who out there geothermls?

hey, did not know if anyone of you guys have a geothermal out there (i love my coal personally ) my father heats with propane and really needs to get away from it. 1100 sq ft ranch, furnace and hot water and bill was over 500 for about 6 weeks. i personally have a hand fired furnace. mentioned they make stoker furnaces or boilers, but still, he really wants geothermal. and yes, he knows it will not be cheap, he understands that. we had a few questions for you guys:

1.how much did you pay?

2.overall experience (heat/cool good, parts hold up, ect)

3.how long before you start seeing savings/ payback time?

4.would you do it again

thank you for reading, and as always, stay warm

I only know 1 person who has a geothermal system, here in NW NJ. It's great in the summer for AC. In the winter the electric heating elements operate to provide enough heat. He installed a fancy thermostat for day time set-back when no one is home. It's set to start raising the temperature 2 degrees per hour mid afternoon to avoid using the elements. I've lost touch with him but I know compressors don't last due to the heavy use. Last time I was there in the winter it was cold in the house. You are also at the mercy of the power company and the electric meter.

Not something I would want to have.

Wood'nCoal wrote:It's great in the summer for AC. In the winter the electric heating elements operate to provide enough heat.

I saw a show or read it somewhere that this is the case if your this far north. Said it works very well for cooling but not all that great for heating unless your a bit further south. It showed a map of the approx. cutoff area where they don't work as well for heat any further north of the line. I don't remember the cutoff line though.

Jeff

My neighbor's had one done last summer. 6-500' wells, huge electric commitment, lots of 'moving parts', pumps, electric valving, compressors, controls. HVAC on a 9600 sq ft building/w conference center. 38 K invested, payback suppose to be within 14 years. Sounds like simple technology, however lots of equipment to keep an eye on. There is a gassification boiler running there right now heating the place. Each of us must pick our poison.
Another local guy spent 350K on a solar panel array................and has 6 120 gallon propane fired water heaters to take over when solar gain isn't enough to maintain building temps. I'm thinking of having an elastic band installed so that my chin won't hit the pavement so hard when I see these "Latest and greatest engineering feats." (That is 350K not 35L. You read it correctly.)
I have never seen so many automated Grundfos valves and pumps in one spot. The computer control is sci-fi.......

That is a lot of 24 ton trailers of anthracite...................

I don't have a system, but know two who do. One has the grid in the soil and the other has one well some 700'. The well unit is in granitic gneiss. 1.2 gpm and was fracked to increase the static level. Water went much higher in the well but I don't know how high. Same issues as stated here already.

Its takes ENERGY to make heat .
You can pay the oilman,the coal man ,propane man/gas man,wood chopper or the electric man.
If you live in the North Country your going to pay for heat one way or another .

Just 3 miles from me is the Nyle company. They make the most efficient air to air heat exchangers on Earth, bar none. Using the Nyle system, drilling wells, digging ditches, running underground pipes is a thing of the past. Still expensive, still uses electricity, but if you're about to go geothermal you'd be wise to include Nyle in your research.


http://www.nyletherm.com/index_flash.htm

"The new air-to-air heat pump is optimized for heating, and tests have shown a coefficient of performance (COP) of 2 at zero degrees Fahrenheit (F) and 2.4 at 10 degrees F. Conventional air-to-air heat pumps would have long since switched to resistance heating at those outside temperatures"

these are all great. he is looking for the water type geo system, well water. should he use his existing well or just drill a new one? he has never ran out of water on that well, its been a good well. anything good with the water type systems?

mudman wrote:these are all great. he is looking for the water type geo system, well water. should he use his existing well or just drill a new one? he has never ran out of water on that well, its been a good well. anything good with the water type systems?

The family that has the well system siphons heat of a separate well. I think it's required here. Not surprised either.

mudman wrote:these are all great. he is looking for the water type geo system, well water. should he use his existing well or just drill a new one? he has never ran out of water on that well, its been a good well. anything good with the water type systems?

He needs separate wells from his water source. The water never leaves the well in geothermal, it is just a transfer medium between the ground and the plumbed loop in the well to the homes heating/cooling equipment. These loops contain a special fluid generally.
I wouldn't go with it north of the Mason-Dixon line, it doesn't have any punch below 40*.

The latest ones using wells don't even use the water in the well. They drill the well, run a pipe down it & back up, then fill the well with grout (concrete). The only reason for the well it to exchange heat from the water in the pipe.

Experience is limited here on geo but I did talk to a couple geo guys for one company at the Hartford CT homeshow who seemed honest, they said that since I had hydronic baseboard heat the geo would have a hard time getting the water hot enough to be an effective heat transfer medium. They recommended geo only with hot air homes since the heat transfer to air is easier.

Properly designed ground source heat pump in new construction works well.
Using the heat pump to upgrade a low temp heat source works also.
Solar at low working temps is effective even up north.
Put a low temp solar install with a heat pump is a good match.

or he could just buy a used oil (not a "used oil") furnace from craigslist for around $400.00. i'm not sure what he's paying for propane, but wherever he is oil is consistanly 2/3 to 1/2 the cost per btu. why anyone would heat w/ propane is beyond me, in many places it's more $$ than electric, but people still use it.

geothermal is not the answer, the initial investment is too expensive. invest the thousands of $$ you would have spent on geothermal into the market right now, and in the time he would have "payed for" his geo system, he could probably pay for propane for the rest of his life with the profit from the stocks.