I think that the return on investment time for geothermal is so long that you need to be committed to staying in the house at least that long. That's easy for us now - don't know about anyone else. FYI, our house is 1600 sq. ft. for reference.
On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 11:46 AM, Curt Raymond via Mercedes < mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote: > 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 > > -- OK Don NSA: The only branch of government that actually listens to US citizens! "There are three kinds of men: The ones that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves." WILL ROGERS, *The Manly Wisdom of Will Rogers* 2013 F150, 18 mpg 2012 Passat TDI DSG, 44 mpg 1957 C182A, 12 mpg - but at 150 mph! _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com All posts are the result of individual contributors and as such, those individuals are responsible for the content of the post. The list owner has no control over the content of the messages of each contributor.
