Geo Thermal Heating

[moosemad]

Looking for some personal experiences with geo thermal heating. Anyone here have it, is it as good as they say it is, what is the best style (horizontal or vertical), are the rebates real?
Any info would be appreciated such as cost. Web sites say approx $25,000 but I'm sure it would be more than that. What should a fella know about it before going ahead with a new installation.
With the price of gas and electricity now a days we have to look at different options. Thanks in advance for any info supplied.

[FCLightning]

I don't have it installed, but with the current pricing of nat. gas and electricity in this province you will not be saving any money on heating costs by going to geothermal. Maybe someday if electricity gets cheap and gas gets expensive.

[hawken]

I don't think the ground is warm enough in Alberta to make Geo effective.
I think you would be better off spending your money on extra insulation.
http://www.boydsolar.com/
The shop on this page is so well insulated that if it was heated with gas, it would use $100 per year. Give them a call to talk about Geo and book a free tour.

[moosemad]

Should have said earlier this would be installed in NS, no natural gas there just electric and oil heating which is ridiculus cost wise. Just wondering if anyone here has it.

[hawken]

Wood Stove

[FishingMOM]

Originally Posted by moosemad

Should have said earlier this would be installed in NS, no natural gas there just electric and oil heating which is ridiculus cost wise. Just wondering if anyone here has it.

Please read this website.
These guys know their Geothermal
http://www.byronsplumbing.com/geothermal.php

[eastcoast]

if I ever get out of this city I will be building a house with geo thermal and in floor heating, and throw a wood stove in for looks

[Tundra Monkey]

Originally Posted by hawken

I don't think the ground is warm enough in Alberta to make Geo effective.
I think you would be better off spending your money on extra insulation.
http://www.boydsolar.com/
The shop on this page is so well insulated that if it was heated with gas, it would use $100 per year. Give them a call to talk about Geo and book a free tour.

Ground in the NWT is warm enough.....just gotta go down far enough

They're lookin' to heat a couple buildings here with water recovered from the mines......unbelievable cost attached to it though.

tm

[ctd]

http://www.geoutilities.ca/about_geothermal/faq.html.

[deanmc]

Originally Posted by hawken

I don't think the ground is warm enough in Alberta to make Geo effective.
I think you would be better off spending your money on extra insulation.
http://www.boydsolar.com/
The shop on this page is so well insulated that if it was heated with gas, it would use $100 per year. Give them a call to talk about Geo and book a free tour.

If you go deep enough you arent in alberta anymore.

[209x50]

We have heate with geothermal since 2007 here in northern Alberta. It has worked well for us.

[rmjdev]

WE have had Geo Thermal since 2008 in Southern AB.
Works Fine, As for Cost if you already have Nat Gas stick with it.
If you are doing a new developemnt very well worth the look.
We Went off propane due cost and switched to Geo.
Price All in 38K

Do your research on the company.

MJ

[7mm08]

Expect a huge increase in your electric bill. Just saying.

[FCLightning]

Originally Posted by moosemad

Should have said earlier this would be installed in NS, no natural gas there just electric and oil heating which is ridiculus cost wise. Just wondering if anyone here has it.

If you are using electric radiant heat geothermal should cut that bill to 1/3 or less depending on the efficiency of the system. Geothermal should be very cost effective against heating oil as well. You will need to decide if the upfront money for geo is worth it. Be sure the contractor you hire actually knows what he is doing. There have been a few in Alberta that have given geo a bad name because the systems they put in didn't work properly. They also weren't upfront with the costs of operation, misleading folks in how much they were going to save by not mentioning that it takes a lot of electricity to run the heat pumps.

