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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