[Olaf]

I have also been contemplating how to heat the house my wife and I are planning to start building next spring.

We have already decided on incorporating passive solar and plan to have a stand alone internal wood stove which could be used for back-up heating and emergency food prep, etc. I am concerned about how much the passive solar will help, as I have heard people say it works great, and others tell me it doesn't help much at all.

From there we start getting to the dilema. There will only be so much money to put into the heating system so first and foremost is to inuslate the hell out of the place. Best way to heat is to need as little as possible. I've been looking into sprayed in closed and open cell insulation. This seems like a good bet as it expands to fill open spaces, does not settle, and for all practical purposes, won't break down.

From there we are tossing around the idea of geothermal heat pump v. external efficient wood boiler. Trying to avoid oil, coal, or gas if possible.

The geothermal heat pump will seemingly cost more and still require fair inputs of electricty to function. For the cost, I think it might be overkill and money that could be better spent elsewhere.

The wood boiler seems like a good idea and I believe would be cheaper. We have 50 acres of land with a fair portion of it wooded, so we can provide our own firewood, but this could become more difficult as we get older.

Any additional advice, experiences or emotional outbursts welcome.

Olafr

[frankthetank]

Screw the wood boiler, i'd put in as much insulation in the walls as possible. Try to get as much sunlight in during the winter months and put in a nice woodstove in a central area. If you have the acreage, i'd burn 100% and save your money on a GOOD chainsaw, axes, maybe a splitter...

Geothermal has lots of pluses, but the cost is just too much for me. Plus it can only provide so much heat. Be better off just building a smaller house.

[dinopello]

Geothermal has become pretty popular in my neighborhood. Now, my next door neighbor has just started drilling. Our lots are all small at about 6000 sq ft so it's pretty much right there over the fence (they had to remove a part of my fence to get the rig in the backyard). I've been curious at how well it works at cooling in our hot, humid summers. Now, I'll get to find out. It's pretty messy with water pooling everywhere. Here's the actual rig they are using

[dinopello]

where do you live? you are not confusing geothermal with ground-source heat pump. That latter is beginning to catch on for winter heating and summer cooling. It doesn't make sense here on the coast where there is little need for cooling.

It is, I believe, a closed loop heat pump. They call it geothermal heating and cooling around here. They usually have a backup heat system based on electric or NatGas. My neighbor is not planning a backup for cooling so I'm wondering how she will like it. It gets so humid here (mid-atlantic coast). It seem like it might not remove water from the air as efficiently.

[Tanada]

where do you live? you are not confusing geothermal with ground-source heat pump. That latter is beginning to catch on for winter heating and summer cooling. It doesn't make sense here on the coast where there is little need for cooling.

It is, I believe, a closed loop heat pump. They call it geothermal heating and cooling around here. They usually have a backup heat system based on electric or NatGas. My neighbor is not planning a backup for cooling so I'm wondering how she will like it. It gets so humid here (mid-atlantic coast). It seem like it might not remove water from the air as efficiently.

Ground source heat pumps are just as efficient as any other A/C unit at dehumidifying moist air, I looked into them a lot but where I was living at the time I needed a new furnace they were a no based on ambiguity of the zoning laws and small lot sizes. The main difference is they reject heat into the soil itself instead of into the air like a window or standard whole house unit does.

[Graeme]

Geothermal Heat Pumps: The Next Generation

The most efficient way to heat and cool a building just got more efficient.

Climatemaster, a division of LSB Industries (NYSE:LXU), recently announced that their new Trilogy 40 geothermal heat pump (GHP) had been certified by the Air Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) to exceed 40 Energy Efficiency Ratio (EER) under ground loop conditions.

EER is the ratio of effective cooling (heat removed) to the energy used, at maximal load, and is the standard measure of cooling effectiveness for geothermal heat pumps. A quick perusal of the list of Energy Star qualified GHPs shows just how big a leap this is: the highest EER rating currently available is 30, and many Energy Star qualified heat pumps have EERs as low as 17. So the Trilogy 40 is a third again as efficient for cooling as the most efficient commercially available GHP, and more than twice as efficient as some Energy Star qualified GHPs.

