Geothermal heating/cooling process

coasterqueen wrote: This is kinda cool. Well it is to me. As I mentioned before thanks to our wonderful President Obama and his 30% tax credit/rebate thing for doing eco-friendly projects to your home we are having a geothermal heating and cooling system put in our house. They are digging 4 -- 150 feet holes in our front yard as we speak to put the thingy-majigs in. I have no clue exactly what is going on except it's gonna be a HUGE mess and it's a 3 step process, to which I'll be without air conditioning for at least one if not to of the steps.

I thought I'd share a pic Dh just sent me - they are digging right now. It looked pretty cool to me. Otherwise, if not to you, you can ignore this post.

cameragirl21 replied: way cool...maybe you could really make the process green by planting a garden over each spot in your yard they dug up.
It's too bad you can't grow avocado trees where you live...I have a ton of seeds and I don't have enough terrace to plant them all but can't get myself to throw them out...would love to send them to you as you have the land to plant them all.
Btw, if anyone wants a bunch of avocado seeds and lives in an area where they grow, feel free to pm me and I'll send them to you.

coasterqueen replied:
I think they are going to bring the back hoes (sp?) in and smooth everything out when they are finished drilling --level the yard back out and replant grass. That is my assumption and hope Dh knows my assumption as well.

Have never heard of avocado trees around here, but thanks for the offer.

coasterqueen replied: Here's a better pic than the other one, I think.

ETA: sorry these are a bit big. If a mod has a way to decrease them, that's fine. I just didn't have anything on this computer to do so.

CantWait replied: That's a cool thingy ma jig.

mom21kid2dogs replied: You'll have a nice smooth lawn after they install the coils (or you should ). All that part is underground.

DVFlyer replied: Interesting.... never heard of this.

How long does it take to break even on the investment after the tax rebate?

coasterqueen replied:
After our other rebates....4.5 years or less. At least for ours. We are using a contractor that Dh has worked so we are getting a tiny discount from that, the other rebate is from our electric company. We are going with commercial grade grout, though, which is more expensive than residential, but worth the extra investment. So it would be less expensive if we didn't do that.

It's a pretty good investment since we'll be saving $170-250 a month. Definitely the $170 on propane, but we'll see how far down our electric bill goes. Plus this is supposed to last 50 years. Our furnace/air conditioner had a life span of 10 years left on it.

redchief replied: Geothermal systems are cool and very efficient. The only two things that I'm wondering about are the 50 year life span and the mention of grout... I'm not sure what the grout is for, and I'm not really sure that you'll get 50 years out of the system. The piping and pumps, etc. will probably need maintenance and replacement more often. The heat exchanger should last 50 years though, as long as the ground water isn't too aggressive.

For those who aren't quite sure how the system works, here's a good representation. Good luck with your new heating system!

Cece00 replied: we're thinking about doing it once our current unit craps out, which could be yrs and yrs from now...but I dont know that I could spend the $$ unless our system went out first, I have so many other things I want to spend $$ on on.

coasterqueen replied:
I could be wrong on the 50 years, I just recall what my husband told me. Maybe he meant the system itself. Not sure. No matter how long it lasts we aren't paying propane prices which go to extremes often. The grout is used in the boreholes that surrounds the loops. It is put in there to to help conduct the earth's heat better in the loops. Not sure if I explained that correctly. The residential grade grout has a heat transfer of .03 and commercial -- if mixed properly with the correct amount of sand will have a heat transfer of 1. That's as easy as I can explain it from the lamens terms my husband gave to me. I'm suprised you haven't heard of using grout. Everything I've read and listening to people talk about them -- it's a pretty common standard practice.

coasterqueen replied:
Our current system will be used by someone else who needs it so it won't go to waste. Not like I want to spend that money on it either, but when we are blowing away money on the propane/electric prices and don't have to.......we can spend that money somewhere else....but we'd be wasting money at the same time. You'd be amazed at how little your system is worth at this point, depending on how old it is. We had ours priced and it's only worth $500 at this point, even though it has probably 10 years left. Granted it would last us probably 10 more years, but you can't just think of the cost of the system, you have to think of the money you could be wasting if you are using propane/electricity and realize that we'd be saving a heck of a lot more money scrapping the current system.

redchief replied:
Ahh, I got it now. Your soil must be rocky. We're all sand here so there's no core fill. Quite a few of the systems available advertise a 50 year life, so your heat exchanger just may carry a significant warranty. It's a neat and green technology and should serve you well. Here we're very close on the cusp of whether or not the efficiency is there because our mean ground temperature is about 54'F. The systems work very well for A/C but the heating side is a little iffy, especially in bitter cold weather. Good luck with your new heating system!

coasterqueen replied:
Thanks. Yeah, it's clay on top until you get farther down and then it's rocky. I didn't even know that until I saw rocks coming out while they were core drilling and I had to ask Dh what they were.

jem0622 replied: My brother had this type of heating/cooling system installed in the house they built last year. He is just shy of his PE, and a big environmental type. If you can do it then why not?

coasterqueen replied:
Julie,

How far does he have to get his PE? Ryan has his. I remember that testing...it was not fun! lol. Good luck to him.

jem0622 replied:

He has some difficulty because his major in college was Environmental Resource Planning & Management. He sat for the exam once and it was tough. He said that a good bit of the material was not known so he would have a lot of studying to do to pass. He hasn't tried again. He does a lot of land planning and soil analysis on the Eastern Shore...and it keeps him rather busy.

coasterqueen replied:
Yeah, Ryan came out of that test in almost tears (well not really - but he looked absolutely defeated). Thankfully he passed. He's had to take tests for other designations, that really don't go along with what he does and he has to do a LOT of studying to take the tests. As many designations you have can be better for you out in the market place, for sure. Sounds like your brother is doing really well for himself as well as some exciting things. Good for him.

DVFlyer replied: My friend is a PE. Took the test twice- failed first attempt, passed the second. He had to come to San Diego to take the test and he stayed with us while he was here. He brought a whole bunch of books with him as reference material. I guess it's an open book test.

coasterqueen replied:
Yeah, I hear the success rate of passing it your first time is very low. Fortunately for Ryan he was in that low percentage because he passed the 1st time. Thankfully! It was NOT an open book test for him, though. When you get your EE in training which is the test you have to pass first in order to get to your PE testing, it wasn't either. DH said the EE in training test was far harder than the PE testing, though. I have no clue. I'd fail that stuff in a matter of seconds...don't understand it. He's the math whizz/brains of our family for sure.