We started looking at geothermal heating and cooling. Here's what we found out:
Geothermal involves the use of wells on your property, piped into the house and into a heat exchanger. The system uses no gas, it is all electric. For our house we would need 5 or 6 wells. Upfront cost is as much as twice the cost of traditional systems. For our house a conservative number would add $10,000 to install a Geothermal system.
Payback on heating and cooling costs is about 3 to 5 years. For the 5 year estimate that works out to a savings of about $166/month. (These are all estimated numbers.)
There is no outside unit for this setup.
The only down side, apart from the increased up-front cost, is that the heat exchange unit seems to only last about 15 years.
I have set up a poll on the right side of the blog to get people's opinions. Please feel free to comment on this as well.
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4 comments:
Well, not having done any of the research, I would say to do it based on these factors; a) I assume this is going to be your last house, so, if it pays for itself in 5 or even 6 years you should be golden for the other 50 that you live there; b) The money you spend today is not going to be worth the same in 10-20-30 years. Spend it now and it won't cost as much as if you spend it later (on higher heating costs). I had a third point, but lost it in the vase openness that is my brain. Again, I know nothing about this process other than what you wrote, but, sounds good to me if this is the last house you'll ever buy. ~Mark
We have looked at houses with GeoThermal when we were shoppping. We did whole house electric (which was not supposed to be available in this neighborhood), based on cost of gas. If it had been an option here I would have done geothermal. Besides being green, cost of gas and electricity will only continue to rise. Every dime you save now will be 2 dimes later. Oh yes, and the moral superiority over the neighbors.
IMHO.
-Rich
New update. The official quote came in at $13,500 over the cost of a traditional air conditioner/heater setup.
If we add this to the mortgage it turns out to add about $90 to each payment.
We're going to meet with the HVAC guys soon to drill them with 20 questions. I've also got some info from OPPD coming about their heat pump initiatives.
So, if the mortgage goes up $90 a month, but you save $166 (I think that was what you said), then the choice is obcvoius and GeoThermal it is! Altho, I did get a C in Economics. ~ Mark
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