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engineer
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| 10/27/2008 6:46 PM |
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Funny, I too was thinking of the term "contract of adhesion" when I responded, but my contract law class in 1990 is too dim a memory for me to bring it up without substantiation.
Good catch.
I'd have been so aggravated by the one sided contract that I'd have bent over backward to avoid doing biz with that company. |
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Without data, you only have an opinion. |
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Paul Auerbach
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| 10/27/2008 8:55 PM |
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David,
Look at DX geothermal. This is the least expensive to run (electrical usage) but you won't save alot on installation. The HVAC component is very important so be certain you find acontractor experienced in the entire installation - start to finish
geo is expensive - but not as expensive as buying fossil fuel for the next 10-20 years.
Paul Auerbach
Total Green System Designer |
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joe.ami
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| 10/28/2008 8:35 AM |
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Doubling your money would be savings + product. You buy (now own) 50 K worth of product and get 50 K in savings = 100k. Those were your numbers.
I don't think you are geo hostile David, I think you are burdening the geo with elective expense. In other words, you could have a system work on the existing ducts. You don't have to pull the old boiler or propane tank......... These and the attic repair are things you'd like to do (they don't have to be done) as well as install geo. Paybacks that still fall in the 10 year range with many accessories or elective expense are unheard of with anything else. Try the same equation with windows or insulation (do you think they would pay for improved duct work?).
Sorry about my tone, but I bridle at unfair comparisons. Particularly with ductwork. Duct work done incorrectly to begin with is quite common around here and only repaired by some of us. It is labor intensive work and there fore expensive, but it is not properly assigned to the geo expense. Most folks with poorly designed duct work already complain of poor delivery to the extremeties of the house so it's not just with geo that it fails to perform.
Removal of the old boiler is elective (you commented at one point that it would be more expensive to leave it).
If you must change ducts remove the old stuff your self to save a few bucks.
RE the propane tank, I had a supplier who wanted to charge me to pick a tank up. As my garage had caved in under the snow's of '99, I pointed out that my yard was already a mess and the tank could stay.
A short while later they picked it up....no charge. |
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Just a Mechanic;
Geothermal; Savings Underfoot |
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DavidYon
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Posts:53
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| 10/28/2008 12:39 PM |
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Posted By Talking Dreams on 10/27/2008 6:23 PM
Greetings all! I am brand new here. I am a housewife and have been investigating the geothermal heat pump possibility. I just found this forum and I am riveted by the discussions I've read.
...
I am throwing the 5k out there because right now very few people know about geothermal and even among those that know about it, there is skepticism as to how much energy is actually saved over other heat/a/c systems. Ten years from now, who knows? Geothermal will either become the thing to have, or the technology may be surpassed and your system will become the "beta tape" of the heat industry!
On another note, I happen to know quite a bit about contract law. Your propane company presented you with an adhesion contract which you signed under economic distress. Let the propane company take you to small claims if they think you owe them money for the tank. First, they won't want to bother with that. Second, the court is unlikely to agree that you owe them anything.
Riveting, indeed. This site is a treasure trove, I'm really, really glad I found it.
re: $5K increased value. I think the jury is still out, but I'll acknowledge that a geo system has the potential to increase the sale price. Again, my personal experience is that I've never been faced with a buying decision that was so close as to hinge on the HVAC technology deployed. I will say that when buying this current house, central air was damned near a requirement. So who knows, maybe in ten years geo will be in that category for a statistically significant part of the home buyers out there.
Thanks for the term d'art on the propane agreement. If I get any kind of pushback I will definitely beat him over the head with it. "Adhesion contract signed under economic distress" is a very nice concise way of describing the situation.
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DavidYon
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| 10/28/2008 1:09 PM |
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Posted By joe.ami on 10/28/2008 8:35 AM
Doubling your money would be savings + product. You buy (now own) 50 K worth of product and get 50 K in savings = 100k. Those were your numbers.
I don't think you are geo hostile David, I think you are burdening the geo with elective expense. In other words, you could have a system work on the existing ducts. You don't have to pull the old boiler or propane tank......... These and the attic repair are things you'd like to do (they don't have to be done) as well as install geo. Paybacks that still fall in the 10 year range with many accessories or elective expense are unheard of with anything else. Try the same equation with windows or insulation (do you think they would pay for improved duct work?).
