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Tapping the Earth For Home Heating and Cooling

Posted by kdawson on from the geo-exchange dept.

suraj.sun recommends a CNet post giving details of a still little-known energy technology: the ground source heat pump or geo-exchange system. This is distinct from so-called geothermal energy, which taps the heat in the earth to provide energy. Geo-exchange is suitable in scale for small industry — the article describes one commercial re-development of an old mill into apartment and commercial space that put in a geo-exchange at about half the cost of traditional fossil fuel-based alternatives. Even some individual homeowners are opting for this green method of heating and cooling, at a premium in price of about 50 percent (but costs are very much per-project, largely because drilling is involved). "Rather than use underground heat, geothermal heat pumps attached to buildings capitalize on the steady temperature of the ground or deep water wells. In effect, they treat the Earth like a giant energy savings bank, depositing or withdrawing heat depending on the time of year. "

11 of 215 comments (clear)

  1. "little known" ??? by Gothmolly · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ah yes, kdawson.

    This technology is HARDLY little-known, but places where people need lots of heating and cooling (the Northeast) are also places where electricity is uber expensive (thank you Greenpeace), so heat pumps aren't worth the $$.

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    1. Re:"little known" ??? by Wandering+Wombat · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Beat me to it.

      I work in construction and land development in Western Canada, and every single project we work on uses geo-exchange systems, because we get huge tax incentives to utilize energy-efficient technologies (and as strata owners, we still get to charge standard amounts for utilities). This isn't a big city, and there's THREE places that offer geo-exchange services.

      Maybe it's just "little known" where people "don't care".

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    2. Re:"little known" ??? by ach1lles · · Score: 5, Informative

      Its been around since at least the 1940s. The building I live in (downtown Austin) uses it and it was built in 1938.

    3. Re:"little known" ??? by JWSmythe · · Score: 5, Insightful

          Actually, there are lots of people who have no idea that this can be done.

          I live in Florida, and very few people that I've spoken with know anything about it. I haven't been able to find anyone that installs it either, but I'm not looking so hard now that I don't own a house any more.

          There are quite a few interesting variations on this. I won't bother mention the well system, since that's what the article talks about. :)

          One was a dry system, where you simply needed a series of tubes (intentionally said for Sen. Stevens) buried in a horizontal plane at about 10' to 20' deep. You can pump a liquid for a heat exchanger, or even just air, to stabilize the air temperature at about 60F degrees. There are all kinds of options on this. A heat exchanger, or even circulating home air through have both been done successfully. Adding a small amount of outside air can raise or lower the temperature as needed. If 65F is too cold, say 10% outside air could raise that up to 75F.

          Another uses river or lake water. This would depend on your climate to if it would work really well. A friend of mine lives beside a lake that's between 20 to 30 feet deep. Her air conditioner also works very poorly. I introduced the idea of an open loop system, where it would pump water from the lake, through a coil and back to the lake. It would need some degree of large debris filtering, but not a lot (try not to suck up the Loch Ness monster). The coil at the house would simply recirculate just as the regular air handler in the house would, except the coils would maintain about 60 degrees because of the lake. When it's close to 100 degrees outside, and the lake water is in the high 60's at the bottom, a 75 to 80 degree house is a welcome temperature. :)

          Unfortunately, most people look at it as "but, everyone else has a .....". Some people were worried about a reduction in their resale value, because if they sell their home, now there's a "nonstandard" system there. Who would want a house with an almost free heating/cooling system?

          A freon free, low energy system, that takes advantage of the difference in air and ground/water temperature is a wonderful thing.

          This wasn't news, and I wanted to say so too, but people need to be exposed to the idea.

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    4. Re:"little known" ??? by artson · · Score: 5, Interesting
      When I built my house in 1985, I built a passive solar home (three sided, two-story concrete box with south facing glass and air conduits built into an insulated slab). We placed four solar hot water heaters on the roof as well. The house has repaid the investment many times over, but my one regret is that I allowed myself to be talked out of putting in a geo heat pump system. At the time the experts told me it was too expensive for the projected return. They were wrong of course.

      I don't know much about accounting, but it has always seemed to me that carbon cap trading schemes are just a gigantic boondoggle that allow bad actors to continue acting badly. For my money, if governments (Canadian in my case) want to encourage green technology and lower the country's carbon footprint, then they need to very strongly encourage geo heat exchangers in new construction and particularly for green renovations. Solar heating is not always possible, especially this far north, but geothermal exchange is always there.

      As a post script, for anyone thinking of installing solar hot water panels on their roof, think again. If it is possible to mount them at ground level on a rack, you achieve two things: A. no holes in your expensive roof, and B. it is much easier to maintain them at ground level.

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  2. What about DX? by unixluv · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This technology has been around for some time, but it fails to generate much PR. You can get a measley $8000 US federal tax credit for installing one. A few enlightened states (not mine) will give you some additional tax credits for installing one.

    The expensive part seems to be drilling the earth and laying the hose. However, what they fail to mention is that once its installed, it will last 50+ years.

    The parent also mentions open and closed loop, but fail to talk about direct exchange aka DX, which would make more sense for a lot of people.