[wonka]

I would stay away from Geothermal, the idea is there, but the technology just isn't yet. You are swapping a gas bill for an electric one, and will be replacing those heat pumps a lot more often than you would a furnace. AND taking the information from somebody selling the systems is like trusting a Lada salesman that they have the best vehicle. You need a difference in temp to create the energy to provide the end result - heat, the current technology is gaining as much delta T from friction as from geothermal, but at a cost of increased energy use and equipment life span.
If you are currently running geo, talk to me after 5 - 10 years, you'll start with replacing heat pumps, then heat exchangers, then the headers themselves. I would wait on the developing tech.
Any here using an instantaneous water heater? How close are you to the warranty end? We rebuild and replace these on a weekly basis, same deal, good idea, just needs a little more tweaking.
Southern Alberta is probably the worst location to utilize one of these systems, NWT and NB would be far better locations as the temperatures do not swing as widely.
Stove oil is a mighty pricey way to heat a home, but I would hold off on geo until the technology has improved.
MJ, how is your system responding to the chinook and freeze cycles? How are you supplamenting heat when it goes from +10 to -15 in ten hours? How are you cooling when they swing the other way? Curious, did Mark do your system or energysmart?

[sjd]

Had a system operating for 5 years on a new build.

Works great. Electricity use in a typical Jan is 1,500 kwh, compared to my neighours lights @ 800 kwh for his house with no geo- you can figure the comparative cost of heating in winter. We have a 7 cent per kwh contract with Enxmax.

No furnace, no propane, back up wood stove for the odd power outage

Work with a certified contractor - if they are not members of the Canadian Geothermal association, they will be cowboys and you risk getting a system that won't work. I would guess that 99% of the stories about systems that don't work are based on this. The concept is simple and low maintenance once its in place, but this is is highly specialized work. There has been an unfortunate boom in any guy with a backhoe thinking he is a geothermal installer - bad idea!

Things to keep in mind

1) Needs to be properly sized to for your use - if your designer screws up on this you'll have a unit not able to keep up

2) Ensure your contractor fully costs the energy input vs energy output. If they can't won't provide you with a full spreadsheet than explains the payback -go elsewhere.

3) Find out the coefficient of heating - this is the unit of energy in to get the heat out. Most are now 3 to 4. i.e one unit of electricity to run the pump produces 3-4 times as much heat.

4) The ground doesn't have to be warm - the system works on exchanging heat with the ground which is at 6 degrees - you are not tapping into lava here.

Alberta is the worst place in Canada to do geothermal since we have cheap gas and relatively expensive electricity, but it is still cost competitive here on a new build. In a place like NS, where you are paying either expensive electricity or oil anyway its a no brainer, providing you use a reputable operator.

[Grizzly Adams]

Originally Posted by Tundra Monkey

Ground in the NWT is warm enough.....just gotta go down far enough

They're lookin' to heat a couple buildings here with water recovered from the mines......unbelievable cost attached to it though.

tm

Sorry, but i have never been able to get my head around this, based on the Laws of Thermodynamics, which state that heat must flow from a warmer object to a colder one. If the ground temperature is 7 deg. C. and the fluid you are injecting is at a higher temp , the net effect has to be cooling. Only way this makes sense to me, is, since ground temperature increases with depth, is to install vertically, but ground temperature increases relatively slowly, so you'll be drilling a long ways.

Grizz

[FCLightning]

Originally Posted by Grizzly Adams

Sorry, but i have never been able to get my head around this, based on the Laws of Thermodynamics, which state that heat must flow from a warmer object to a colder one. If the ground temperature is 7 deg. C. and the fluid you are injecting is at a higher temp , the net effect has to be cooling. Only way this makes sense to me, is, since ground temperature increases with depth, is to install vertically, but ground temperature increases relatively slowly, so you'll be drilling a long ways.

Grizz

Geothermal does not work by simply warming up water by circulating it through warm ground. Geothermal is an air conditioning unit running in reverse.
As for "new technology", the Europeans have been heating with heat pump technology for decades. We are just trying to reinvent the wheel.