Sorry about my tone, but I bridle at unfair comparisons. Particularly with ductwork. Duct work done incorrectly to begin with is quite common around here and only repaired by some of us. It is labor intensive work and there fore expensive, but it is not properly assigned to the geo expense. Most folks with poorly designed duct work already complain of poor delivery to the extremeties of the house so it's not just with geo that it fails to perform.
Removal of the old boiler is elective (you commented at one point that it would be more expensive to leave it).
If you must change ducts remove the old stuff your self to save a few bucks.
RE the propane tank, I had a supplier who wanted to charge me to pick a tank up. As my garage had caved in under the snow's of '99, I pointed out that my yard was already a mess and the tank could stay.
A short while later they picked it up....no charge. I completely agree that when looking at the ROI you have to be careful to allocate the expenses properly. I don't claim to have it right, which is why I'm trying so hard.
So in the spirit of constructive discourse, I have to say that I'm having as hard a time wrapping my head around some of your logic as you are wrapping your head around mine. I'm absolutely willing to be shown the light (trying my damnedest in fact), but I haven't quite gotten there.
$50K + $50K = $100K payback? That requires two things to get to $50K---residual value and accumulated savings---and I haven't seen a strong argument for either.
Just because I now own $50K worth of equipment doesn't mean the investment will be returned when I liquidate it. It's one thing to remodel a kitchen, which is a very front-and-center improvement that directly influences the appeal and value of the house---and even that payback is often less than 100%. But getting back full value on an HVAC upgrade? Ten years later? I could be wrong, but it's a huge stretch for me.
The accumulated $50K is feasible, but as I said earlier, it requires some agressive assumptions on propane going up and electricity staying relatively stable. Again, this is for my demonstrated heating and cooling costs, which may be smaller than the typical situation you run into in your business.
Besides the ducting, I just don't see the electives here. Yes, I will get ducting separated out and rework the numbers. Yes, the propane tank is probably a non-issue, and I didn't include that anyway. Removal of the existing equipment is a hidden (but real) cost, and I don't see how that's elective. It wouldn't be elective if I were switching to oil or traditional electric heat, why is it that different just because I'm switching to geo? If I were upgrading my windows, removal of the old ones is part of the cost of investing in the new ones.
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joe.ami
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| 10/28/2008 10:31 PM |
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As far as the ten year pay back, I can only use numbers provided. As far as 6 ton geo, I can't speak to your area, but I can tell you that I just did one here (in MI) that was under 25K with required electric work. Had it been a vertical site, added cost would have been about $8,400 more. Far from 50K which is why I've been so inquisitive about how you arrived at your numbers.
Nothing offers you the same ROI as geo, so while we can argue the semantics, that fact remains the same. It pays year after year and if the duct work and ground loops are already in, you would have to reinvest very little over the years to continue to save.
The inverse and perhaps more articulate position is (again by your estimates), your existing system will cost you $5,000/yr more than geo to operate (or $50,000 over next ten). I don't have that kind of money to burn.
As you say you are already sold on geo, so go for it. I think you will be very thrilled with the results. Unfortunately I'm not an adequate wordsmith to express this better.
J |
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Just a Mechanic;
Geothermal; Savings Underfoot |
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Alex_in_FL
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Posts:75
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| 10/29/2008 4:54 PM |
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David:
After pondering this, here are my thoughts:
Calculate the ROI of the following:
1. Replacement of existing system with no ductwork or other improvements (i.e., replace existing system with GSHP, no extras).
2. Replacement of existing system including duct work
3. Replacing the duct work but no other work
Now determine a value for improved comfort based upon new duct work. You'll then need to plug that into your ROI calculation. My guess is that the actual ROI on the duct work alone is negative (i.e interest cost of the duct work exceeds all savings generated).
So your go/no-go decisions are:
A. Is the ROI on 1 enough to warrant replacing the existing system with a new GSHP?
B. Is the improved comfort and possible resale value of the house worth the cost of the duct work project?
That's pretty much the best anyone here can do for you. Good luck with your decision.