    From http://www.geoenergyusa.com/technology.htm

    "The direct exchange (DX) system is a series of copper tubes buried 4 to 6 feet below ground level. Refrigerant gas is then fed through these tubes creating a direct heat exchange between the temperature of the ground and the heat transfer medium, which in this case is the refrigerant gas. Because of this direct exchange feature these systems operate at considerably less operating cost than water source systems and because they do not require the additional water pumping cost and, DX does not suffer the heating or cooling loss associated with transferring the water temperature to the refrigerant as is common with these systems. DX is also cheaper and easier to install as it requires no well drilling or plumbing costs. As copper is a more efficient heat transfer medium than PVC pipe as found in water source, trenching costs are less due to less ground mass being required by DX."

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CO_xM5gV48

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P0Z1Pa_Vvc

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  3. Since the article doesn't mention it... by G-Man · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...I would also point out that Bush's Crawford Ranch uses a geothermal heat pump.

  4. Firsthand Minnesota experience by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I bought a house in Minnesota (cold winters, hot summers) that was a part of a pilot program in the 80s by Northern States Power (now Xcel Energy), whereby the installation cost was subsidized by NSP for this home and a handful of others.

    Upon learning about this from the previous owners, I was naturally concerned about the system's efficacy at heating and moreover cooling the split-level home as compared to traditional gas furnace and air conditioning. It wound up performing identically on both counts, providing as much heated or frosty air as desired seasonally, all for only the price of operating the heat pump; I believe the annual electric cost was roughly $80/year.

    To top things off the house was furnished with a traditional gas furnace as a safety backup.

  5. Re:Depends on the ground by sokoban · · Score: 5, Funny

    I tried to stop by his place, but since I knew its momentum exactly I couldn't find it.

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  6. ground-exchange? the price tag hurts... by chrispitude · · Score: 5, Informative

    Side note to the OP, the phrase "geothermal" to most homeowners does mean ground-source heat pump technology, not the stuff they use in Greenland.

    I have a modest 2000sqft home in northeastern PA (Poconos area, I'm 8 miles south of Camelback ski resort). I had two contractors out to quote ground-source DX (direct exchange) systems, and both quotes were in the mid-$20k range. Too rich for my blood.

    I went with a Hallowell cold-weather heat pump for pleasantly less than half that. The Hallowell is mostly sold in Canada and upper New England, but it's been slowly working its way south. When I called them to ask about my application, the guy laughed and said "Man, you're in the tropics!"

    It's only been running for a few weeks now, but I've been very impressed so far. It hit -3F two nights ago and the heat pump still ran entirely off the first compressors in stage 1 (stage 2 was still not needed). The air coming out of the vents was warm to the touch. In fact, the system has yet to resort to resistance heat down to -3F exterior temperatures. We keep our house set to 66F. I've been able to kick the heating oil furnace and storage tank to the curb. No more timing oil pre-buys against market prices, no more noisy power venters, no more oil storage tank taking up basement space, no more yearly burner tuneups and vent pipe cleanouts. I even get nice 18 SEER air conditioning to replace my builder-grade central air conditioning unit.

    Pictures of the complete home renovation are at:

    my house renovation

    The entire system is on a dedicated subpanel, and I've put a subpanel meter on it to measure total kWh usage. This will allow me to directly measure operational cost each month.

    Another factor that steered me away from ground-source is balancing the break-even time versus the system lifetime. If it takes me 20 years to break even on the ground-source and the system needs replaced not too long after, I haven't really gained anything. If the Hallowell takes me 7 years to break even and the system lasts 2-3 times longer than that, I've saved quite a bit of money. Break-even isn't everything; it has to be balanced against the expected lifetime of the system. Plus, I'd have to factor in the cost of repairing the yard after the loops were dug and installed. They claim that just a 3' circle of ground is disturbed to drill the loops, but one of the guys eventually admitted the machines rip up the yard pretty bad as they drive around the hole to drill the loops at different angles.

    I found the guys at Hallowell to be very helpful to talk to. I don't work for them and I have nothing to gain. I simply speak as a satisfied customer. For new construction, rolling a ground-source system into the mortgage would be the way to go. For my existing construction with an established yard, simply setting the Hallowell on an outdoor pad was an excellent path forward for me.

    - Chris

  7. Well city won't let me dig a well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'll get to the point but first a little background.

    It is an odd reversal here, but because sewer rates are so high here and city water metering was the way to measure sewer use. People in the suburbs started drilling wells in my area because it has an easy to get at artesian water table. Without the the use of city water there was no way to tax the sewer use. Got the idea and how it is going to apply?

    So the city in it's infinite wisdom decide that wells were 'verboten' no matter what over the whole area. There is no way that you can get a permit.

    Now you may think that explaining what you want to do to heat your home would get you a variance. Not simply because the city won't budge, but even more ludicrous is they think you will cheat and not put the water back in the ground as that costs more, but will dump the water into the sewer and increasing the water to the plant for free on your side. Thus making you a thief before found to be one. So easier and cheaper for them is to ban wells period no matter how well intentioned you are to green the planet.

    It's to bad I wrote this late as it is not likely to be moderated high enough to get noticed and other point out a similar problem in their area that stops this type of system dead before it lives.