Scott Lankhorst, President of Synergy Systems, a GHP installer in Kingston, NY, called the jump in efficiency “pretty amazing… 30 EER has been the max for quite a while now.” Lankhorst says that Climatemaster hopes to have the Trilogy 40 in full production by the end of the year.

forbes

[Rod_Cloutier]

I rent; I don't own 'my' house.

How would I convince my landlord to change the house from being natural gas heated to geothermal?

One can't forget that millions of people all over the world, like myself, live in rental situations. I can't just go and insulate the house, tear down walls, or change the heating system; that can only be done by the external third party property owner. This really limits options of the adoption of new technologies to save energy.

The local housing market is a bubble, houses the size of the one I currently rent, cost $150,000-$350,000 to buy. I couldn't even afford the 10% downpayment, little lone ever pay off such a huge loan with interest. Unless the price of housing falls down to what working class people like myself can afford, renting is the only possiblity.

[Graeme]

Ground source geothermal pumps are expensive. I found the following information for New Hampshire.

Finding heat in Granite

Michael Demers, head of the Energy Efficiency Services department at Public Service of New Hampshire, provides support to those installing geothermal systems.

“Because of the volatility of fossil fuel prices, customers are becoming more aware of what it costs to operate a home or business on top of the initial purchase price,” he said.

Geothermal energy comes from the core temperature of the earth, which is a solar collector and generates natural heat.
The water within the earth, Demers said, whether in New England or Louisiana, is at a constant temperature of 55 degrees — but the depth at which the water can be found at that temperature varies by location.

A geothermal heating and cooling system uses that ground water via a drilled well. The two most popular types of geothermal systems are open- and closed-loop systems. An open-loop system takes water from domestic water wells, circulates it through a heat pump and puts the water back into the same well.
A closed-loop system circulates a heat exchange fluid, such as anti-freeze, through pipe that’s buried below the frost line.

A third, a direct exchange geothermal system, uses copper loops to exchange heat with the earth, eliminating the water circulating loop and intermediate heat exchanger. These systems are best suited to sites with low water production from wells.


The cost savings of operating a geothermal heating/cooling system are significant, reducing utility bills by 30 to 70 percent, according to Public Service of New Hampshire.

Although electric rates fluctuate and tend to increase over time, Demers said they are not subject to the same market volatility and huge price spikes as fossil fuels.

Installation costs for a geothermal system are between $20,000 and $25,000 — around double the cost of a conventional heating, cooling and hot water system.
The initial sticker shock can be offset, but customers have to be forward-thinking. The payback for a system can range from two to 10 years, while the lifetime of a system can be 18 to 23 years, almost double that of a conventional system.

There are additional incentives to installing a geothermal system. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, (the Stimulus Bill of 2009), offers a one-time tax credit of 30 percent of the total investment for geothermal heat pump installations — the credit is 10 percent for commercial installations. However, that credit expires at the end of this year.

PSNH offers a rebate up to $4,500 to customers for new construction of Energy Star-certified homes who install geothermal systems. A certified home meets energy-efficiency requirements set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

sentinelsource

[PrestonSturges]

I've often wondered about our place - we are less than a half mile from a lake, and I bet we'd hit ground water at 50 feet. Hand dug wells used to be common in this area. As someone said about using a pond - well they might be able to tap groundwater at a shallow depth.

[Graeme]

I'll continue to stick with the theme of heat pumps in this thread. This article from New Scientist requires free registration to read it though.

Smart heat nets fire the next energy revolution

The good news is that several cities have found a way to hunt down their waste heat in some unexpected places. These cities are building systems that deliver heat in much the same way that networks handle electricity and water. Could they point the way to the next energy revolution?

Waste heat is an enormous problem. A report in 2008 by the US Department of Energy found that the energy lost as heat each year by US industry is equal to the annual energy use of 5 million Americans. Power generation is a major culprit; the heat lost from that sector alone dwarfs the total energy use of Japan. The situation in other industrialised countries isn't much better.

