quote:

ORIGINAL: pahunkboy

what the sites havent said- is if this system is doable on a city lot- with a house pre-existing.

quote:

ORIGINAL: soultoshare

pahunkboy,

we literally have sunshine 366 days of the year!  I'm going to build a green house.....using straw bales.  They use them a lot in many counties in Arizona, California, Oregon, pretty much the whole west coast.  Most states even offer incentives, rebates and tax credits for the use a of solar power system.  One local TV building show indicated a $9500 rebate from the power companies, and another $1500 from another source....I can't remember, but you can cut the cost of a $20,000 system in half...plus, you can sell the unused electricty back to the power cos......if you're looking for inexpensive, OK, CHEAP, green building ideas, check out straw bale construction....believe it or not, they are actually houses that you can do most of the labor on yourself, or if you want to sponsor a workshop, others will come and help you build it! 

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

quote:

ORIGINAL: Owner59

    I`m planning a installing a G/T system,in my home.
I have seen them(twice)in costumer`s homes,and was impressed.I didn`t think the home would be warmed,but it was ,and it was virtually free.

There is an initial installation cost to bare,but as energy prices climb,that expense gets payed back quicker and quicker.
The thought of being free of oil or gas,is worth it right there.

The system uses water pumped(circulated) deep underground or along a lake bottom.The system extracts heat from the ground(which is a constant 55degrees) and releases it, to create heated air in your home.
In summer,the system is "reversed",and extracts heat *from* your home,and releases it under ground.Thus cooling the air of your HVAC system.


Hard to comprehend,but it works.Get`s oil company executives pissed off,which is an added bonus.