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Dana1
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Posts:648
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| 10/29/2008 6:02 PM |
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| I'm trying to get around the heat-load calculation that came up with a 6 ton compressor? For not big money you can buy a lot o' insulatin' & sealin' to bring that heat load down, reducing the necessary compressor, air handler, & duct sizes. Then figure that most load-calculations overshoot by at least 25%, and if you can tolerate letting one zone run cooler on the coldest day of the heating season yadda yadda, I'd think you could be able to cut your hardware and some installation costs down quite a bit. (6 tons would be 2x oversized for my not huge, but not super-insulated house in MA. YMMV) |
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Alex_in_FL
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| 10/29/2008 6:55 PM |
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| No heat load calc should overshoot by 25%. Now if you are talking rule of thumb then yes, very likely to overshoot by 25%. |
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Dana1
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| 10/30/2008 9:11 AM |
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Maybe no heat load calc SHOULD overshoot by 25%, but experience tells a different story. I've yet to use a heat load calculation program that used pressure-door data or wind speed for infiltration estimates (maybe they exist I haven't done a complete survey of the available tools.). Manual-J seems to consistently overshoot by 25% or MORE where ever I've applied it, then measured actual fuel consumption against degree-day data. (I don't think the boilers were actually running 25% more efficiently than advertised. :-) ) There's margin built in- count on it.
In multi-zoned systems there's also good reason to undersize by 10% or more (some say 10% per-zone up to a hard-limit of ~30%) since design-day temps occur mostly at night, when one or more of the zones is likely to be set back.
If you can peel 2 tons off the compressor requirement the total cost of the project will come down substantially. Sizing the project without SOME sort of careful study of the load is usually a recipe for the most-expensive & oversized system. (In hydronic boiler systems 2x oversizing almost seems to be the norm, and 3x not uncommon. But the upfront costs for the oversizing of those systems aren't nearly as great as in geothermal, but the operational costs go up significantly.)
Make them show you the heat calculation- push back. Merrimack NH isn't much colder than Worcester MA, and unless you're heating 5000' of space all night long every night you probably don't need anything like a 6 ton system. (Or if after calculating you actually DO need it, you may be able to peel the load back by at least 1/3 with insulation & air sealing upgrades, for the same total insulation+heating system money, and enjoy much reduced operating costs forever.) |
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tuffluckdriller
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| 10/30/2008 10:49 AM |
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One of the biggest problems I've seen in load calculations done by my dealers is that they want to give more buffer than needed. Dana 1 is right that manual J already has buffers built into it.
I've had a tough time convincing others to not put extra buffers in--and I still have been unsuccessful on some.
One dealer recently presented a heating load of 85,000 BTUh on a 3000 sq. ft. house!! He refuses to use a window's listed U-value and SHGC. He refuses to look at infiltration ever being better than average. Basically, in sizing his systems for him, I have to get his load and extrapolate what size really fits better. ACCA shows that he should have a design temp. of 8 deg. F. He sets it at 0 deg. |
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Clark Timothy (clark@pinksdx.com)
VP sales, Tuff Luck Geothermal Drilling
Geothermal Heat Pumps: Heating and Cooling that's Dirt Cheap! |
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Alex_in_FL
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| 10/30/2008 9:04 PM |
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Dana1:
A proper manual J calculation sizes the unit so that it is adequate for 97.5% of the time. That is, about 73 hours per year the unit will be undersized. This small amount of time is irrelevant as the mass of the typical house will handle excess heat for about an hour. Therefore the house should stay within 1 F (2 F at the most) 99.99% of the time with a properly sized unit. Since the unit is sized to handle the load at the 97.% percentile it will be "oversized" almost all year round.
I doubt adding door pressure and wind data estimates would improve the accuracy of a heat load calculation program. These impacts would be lost in the noise from the lack of precision of other factors such as infiltration, evenness of insulation, actual tightness of the house, duct leakage, etc. In truth, most houses have inadequate ducting so a perfect manual J calculation might result in undersizing except that this is already added into their numbers. Keep in mind that all 3 ton units do not provide precisely 36,000 BTU of cooling. Interestingly, I have never seen a study showing the variance in output of a company's unit (i.e. do 99% of the 3 ton units put out 35,800 - 36,200 BTU at design conditions or do 95% of the units provide between 35,500 and 36,500 BTU/hour?).
Tuff, using 8 additional degrees for a safety factor would definitely oversize a unit!! You are talking at least 15% oversized due to over estimating conductive heat loss alone! Compound that by the reduced efficiency at the cooler temperature and the oversizing becomes even worse!.