The report also estimated that given the right technologies, we could reclaim nearly half of that energy, but that's easier said than done. "We often talk about the quantity of waste heat," says David MacKay, chief scientific adviser to the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change, "but not the quality." Most of what we think of as "waste heat" isn't actually all that hot; about 60 per cent is below 230 °C While that may sound pretty hot, it is too cold to turn a turbine to generate electricity.


To harvest that warmth, German companies Züblin and Rehau, together with Arup, have designed a liner for tunnel segments that functions like the buried coils in ground source heat pumps, using the heat generated by engines and braking along with that from the surrounding ground to warm the refrigerant, again by compression. As this transfers the excess energy from the tunnel to the refrigerant, the process also causes the tunnel to cool.

The lining – dubbed Energietübbing – was placed into a 54-metre-long stretch of a new high-speed rail tunnel in Jenbach, Austria, to supply the municipal building above with enough heat to completely replace the existing boiler. It is still being optimised, but in its first successful winter it coped with outside temperatures as low as -15 °C.

London commuters could soon benefit as well. Crossrail, a railway being constructed under the city, is considering Energietübbing for several segments of the new tunnel, where it too would both cool the tunnel and provide the resulting heat to buildings above.

Subway tunnels are far from the only source of urban waste heat. Consider the shower you took this morning, or the clothes you washed at the weekend. The heat that dribbled down US drains last year siphoned away 350 billion kilowatt-hours last year – comparable to the total electricity produced by US hydropower. That energy dispersed into sewers which stew at a lukewarm 15 °C.

Projects all over the world are under way to use heat pumps to grab back some of that wastewater heat. One of the first cities to use their tepid sewage for large-scale heating was Oslo in Norway. There, much larger versions of the coils in a ground source heat pump are submerged in flowing raw sewage. From the sludge flowing through the sewer, the plant extracts 3 to 5 °C, which it then concentrates by compression to a vastly hotter 90 °C. And just like that, tepid sewage provides heat and hot water through a network of pipes for 13,000 apartments.

newscientist

[EdwinSm]

Six years ago I went a high-tech & low-tech route in my planning for the effects of peak oil. The low-tech was installing a wood burning stove in the kitchen. The high tech was to install a ground heat-exchange system. I have been very happy with both.

However, as I look around most of the ground heat exchange systems in our neighbourhood have been installed by businesses (eg. the hotel-conference centre, the health-centre, the parish church hall and bank complex, a block of short-term rental accomodation), locally I have only seen the drilling equipment at one other private house. My guess is that the upfront costs are so high and people with their own finances have a shorter term horizon than even most businesses!

So I was totally blown away when recently the residential facilities that I work for started to plan for replacing their old oil boilers with ground heat exchange, and even more blown away when my boss told me he was planning a system for his own home.

In the worldwide setting this will not save much - the total savings for the firm would be about 53 000 l of heating oil a year saved (in barrel terms 330 barrels - but I have no idea of the equivalent in crude oil), with the first phase covering half that amount. But there are small signs of transition to a lower energy base*, that gives me hope that the change might not be as painful as it might have been.


* oil is saved, and in its place about 1/3 of the equvilant energy comes from electricity and the rest for 'indirect solar' in the form of ground heat from the immediate area of the buildings where the heat is used.

[Graeme]

More on geothermal heat pumps (mods please change thread title):

Geothermal Heating Systems

How Geothermal Systems Work
To harness the heat stored in the earth, a geothermal system captures and converts that heat for use in the home. System components include a loop of pipe, a liquid to absorb and transfer heat, and a heat-pump unit to process the heat for use. To capture heat, liquid circulates through a pipe buried in the ground. As it circulates, it absorbs the earth's stored heat, which remains constant at 50 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit 10 feet below ground level.

