I need the skinny on geothermal heating for a home. What I've been able to take from it so far is that there is great initial expense, but you basically don't pay for heat for the rest of your life. Someone needs to fill me in on the finer points. Like: are there geographic restrictions? who installs this?, etc.

 

A few years ago when I was building a house the local power company was giving away 50 geothermal systems. I got on the list for one of them and I was near the end of of the list. I knew some of the people that got the systems an only one of them was happy with it. I opted out of the program after hearing of some of the people actually switching back to conventional systems. I only knew of one person who was happy with the system. That has been a few years and things are probably better now but I would try to talk to local people who actually have the systems. I'm also in a warmer area than you are. I'm over 1100 southeast of you.

 

You will only save ~$1,000 a year for a typical home. Heat up / cool down times are slow. It's fine if you live in a climate that doesn't require excesive heating or cooling but then again your bills would be cheaper there anyway.

 

Th8is isn't the case at all. You'll pay ~ 60% of your heating bill now.

 

I know nothing about them, but here in Minnesota, underground temps are high 40's to low 50's in the winter depnding on how deep you go. I would guess you could use it for free air conditioning and it could add some heat to outdoor intake air when it gets cold, but I would guess you need to add supplemental heat to get temps above 50.

Some countries, I think Iceland, and some Scandahoovian's, use geothermal heat to a great extent but they have natural hot springs with very high temp water that they can tap into.

My boss has one of those underground concrete homes that are supposed to be the super green choice. Even though the 90 percent of the house is built into the ground and the only exposed winodws face direct sunlight, he still has supplemental propane heat, he just does not use that much propane.

I would think that they are best in areas where it does not get that cold and the ground stays pretty warm. Here, where is gets really cold, and the ground freezes solid down three plus feet, your need for supllemental heat increases, even though geothermal might provide lots of energy savings. But I still don't know what I'm talking about, just bored at work.

 

Thanks for all the responses, everyone. It seem less and less likely that this would be a feasible soultion in my area. I had some misconceptions about it that are more clear now. Parents are buying a new house, and just thought I'd inquire on their behalf.

 

I looked into it a number of years ago, and the geographic limits were not very expansive - far south of MN. The main benefit, I'd think, would be cooling. In Kentucky, it probably saves you tons of money, but in Penn, I don't know. There are resources out there to help you decide, and Pennsylvania would be on the northern border of the workable area, so it might be worth looking into. Paying heat from 50F up to 70 is a deal I'd willingly make, over heating outside air in the winter, if it is feasable. Dunno how much that would cost, considering electric water pumps and and a gas heater, to keep your heating bill from being tied directly to one form of energy.

The main idea to keep in mind is how much energy the system uses. Energy costs fluctuate, and a savings on fuel oil or gas now might mean paying through the nose for electric water heaters in 10-15 years or less. Less energy to heat/cool = less $$ down the road, as energy costs fluctuate. But, only IMHO.