[Tundra Monkey]

Originally Posted by Grizzly Adams

but ground temperature increases relatively slowly, so you'll be drilling a long way. Grizz

I beleive Con Mine is 6900'+ Grizz.....they are already a loooong way down there

I got no idea how it actually works.....but it's really not that far down when it turns into t-shirt weather.......unless you're standing right in front of the fresh air intake.

There is a shop in our industrial section that uses a loop system. It has a mile or so of pipe/hose in a lake......I got no idea how that works as the only way I'd get in the water in July is if my boat broke.....dang cold lakes up here

tm

[dumoulin]

Originally Posted by hawken

I don't think the ground is warm enough in Alberta to make Geo effective.
I think you would be better off spending your money on extra insulation.
http://www.boydsolar.com/
The shop on this page is so well insulated that if it was heated with gas, it would use $100 per year. Give them a call to talk about Geo and book a free tour.

Works very well in Alberta; allthough nat. gas is already soooo cheap here it's easyer to turn up the heat.... My Father-in-law's son had it done and it's fantastik and he live in the middle of Edmonton to boot! He had it done about four or five years ago, not sure if you can even still perform geothermal in cities anymore...? Anyone know?

[trouty]

we did it on a large 6 storey office complex. Cost savings can be huge when done on a large scale.

[FCLightning]

Originally Posted by Tundra Monkey

There is a shop in our industrial section that uses a loop system. It has a mile or so of pipe/hose in a lake

Water loops are the most effecient and cost effective system there is. Anyone living beside a waterway that they own or can get permission to use would be well advised to go that route.

You can heat your house with a system that runs on radiators in air as well, even at -35 C. But they are very inefficient comparitively - just as air conditioning units are very inefficient when the outside temps are +40 C, but they still work.

[nanuk-O-dah-Nort]

Originally Posted by Grizzly Adams

Sorry, but i have never been able to get my head around this, based on the Laws of Thermodynamics, which state that heat must flow from a warmer object to a colder one. If the ground temperature is 7 deg. C. and the fluid you are injecting is at a higher temp , the net effect has to be cooling. Only way this makes sense to me, is, since ground temperature increases with depth, is to install vertically, but ground temperature increases relatively slowly, so you'll be drilling a long ways.

Grizz

The "Fluid" you inject is COOLER than the 7deg C... that is why you need antifreeze solution. the exchanger removes heat by having the freon type fluid pass through the ground warmed solution where it expands and receives the energy. then the freon is compressed to release the heat on the other side.

think A/C in reverse... just submerse the cold coils in flowing water to warm them up, and the hot side blowing air into your house.

you can build your own with an A/C unit with not too much effort.

Cats azz if you have an excellent well, and somewhere to put the waste water

[Map Maker]

Originally Posted by sjd

There has been an unfortunate boom in any guy with a backhoe thinking he is a geothermal installer - bad idea!

.

you are very right there. I saw one installation was 4' below ground. the owner asked my opinion about, and i said the lines will freeze in the winter. The installer promised he has done it this "cheap " on alot of successful jobs. The owner decided to reexcavate. I dont know how this system could work that shallow.

I'm hearing alot of installations that are over 10 years old and starting to fail. New drillholes are needed, upgrading equipment, etc.

The payback used to be 25 years, not sure what it is now. I wouldnt touch geothermal with a 10 foot pole in Canada.

Invest your money to have in-floor heat instead. Leave the geothermal for the eccentrics.

[Iron Brew]

I've been curious about the air to air heat pump for the edmonton area, but data is slim. I know just looking at the average temperatures it should be feasible with a month or so of pure resistance heating (added up over a few months). My thoughts are... I can get by without gas, but not without electricity, and the monthly recurring charges irk me... I'm wondering if I don't have to pay those charges 12 months of the year, would I be saving money with a heatpump and knowing I'll have to do resistance heating some times? I'd have a woodstove for the worst temperatures, but don't want to include that in the calculations.

