I'm quite interested in this too, our house is only 900SF and I estimate we'll 
need a new furnace in the next 4-5 years. I like the idea of the efficiency of 
geothermal.
I was looking at the receipts today and it looks like we burn about 630 gallons 
of oil a year which came down a couple years ago when I 1/3 insulated the 
attic. When I get that finished I suspect we could get down to the 500 gallon 
range. That amount of oil also heats all our hot water.When my parents got a 
new oil furnace and went to a hot water tank (still heated by the furnace) 
their oil usage went down about 1/4 and I'm hoping ours could also. I've also 
been debating solar hot water which should cut our summertime oil usage to 
basically nothing, right now we fill up in April and that 210 gallons lasts 
until November.
So I'm torn I can probably do a new 85% oil furnace for $5000-$6000, our 
current furnace is only 70-75% efficient so the efficiency gain alone will cut 
our oil use. Solar hot water will probably double the cost.
I guess I need to talk to a local geothermal guy and see what it would cost for 
our house size. AFAIK it would be pretty easy to drill deep in our area, we 
have soft soil and a relatively high water table for good heat transfer.
-Curt
      From: Dan Penoff via Mercedes <mercedes@okiebenz.com>
 To: Mercedes Discussion List <mercedes@okiebenz.com> 
 Sent: Friday, January 23, 2015 7:20 AM
 Subject: Re: [MBZ] Burnin' daylight
   
Scott,

Just as a point of reference, our 4,000 SF house in Indianapolis would have 
cost around $18,000 in 2008 to do a full geothermal system.  With all the 
government spiffs I think our actual out of pocket was estimated at around 
$11,000.

Look closely at both the tax breaks both from Federal and state government. I 
know that in Indiana at the time you got a state property tax exemption as long 
as you lived in the house. Not a big spiff but a nice one.

Our estimated monthly costs were supposed to be around $100 for either cooling 
or heating.  This would have been significantly lower that what we were paying 
using a forced air furnace and 4.5 ton AC unit.

The only reason we didn't do it was due to the wife getting laid off (twice!) 
Too precarious of a financial situation to invest the funds at the time. 
Otherwise we would have been all over it.

I would add that we had a very competent HVAC guy who had done many of these 
systems and even had one in his own house.

Dan

Sent from my iPad

> On Jan 22, 2015, at 5:32 PM, Scott Ritchey via Mercedes 
> <mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote:
> 
> Hey Don,  
> 
> Could you tell us more about your geothermal setup?  Is it a closed loop
> system?  How big was the hole(s) (horizontal or vertical tubes)?  How long
> did the install take?  What is your climate?  What longevity do you expect
> from the system?  Would you do it again?  There is a lot of information on
> these systems but most of it comes from suppliers, not users.
> 
> I have air-source heat pumps but supplement on cold nights with a propane
> direct-vent fireplace.  Propane prices just peaked here at $3.70 (so of
> course they came and topped up my 500 gal tank!) but price is significantly
> lower now.  I like the ground-source idea but not sure I'll live here long
> enough for it to pay off.  Thanks.
> 
> Scott
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Mercedes [mailto:mercedes-boun...@okiebenz.com] On Behalf Of OK
>> Don via Mercedes
>> Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2015 3:34 PM
>> To: Andrew Strasfogel; Mercedes Discussion List
>> Subject: Re: [MBZ] Burnin' daylight
>> 
>> That's what we found the first winter here, so we replaced the propane
> heat
>> with a geothermal heat pump, and the propane water heater with an electric
>> one that gets excess heat form the heat pump. Our total energy bill was
> one
>> half of that years bill the next year. Even so, it will take 12-13 years
> to break
>> even with the geothermal installation.
> 
> 
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