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Owner59 -> RE: Geothermal Heat/cooling 4 homes!~??? (8/25/2007 7:32:23 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Termyn8or
I read a bit about this.
I wouldn't try it with an existing structure, rather I would build a house into the side of a hill. There are two problems with this, one is cost. You have serious excavating to do, might as well call a mining company almost, also, for the roof you'll need prestressed concrete, not cheap. This because you actually backfill over part of your roof and plant grass. The other disadvantage is that you only have windows on one side of the house. You can make it so you can have some windows on the adjacent sides, but one side will have no windows for sure.
But the advantages are abundant. I've heard that some can get by without heating or cooling. Some never use AC, and their furnace runs about 10 hours a year. All this without the geothermal. But then if you get that, it is another step to getting off the grid so to speak.
By far, our biggest costs in this region are heating and cooling. Even if you have gas, furnace blowers and compressors do not run for free. However if you take a look at the rest of your heavy current drains in a common household, there aren't all that many. A gas dryer pulls less than most modern gas furnaces. However the load is signigficant. In a gas stove, the glowbar tht lights the oven has significant pull, but on the stovetop, you don't need much else than the gas once it is lit.
A washing machine pulls more, but not as much as a refrigerator. But the biggest loads in the kitchen are toaster oven type appliances and the ubiquitous microwave oven.
So, now gas prices are rising, and one day I'll go down to Dad's and we will figure out how to figure out when the crossover point comes, when it is advantageous to switch to an electric furnace. Years ago in this region, people with electric furnaces were considered insane. The disparity in the cost was great, and I would've never considered going electric. But now........
As far as geothermal goes, get prepared to do some digging. Lots of digging. That's why it fits well with building into the side of a mountain.
The deeper you go the more energy you can get, but a mere three feet deep you can get a heat exchanger to feed your funace 40F air when it is below freezing outside. Similarly, you can get it to feed your AC air inlet with probably 50F air when it is 80F outside. So even a shallow system has benefits.
If you want to go totally geothermal, that is a bit more expensive. You'll have to amortize the cost over the projected life of the system, and make sure you know the projected life of the system. Make it too big, unless you can sell some extra energy to some neighbors or something, the cost per year might not bear out. If you can make the house energy efficient enough to have a smaller and less costly system installed, that would be an advantage.
Slide the two cents under the door, I'm a bit short this week.
T
Some good points,and a few mis-conceptions too.
These systems retro-fit very nicely into existing structures.
The ground source can be either a water well,a lake bottom,or a "loop" that`s buried in a ditch next to the home.
The home does not need to be half buried,or supper insulated,to take advantage of this kind of system.Those things save energy ,just on their own,but are not necessary to G/T.
As for running costs,that`s a misnomer,b/c you`ll pay that cost,no matter what type of system you have.
All heating systems use electricity to operate them
As for running costs,that`s a misnomer,b/c you`ll pay that cost,no matter what type of system you have.
All heating systems use electricity to operate them.
A small solar panel,produces enough electricity to run a gio-thermal system,so you could have "free"heat and hot water,if you wanted.
Saving energy isn`t "sexy" right now.Seems like anything alternative is poop-poo`d and made fun of,in the main-stream media.That`ll change when people realize how sexy saving money is.
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