[winged1]

Originally Posted by FCLightning

If you are using electric radiant heat geothermal should cut that bill to 1/3 or less depending on the efficiency of the system. Geothermal should be very cost effective against heating oil as well. You will need to decide if the upfront money for geo is worth it. Be sure the contractor you hire actually knows what he is doing. There have been a few in Alberta that have given geo a bad name because the systems they put in didn't work properly. They also weren't upfront with the costs of operation, misleading folks in how much they were going to save by not mentioning that it takes a lot of electricity to run the heat pumps.

and there inlies the problem. Your going to pay for the loop regardless of it's effeciency, and no one, I don't care how much experience they have, can garauntee an exchange rate of the loop, but they will expect to get paid.

I'd invest your cash in a sure thing, insulation.

[roger]

wsetech
look into passive solar collectors heating glycol for slab heat.got a whack of them im gonna run when i get the place to use it.
geothermal is a pipe dream unless you live in iceland with volcanic action only a few feet underground.
my engineering/plumbing background says to me that geothermal is just not the ticket, not saying it work..just 'snake oil' comes to mind
winged1 makes the most sense, making heat is easy, keeping it is the difference.

[FCLightning]

Sounds like there are a lot of folks who have a misconception of what geothermal is and what it can/can't do.
In actual fact a heat pump can extract heat from ice and use it to heat your house if you wanted to do that. It won't be efficient, but it will work. It does not have to be HOT to create heat with a refrigeration unit. Hold you hand on the coils under your fridge - where do you think that HEAT came from - from inside the cold fridge and freezer. Once you are at a depth of about 12 ft down in the earth the ground temperature is rather stable - summer or winter. This gives the heat pump a consistent efficiency of operation. Whether that efficiency is enough to warrant the cost of installation of the system is a reasonable question, but whether the system can work??? It can and it does. No snake oil there.
As to the idea of keeping your heat, sealing your house will do more for you than added dollars of insulation. Cold air infiltration is a tremendous heat drain. Of course you should insulate as well as you possibly can.

[roger]

FC, i got no problem with the concepts of heat pumps, conversion of ice to latent heat (144btu's per#), flue gas recovery, heat wheels, enthalpy,etcetc,. I do this every day.
its all about wattage used, running a 220 volt 15 amp water pump 24/7 is hardly an effective alternate to energy consumption. at 10 cents per kilowatt hour the cost is nonstop. like 7mm-08 said, having the electric bill double and removing another is not a cost saving...a watt of natural gas, a watt of propane, a watt of electricity or a watt of nuclear power... its still a watt.
I beleive the Wetaskiwan courthouse had the GT installed and shut it off a couple of years in because the electricty cost more than the gas bill was. (I cant verify this 100%)
so far the sun is still the cheapest source going, or at least the last time i checked!

its really about cost recovery and how sharp your pencil is and what you consider to an acceptable life cycle costing for your investment.
it wouldnt be my first choice second or even a close third.
evrytime you pay someone else to do it, have moving parts and have to pay someone for the enrgy source your going to extend your cost recovery period
my sharpened pencil suggests that passive solar and/or solar collectors dumping to a heat vault (or a geo-storage device, which is not geothermal) as a heating medium with C3H8 as backup through a effeicient demand boiler.
anything but CH4 and the monthly bill. propane is just so much cheaper.
unless you have a unending wood supply and a desire to cut your leg off, wood is good but if you have to buy pellets or split wood, that gets old fast.

im all ears when it comes to learning more effishshunt way, im just not convinced that GT is the 'best'.

[winged1]

As to the idea of keeping your heat, sealing your house will do more for you than added dollars of insulation. Cold air infiltration is a tremendous heat drain. Of course you should insulate as well as you possibly can.

and it can't be assumed that the two go hand in hand. Insulation isn't, without an effective barrier, as much as air quality isn't, without exchange.

So can we agree on the ideal, passive solar heat sink, well insulated and air tight with an efficient fresh air heat exchanger.

The question then is if one of these is missing, is it economical to add a mechanical system to compensate.