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engineer
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| 10/31/2008 7:48 AM |
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I agree that door pressure and wind data are inappropriate for houses, if for no other reason that at the end of the load calc day, we are forced to choose between relatively widely separated choices. Knowing a load down to within a couple percent is useless when unit capacities by model jump in ~ 20% steps (2.5 ton, 3 ton, 3.5, 4, 5, 6) Being off by a half ton or so won't break a job.
Before I'd get too into worrying with blower doors and wind data, I'd look more at occupant preferences, habits and desires such as thermostat settings, propensity to entertain large numbers of guests, presence of numerous house plant, professional kitchen appliances.
FWIW ARI has a tolerance (?5%) for individual unit variation, I wouldn't expect major variations simply because manufacturers for the most part use the same or a limited variation of compressors, blower motors, reversing valves, and TXVs. All of these are manufactured to tight tolerances.
One variation one DOES see is the difference between nominal and actual performance. Individual tonnage labels are used loosely. I don't think it is a matter of fraud - the actual data is in the performance charts, just looseness of terminology. |
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Without data, you only have an opinion. |
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Dana1
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| 10/31/2008 11:30 AM |
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I'll buy that average design day wind speed can't be counted on, but average air infiltration from all sources makes a double-digit percentage difference in the actual load, and COULD be estimated (with some safety margin) from blower door data. Manual-J assumes a rather large fudge-factor, and many homes in New England are being built much tighter than those assumption. (And older homes can be made pretty tight too, for not huge money.)
As for duct leakage & design, there are generous assumptions built into Manual-J there too. Manual-D duct design & pressure-tested-verified duct-leakage limits is mandatory now in parts (or is it all?) of California. Quelling the duct-balance & leakage issues knocks the socks off that built-in margin too. (Again, double-digit differences in real performance.)
Somewhere near the bottom line, air sealing the house & ducts is a helluva lot cheaper than buying 1-2 tons more geothermal (and it can easily make that much difference when addressing a 6 ton system.)
And if you undershoot a bit on size, and 2 half-days a year you have to let a zone run cooler, that's usually not a disaster in a residence, and can often be remedied with far lower cost auxilliary heating, or improvements to the building envelope.
Manual-J or ASRHAE heat loss analysis' can be a starting point, but whereas heating contractors prefer to err on the large side, the large-side margin is already built-in, so the system that started out 25% oversized (manual-J) quickly becomes 50% oversized by the contractor. In many or even most cases the educated customer could take a 25% reduction from Manual-J and still be comfortable. For example, if Manual-J calls for just over 5 tons for DavidYon's house the contractor immediately specs 6 just to be sure (what if 5.5 tons doesn't cut it?), but if the house & ducts are sealed & balanced to CA standards the design-day load may actually be handled by a 3.5-4 tons, in which case installing 4 or 4.5tons is still plenty of margin. But it's not the heating contractor's problem to fix the building envelope- they just don't want the call-back on a blustery night in January when its -5F out and the customer is feelin' a bit of a chill, and specifying 6 tons ensures that NEVER happens.
It's just silly to buy too much heating equipment to compensate for deficiencies in the building envelope. My cliimate is nearly identical to DavidYon's, and I can't think of ANY residential geothermal installations near me bigger than 5 tons. (I don't have a very long list to consider, not being in the geothermal biz, but I've been peeking, asking, & nosing around for couple of years to see what might make sense for MY next heating system. There are a couple with well over 3000' of living space, no McMansions, but all the houses on that list are pretty tight.) But it's DavidYon's money- he can (and should) spend it however it works best for him. I'm just saying...
...it doesn't read at first blush as if the analysis behind the quotes was really all that careful, and a sharper pencil could probably figure out what's cost effective and what isn't. (Air sealing & duct sealing is usually by far the better investment!) |
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engineer
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| 10/31/2008 10:45 PM |
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I agree with most of that. I'd still maintain that a blower door test costs too much for the limited fine tuning data it provides. Absent a huge hidden construction defect anyone who knows construction fairly well should be able to slot a house into one of three categories typical of load software: Loose, Average, or Tight.
Duct sealing is good. Far better is to put the ducts into the conditioned envelope. Then air leaks are of minimal concern and duct insulation R level becomes that of the building itself.
