Discussions

Looking for real experience's from people that have installed a Geothermal heating/cooling system out in the country. any info/advice please, ballpark install cost? maintenance? does it constantly run in the winter? who did a good job? etc. Thanks in advance!

Cost will vary depending on the size of your home but expect to spend north of $20,000 for an install.  
You'll still run auxiliary heat on really cold days in the winter so you're still going to be paying a decent size hydro bill.  
It will take several years to recover the cost of the install vs electric heat/conventional AC and any savings you so make will be completely wiped out if you require a repair.  
I know there are companies that offer maintenance and repair packages that you pay a monthly fee for, if you have an issue it's covered under the plan. Southern Comfort Mechanical out of Niverville do a lot of Geo google them and give them a call to see if they cover your area

We had a family member who had one in their home before. House was a new build and they had in floor heat in the basement. Their bills with geothermal were very low. That’s why we went that route.  
 
Our old electric furnace was $500 a month to heat in winter. We have upgraded our windows/doors etc but still pay on budget $350 a month. Now we do have 2 sheds we heat, water bowls, heat lamps etc so yes that isn’t just the house we are heating. Plus we are STILL paying our hydro loan for the geothermal. It’s been years!!!  
 
We have only had one or two years where the auxiliary heat has cut on. There is also a shortage of repairman in the City.  
 
If we could do it again we would have just got a high efficiency electric furnace. In an older home I don’t think it is worth it.  
 
If your building new then I think it would be beneficial.

geothermal heating and cooling system. Bought a house outside of Wpg about 15 yrs ago that had a heat pump installed. It provided great heat and cooling year round at relatively low cost. Hydro budget was $145 monthly. House was 1600 sq. ft, bungalow with full finished basement. The system was a horizontal closed lop system. Had an auxiliary hot water tank the allowed for the heat pump to use pre-heated water going into the electric hot water thus reducing cost. The system was 5 yr old when I bought. Lived there for 11 yrs. Only repair to the systems was a blower fan and a hot water tank.

They are definitely expensive to install but they do provide you with cheap heating and cooling. One more thing mentioned you’ll still need to run auxiliary heat on cold days but if the unit is sized correctly you won’t. I maintain these units all the time, often times people don’t even have auxiliary heat installed (do not recommend that) they should have no issue keeping up even on the coldest days here if they are sized properly. The auxiliary heat is installed as a backup in case there is an issue with the geothermal. One big issue with them though is once your warranty is up on them repairs can get quite expensive and the money you have made back after recouping you’re initial costs are often sunk back into them anyways.

There’s not really such a thing as a high efficiency electric furnace. If someone is trying to tell you to switch an old electric furnace to a “high efficiency” one they are ripping you off. The efficiency rating of a furnace is the percentage of heat it produces that actually gets used in your home. So a 98% efficient gas furnace means 2% of the heat is lost out of the chimney. When it comes to electric 100% of the heat produced is put into your home. The only thing an older electric furnace might use more power on is the fan motor but that is negligible

I earnestly looked into geothermal several times. Every time I’ve checked the price had gone up. I once calculated a 12-13 year payback. That didn’t i:nclude any repairs. The equipment is complex and I figured it may have to be replaced in ?15 years. Just wasn’t worth it for me.

What I don't understand is if we are getting tough on saving the environment and this is a better solution than natural gas why isn't the Carbon Tax being used to offer subsidies to get it? The tax rakes in tons of money, they should be using that to offer continuous subsidies for geothermal and solar systems then. If Geothermal and Solar was so great why isn't the government putting it into their buildings. That huge roof surface of the new government building has lots of room for a solar panel system. The new school I don't see plans for solar panels nor a geothermal installed. Realistically the 20 grand for an install pays for a lot of monthly utility bills.

What I meant is that a new furnace would be more energy efficient than what we had.  
 
We had a huge beast of a furnace. It was supposed to be a wood burning furnace with electric backup. We couldn’t use the wood burning part as it had a recall and the door needed to be welded shut in order to get insurance.  
 
Anything newer would definitely be cheaper than what it was to run that old beast.  
 
Regardless I certainly don’t think I have saved near enough to say it was worthwhile. I pay $150 a month for my hydro loan. I think we are at around $4000 left to pay.  
 
Sure I got air conditioning out of it, it keeps a wonderful consistent temperature but was it worth it? Imo NO. By the time we are done paying for it we will likely start needing repairs.

I've had geothermal in my house for a number of years. I got a healthy cheque back from the government for installing geo in my house. My unit costed around $23K, it does have auxillary heat. Which is a MUST. Aux does kick in and out for those colder nights.  
 
My house (1600 sq.ft) during winter and summer is at 23. On hot days I turn it to 22.  
 
I'll give my Hydro numbers from 2018-2019 winter (which was one of the coldest winter of all time.. lol). I'm not on budget payment plan.  
Dec 2018: $175  
Jan 2019: $175  
Feb 2019: $190  
Mar 2019: $195  
 
For summer I'm averaging anywhere between $75-$80. I know of friends that during winter, their bills are high as $500 for keeping their house at 23. They have simliar aged home as me, 10 years.