The heated liquid enters a heat pump unit. In this unit, the heat from the piped liquid is absorbed by a liquid refrigerant sealed in the unit. That refrigerant evaporates and is compressed, which raises its temperature to about 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Now a gas, the refrigerant passes through a heat exchanger where the heat is removed and pumped into the house. With the heat removed, the refrigerant cools. It returns to its liquid state and continues to circulate, continually absorbing and using the heat transferred from the earth through the piped liquid.

Costs and Payback

Initial installation and equipment costs for geothermal heat pumps vary with the maturity of the local market, type and size of the system, and the site. There is no doubt that the system will cost more at the start than a conventional fossil-fuel furnace.

If a home does not have ductwork, a homeowner may need to add that into the cost. However, a small home that uses baseboard heat may be able to forego duct installation.

Rough estimates put a geothermal ground-source system at $1,000 to $2,500 per ton of capacity. A ton of capacity, according to the Department of Energy's Federal Energy Management Program, translates to 12,000 Btu per hour. In heating climates, it is estimated that a ton of capacity is needed for every 550 square feet.

The cost appeal of geothermal heat is in the operating payback. The system delivers more energy per unit consumed than conventional systems, up to 400 percent efficiency compared with 75 to 90 percent efficiency for fossil-fuel furnaces.

bobvila

[cephalotus]

do you use collectors located near the surface or drillings down to around 100-150m? The first one truly uses solar heat from each summer, the latter uses heat transfer from surrounding ground mostly through "heat" flow in ground water (so not everyone in the neighbourhood is able to build the same).

We had more success with the drillings in Germany, because for the collectors you need huge areas to avoid permafrost conditions in the soil and it also often affects plant growth. For drilling you need a good underground with a reasonable amount of heat transfer, in that case it is cheaper, needs little space on the surface, does not affect plants nearby.

If you use high pressure condensing systems like propane or CO2 in the probes (correct word?), you don't even need electricity for pumping fluids through those probes.

[dinopello]

Ground sourced heat pumps are all the rage in my neighborhood. Three neighbors on my street put them in in the last 5 years (and it's a short street). We have pretty small lots (6000 sq ft) so they are the deep kind.

[Graeme]

Mods, Please put this thread in to this thread and change title.

[Graeme]

CO State Capitol Is First To Boast Geothermal Heating & Cooling

It’s been a good year so far for renewable energy in Colorado. First, the state legislature passed a bill that doubles the amount of renewable energy that the state’s rural cooperative electric associations will be required to source by 2020. Second, it was recently announced that Colorado will be the first state capitol in the country to power all heating and cooling with geothermal energy.

The open-loop geothermal system taps into the Arapahoe Aquifer, which sits more than 850 feet underground and is a consistent 65 degrees. This system, recently brought online, is expected to save the 119 year-old building $100,000 in heating and cooling costs in the first year alone.

To install the system, Chevron Energy Solutions drilled an 865-foot well under the state capitol, and ran a pipe into the Arapahoe aquifers below. Unlike a closed-loop system, an open-loop geothermal system is connected directly to a ground water source such as a well or pond and directly pumps the water into a building to the pump unit where it is used for heating and cooling. Open loop systems require access to a substantial water source, but are more cost effective.

In addition to the upgraded functionality of air conditioning to the building, the project will replace existing pumps and other equipment that date back to the 1940s and are well beyond their estimated useful life, avoiding approximately $904,000 in replacement costs, according to a press release [pdf].

The US Department of Energy is providing a $4.1 million grant toward the overall $5.5 million project. The state is financing just under $1.5 million to complete the project, reports Energy Manager Today.

earthtechling

[Graeme]

Geothermal Heat Pump Market to Triple by 2020

There has been an uptick of interest in renewable energy heating and cooling in the past year, with several U.S. states and other countries establishing favorable incentives. After a two-year slump due to the global economic downturn, Navigant Research predicts that the geothermal heat pump market (GHP) will nearly triple to $17.2 billion by 2020, which is a “slow but steady growth” for the industry, according to Navigant analyst Mackinnon Lawrence.

