside from air conditioner, very quiet in the house

A natural gas line came down our rural road a
few years ago, so we hooked up, and got rid of
the oil furnace, and electric range,water heater.
Our gas bill is $60 a month, on budget billing,
Actual use in summer is around $12 for stove and
water heater. Our Electric bill averages $80 a
month, but the wife says "We live like moles"
with only lights on in the room we're in. The
home has heavy insulation, and triple pane windows

We put geothermal heating and cooling into our 83 year old SE South Dakota house about three years ago. We used the existing 15 year old propane furnace placing the condenser in the ductwork and using the existing fan for distribution.
We have three loops submerged in three five inch by 180 foot deep holes that circulate the fluid into a common manifold to circulate into the heat exchanger. The total cost was just under $10,000.00.
Our January bill to run the compressor was $51.00 and from May 10 until today for summer AC, it used 610 KWH at 4.8 cents per KWH or $73.20.
Would we do it again? Yes! without even thinking about it.