Go Greener Tips

Many of you are feeling the burden of high energy bills this heating or cooling season, which will leave you to wonder, is there something I can do about this? Heating costs are still climbing and are more volatile than ever. But there is a way to save 70% on your heating and cooling bill with technology that has efficiencies of 300-500%. Only one heating technology is able to achieve those kinds of numbers, and that is by using geothermal heating.

Geothermal heating (aka Ground Source Heat Pumps, GSHP’s, Geothermal Heat Pumps, Geoexchange, etc.) is basically a method of heating and cooling a building that pumps heat from the earth, into your home. To understand how that works, you have to understand how a heat pump works. Every one of you has a heat pump in one form or another in your home, weather it be a refrigerator, air conditioner, or air source heat pump. All a heat pump does is take heat from one place, put it through a refrigerant cycle, and move it to another place. A refrigerator takes heat from inside the refrigerator, and pumps it outside to the heat sink, which is the refrigerant coils on the back of the unit. GSHP’s work the same way, except the heat sink for the unit is a large ground loop buried in the earth. A liquid is circulated through the ground loop, and as that liquid moves, it absorbs the heat from the large thermal mass of earth. That temperature of earth is about 45-55 degrees F beneath the frost line all year round, so the heat pump runs great in the most extreme temperature situations. The circulated liquid is then put through the heat pump, which uses a refrigerant cycle to deliver the heat to your home’s distribution system, which can be either forced air or radiant heat.

Geothermal Heating has many advantages over a conventional system, with the biggest being a huge energy savings of 50-70% on heating and cooling bills. The heat pumps are extremely efficient with a COP (Coefficient of Performance) ranging from 3-5 (300-500% efficient), release no green house gasses, and don’t need to burn any heating fuel. They also run quietly, are very reliable, heat and cool with the same unit, and can generate a significant portion of your domestic hot water need, just as a byproduct of normal operation.

These amazing systems have always come with the stigma of a very high initial installation cost, which is somewhat true. A geothermal system will cost you more to install in your house than a conventional system, but there are a few huge factors that completely change this picture. The first is the amazing energy savings. A geothermal system will save you 70% on your heating and cooling bill during the year, which is thousands of dollars straight to your pocket. With winter heating costs in Northern climates reaching all time highs, while being very volatile, you can’t afford not to have a geothermal heating system.

The second is massive federal, state and utility company incentives. The federal government is currently offering a 30% federal tax credit towards the installation cost of a ground source heat pump system, which greatly offsets the cost to the owner. Most states also have significant incentives, and they can all be found on http://www.dsireusa.org. The federal government also has great, low-rate renewable energy loans, which take out the massive initial cost of a geothermal system.

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