Discussions

HI, has anyone had geothermal heating/cooling install in their home? If so do you like it?  
 
Any recommendations for someone how installs these systems? Thanks!

Had it installed by WaterFurnace in 1992.I would recommend the system,but not sure how much it would cost today.I have a 1700 square foot bungalow with a full insulated basement,my annual hydro bill is 185 per month,and i dont like a cool house.

We have it. It costs around $18,000. Our hydro bills went from $700 a month in winter to $200 a month on budget. I love that it is a constant temperature.  
 
If I could do it over again I am not sure if we would though. We are making payments forever lol (through hydro loan).  
 
With the lack of snow and extreme cold last year we started running on auxiliary heat in February/March. We had never had that happen before. Called the geothermal guy to come check furnace. Everything was fine and he said we are just using up all the heat from the ground. It's been fine since.

Love it. Cheap for heating and cooling.  
 
Temp in our house(full finished basement) is at 23 degrees all winter long. Just got my bill, it was $149.58 for electricity.  
 
Summer time it runs on 22-23, and my electric bill is about $50 average.  
 
If I were you. I would strongly look into it. It is a big difference between a furnace and geothermal. But your saving a lot every month, which can be put towards paying it off.

Thank you for the info everyone!

It's VERY expensive and the equipment is quite complex. I once figured out the payback from savings was 12-13 years. That was about ten years ago.

bigmoe said "It's VERY expensive and the equipment is quite complex. I once figured out the payback from savings was 12-13 years. That was about ten years ago. "

For those that have it....Do you also factor in the interest charged on figuring out your return? I am curious as to what the average cost on peoples bill were. The 700 down to 200 in the winter seems pretty good but what about the rest of the months? To best calculate costs would you add your electricity and gas bills together and take an average from there and then compare the same with geothermal? On average what are the monthly savings for the year are people getting?

Mine was installed at the building stage. I love it. I have a 3 story home and I have never had a bill over $90.00 and some as cheap as $27.00 in the summer. It heats and cools with no problems for me.

It's really hard to determine if the savings are there or not. We pay $200 a month on budget now. We weren't on budget before and got way behind on our bill when we were getting $700 a month bills! We also changed windows and doors at the same time.  
 
There was savings but I really don't think it was as big as they let you believe. We didn't have air conditioning before so that is a great feature but we still use $100 a month in summer.  
 
If I could do it again we would have just bought a high efficiency electric furnace. We don't have gas where we are. I like it don't get me wrong but we have another $10,000 on our loan to go!!

If you have a leaky old house the payback is better for geothermal. If you have a newer well insulated home the payback is really tough to justify. Couple that with the geothermal heat pump is expensive and has to be replaced in time also.  
 
I would recommend an air source heat pump. It basically runs the ac unit backwards to heat your house. The new ones work until -15 or so. Not much more than a new ac unit so payback is pretty quick.  
 
Capital mechanical installs the air source units.

Would check with geothermal outlets on what general maintenance you should expect.My unit was installed 24 years ago,,the blower motor was replaced about 10 years ago for about 1000$(serviced by Authorized repairmen)It was making noise this fall,so i found out how to remove the blower( i know how now) easy job,,,and got an electric repair company in brandon to look at it,,,,loose magnet,,,100$ ,,and put it back in by myself,15 minutes both ways..Again this is a unique heating AND cooling system,,,it has exspensive start up costs but seems to be little maintenance except for cleaning filter at least once a year at car wash...I would check out a high effeciency gas or electric furnace with a/c..These are more common and alot less money,,,just my opinion,,,cheers

When we built 3 years ago, I looked at Geo heat. This is supposed to be our forever home so, knowing it would take a while to pay for itself, did a pile of online reading. MB Hydro, at the time had a pamphlet out saying ON AVERAGE, 12-14 years. What that doesn't tell you is that is just on the initial investment. When reading up on the different brands that were avail at the time, one of the better brands still had a compressor failure AVERAGE at about 10 years (the compressor is the main component that generates the heat), the warrenty was good for 7. Cost of a new compressor at the time was about the same as to replace a high eff gas furnace (that also lasts about 10 yrs). When you added in the additional replacement costs (and interest) it would have been closer to 15-18 yrs to pay for itself. If you're building a new home and use "newer", more efficient building methods, good windows (the biggest heat loss of any house), take advantage any solar gain you can, you'll extend that repayment time even more.  
You also need to factor in that you MAY be able to recoup some of that cost when you sell.  
 
My biggest recommendation is to check all the numbers yourself.