Electric Furnace for me, here are my numbers:  
My house (1200 sq.ft) during winter is at 20.5. On hot days I turn it to 22.  
I'll give my Hydro numbers from 2018-2019 winter. I'm not on budget payment plan.  
Dec 2018: $175 - $225  
Jan 2019: $175 - $220  
Feb 2019: $190 - $292  
Mar 2019: $195 - $250  
 
If I am to compare these numbers to my electric furnace (House is all electric) it makes no sense to get geothermal to save max $100 a month in winter. Roughly $50 in savings. As for your summer bills. Running my house with A/C I am paying the same amount.

I'm not getting the full knowledge but as the ground temperature below 6 feet is about 40/45 degrees and you are heating the house to about 70, it is really the heat pump creating the heat via pressure.  
So why not connect the hot water tank to a pressure pump, run it through your furnace and back to the tank.  
It will still be hot enough for normal use and does away with all the ground loop, the expensive part of the system.  
Last summer we ran our AC for about 4 days.

I appreciate everyone's response, I am however looking for those that have gone with the geothermal and their experience with the install cost, cold nights, monthly bills (is it really cheaper), and rebates etc. Keep it coming yall!

If you live on a acreage (I’m assuming you do if considering geo) you could also look into doing a solar array. If you took the same amount of money you’d invest into a geothermal system and did solar you’d find you’d get a very similar return on your investment. The benefits of solar are there are less moving parts and little to no maintenance.  
If you’d like more information send me a PM.  
Full disclosure, I do own a electrical company in Brandon that sells and installs solar so I may be a touch biased but not a sales call by any means. Just want everyone considering geo to know that there is a different option!

It was 10-20 years ago, but now the pricing is outrageous. I was quoted between $40-$55k between three installers. Way too much and it would never pay for itself. (Again... just my recent experience )  
 
The other thing I’ve encountered in my previous two homes that both had GEO was that the water furnace / heat pumps weren’t overly reliable. Both homes, both new systems and always an issue. Whether it was a compressor or pressure issues it didn’t seem to end.  
 
Hydro bill WAS low, but after paying for repairs once warranty was over it was probably close to the same cost as a gas unit.  
 
I built a new home this past fall, and went ECM electric. House has triple pane windows, insulated rigid foam exterior and spray foamed the rim joists. It’s extremely efficient. Especially considering the amount of windows we put in.... I have no regrets. It’s simple, efficient and incredibly cheap to run.  
 
Again... just my opinion, but if you can get it for $25k or less, I would probably do it if you can get the 5-10 year warranty .. Otherwise I don’t think it’s worth it. Spend the money on solar <:img src=:images/icon_smiley.gif>:  
 
Edited by Agguy80, 2020-03-31 22:04:17

We have Geo but it came with our house so I don’t know what it cost.  
A few tips to keep the aux heat from kicking in are that you should never put your furnace on a schedule, should keep it at a consistent temp. Geo is great for holding temp but needs aux to bring it up to a higher temp, and the savings for dipping the temp during the day or night doesn’t offset that cost of raising the temp unless you’re going away for a week then you should lower your temp. Also run the fan 24/7 so rooms hold their consistent temp with air circulation.  
We have a 1600sf home, heated floors in basement and 2 car garage. We pay 300 during the coldest parts of winter and 100 during summer approx. but that’s mixed in with electrical for lights and with a SAHM at home with kids, the lights and appliances run all day, so hard to judge whats directly related to heat and AC. We keep the house at 19/20 in winter and 21/22 in summer. I wouldn’t say it runs all winter, it kicks on and off, it does come on more often than a gas furnace because it’s not blowing super hot air just warm to maintain temps.  
Our unit is 6 years old and we had 1 quick repair where the aux heat kept coming on so the floors wouldn’t warm up. No charge for the repair, not even sure what was wrong but that was 2 years ago and haven’t had any trouble since. Knock on wood lol.  
Oh and ours was done by Keystone Geo Exchange.  
 
Edited by crunchy1885, 2020-04-01 11:05:37

I like the idea of geo thermal. But the math just does not add up. Unless you are in a leaky old farm house the payback is over 20 years.  
 
If it’s a new build spend money on extra insulation. If it’s an old house add insulation. Way better bang for the buck.  
 
One thing no one has mentioned is an air source heat pump. Works on the same principal but uses your ac unit. Costs a bit more than standard ac. They work down to -20 and are up to 300 percent efficient. All that means is that at their best for every watt to run it you get 3 watts of heat.

Also those numbers.. you have to consider the sq.ft and the temp of the house.  
 
But comparing on average for winter.. your saving $145 a month for those months.  
 
And....if geo costs 44k to 50k... thats a huge difference between your standard furnance and AC unit. So long run it may not be worth it!  
 
Edited by Iceman14, 2020-04-01 15:57:47