Among favorable policies cropping up globally, the UK recently announced renewable heat tariffs (which were set at 18.8 pence/€0.22 for ground-source heat pumps), and a coalition has formed in Massachusetts to include renewable heating and cooling technologies in the state renewable portfolio standard (RPS).

But GHPs are still considered a technology that “falls through the cracks” in most policy scenarios, according to Lawrence. Many countries aren’t sure where GHPs fit — are they more a renewable energy or energy efficiency technology? In effect, GHPs “fall down the list behind other less-complex energy efficiency efforts,” he added. Instead of installing a GHP system, many people will focus on less-expensive fixes first, like insulation.

The upfront cost for GHP systems is another major factor that has held back the industry. While in the U.S., for example, there is a 30 percent tax credit towards a new residential system (10 percent for a commercial system), many homeowners simply cannot afford GHPs that can cost up to $25,000. And there are no major technology improvements that can be done to drive down these upfront costs, said Lawrence.

Despite these barriers, GHPs have taken off in countries like Denmark, where laws stipulate that new homes cannot be built with fossil fuel systems. And according to Chris Williams of the HeatSpring Learning Institute and member of the Coalition for Renewable Heating and Cooling in Massachusetts, GHPs can be a perfect weapon to fight rising oil prices, which heats a majority of the homes in the Northeastern U.S.

renewableenergyworld

[Graeme]

Geothermal heat pumps to surpass $17 billion in annual revenue by 2020, forecasts Navigant Research

Worldwide revenue from geothermal heat pump (GHP) systems is expected to grow as nations increasingly turn to this renewable energy source to meet buildings' heating and cooling needs, according to a new report from Navigant Research, a market research and consulting team that provides in-depth analysis of global clean technology markets.

Geothermal heat pump (GHP) systems—sometimes referred to as ground source heat pumps—harness moderate and constant temperatures just below the Earth's surface, and play a vital role in global strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the burden on overtaxed infrastructure, says Navigant Research. First used in the 1940s, GHP systems are being deployed in nearly every region of the world and in residential, commercial, institutional, and industrial environments with great success, the company adds.

According to the report, Geothermal Heat Pumps, GHP systems will grow from $6.5 billion in 2013 to $17.2 billion annually by 2020. The report analyzes the global market opportunity for geothermal heat pumps, including a comprehensive examination of GHP markets, demand drivers, existing and emerging technologies, the public policy and regulatory environment, and key industry players. Market forecasts, segmented by geography and market segment, extend through 2020 and include examinations of market dynamics in all key regions worldwide.

fmlink

[Graeme]

Frost & Sullivan: Higher Energy Efficiency of Geothermal Heating and Cooling Attracts Non-residential Segments

Heating and cooling accounts for 40 percent to 50 percent of power consumption in non-residential buildings. This highlights the urgent need to increase the overall energy efficiency in these buildings – geothermal heating and cooling technologies may hold the key.
New analysis from Frost & Sullivan's (http://www.buildingtechnologies.frost.com) Analysis of the North American Geothermal Heating and Cooling Market research, finds the market earned revenue of $102.8 million in 2012 and estimates this to reach $147.6 million in 2017.
For more information on this research, please email Liz Clark, Corporate Communications, at [email protected] with your full name, company name, job title, telephone number, company email address, company website, city, state and country.
"Geothermal heating and cooling is an excellent way to conserve energy while employing the earth as the chief energy transfer base," said Frost & Sullivan Energy and Environment Industry Manager Konkana Khaund. "Despite its huge initial costs, its higher energy efficiency and long-term cost savings are capturing the attention of environmentally conscious end users."
The geothermal heating and cooling market in North America will get a boost from legislation in areas such as the Energy Policy Act of 2005, and the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which mandate at least a 30 percent increase in energy efficiency over existing levels. However, the market is reined back by the high capital required to install the technology.
"Non-residential users are in a better position to invest the capital and gain strong returns on investments in just a couple of years," noted Senior Industry Analyst Anu Cherian. "However, most end users are inclined towards 'short termism' and do not perceive the long-term benefits of investing in this technology."

prnewswire