Such duct placement contributes substantially to how my 3000 SF Florida house is cooled with 2.5 nominal tons at a cost of $50 per month all summer |
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Without data, you only have an opinion. |
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DavidYon
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| 11/17/2008 2:39 PM |
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Posted By Talking Dreams on 10/27/2008 6:23 PM
On another note, I happen to know quite a bit about contract law. Your propane company presented you with an adhesion contract which you signed under economic distress. Let the propane company take you to small claims if they think you owe them money for the tank. First, they won't want to bother with that. Second, the court is unlikely to agree that you owe them anything.
Just had another annoying discussion with my propane guy. Told him I'd be switching over to Geo in the spring, and might be interested in buying the tank so that I'd have it for a propane generator. His position:
- Want the tank? That'll be $1900. Quote: "tanks last 80 years, they don't depreciate"
- Don't want the tank, you gotta pay us to empty it, plus remove it.
- Think that's unreasonable? Sorry chump, that's the way everybody does it.
He was absolutely implacable. Either he plays a good poker game, or they are simply used to just getting their way.
I am in a slight bit of a leverage bind in that the generator I'm looking at (17kw) really needs the high BTU's of a large tank. Otherwise I'd be just telling him to come get the tank and get outta my life (and good luck getting any money out of me). I'm so infuriated at the situation that I'm even willing to
consider punting my current generator plans.
The two problems I have are the fact that keeping the tank would be useful, and I don't know if he's bluffing on the claim that no other company is going to be willing to empty a tank owned by another company. So even if I get to the phase where it's "come and get it if you want it back", I still have 500 gallons of propane in there that are rightfully mine.
I've read and heard of stories where the customer just gives these guys a poke in the eye and they fold. Anyone here actually done that? Any useful tips on negotiating?
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jambsi
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| 11/17/2008 3:16 PM |
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I had a similar (but different) issue with my propane supplier a couple of year's back. Without going into unnecessary detail about the whole story, it had some similarities to yours.
1) I was put in a take-it-or-leave-it situation. I refused to pay their unreasonable demands & they said fine they'd put my account in collection & if I didn't like it I could take them to court. I determined that the most rational choice (court is far from quick or cheap in my jurisdiction; Ontario) was to let them put the account into collection and suffer the credit score impact.
2) I changed suppliers, using these steps.
A) I called the current supplier and told them to suspend automatic scheduled deliveries, I'd call them if/when I needed a delivery.
B) I arranged a new supplier.
C) The new supplier came in and installed their own tank & filled it. They hooked up the new tank in parallel with the old supplier's tank so that the old tank could be emptied first. When the old tank went dry (actually when it got down to 5% full) I closed the valve on the old tank, opened the valve on the new tank.
D) I called the old supplier & told them to come and get their tank off my property.
Good luck. |
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Ottawa, Ontario, Canada |
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gregj
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| 11/17/2008 4:08 PM |
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David, do what Jambsi did with one variation:
When the tank is empty don't call the supplier. Just let it sit empty and never have them refill it. If they call you and say they are going to pull it and charge you because you aren't using it then tell them no. Tell them you are still using it under the conditions of the contract and have no interest in buying it or having it removed. As long as your contract doesn't require a minimum usage you are complying with the contract. You can even chuckle and tell him that you have become very good at conservation and that you expect that tankload of propane to last 80 years. |
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DavidYon
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| 11/17/2008 4:13 PM |
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Unfortunately the "contract", if you can call it that, does specify a 600-gal yearly minimum before a $150/year tank charge kicks in.
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Ona
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| 11/18/2008 1:44 PM |
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David,
I wanted to add my 2 cents to your ROI disucussion. I just found this website so I know I'm coming in late. The way that you can really compare ROI is to get an estimate for a traditional system, include all the extras you want (i.e. split/replace ducts etc). Then compare that to your geo estimate with all the extras. Find out what the ROI is on the traditional system and compare that with your geo system.
When we replace our old furnaces with traditional furnaces we never analyze what the ROI is on those, we just accept that there is none. So, in my opinion, the best analysis is to compare the two systems side by side, replacing your current system with a newer system or a geo system. I understand that your situation is complex, but to me this is a good simplified approach.
I just had my geothermal system installed for $38K. This was only a 3 ton system but included all new ductwork because I used to have radiators. I spent money insulating so that I could go with the lower ton system. I also have a vertical well at 420 ft. I have a WaterFurnace Envision 2 stage system with electric coil backup. I live in upstate New York. I've been monitoring my electric use (I spent extra to have submeters installed) and after adding my attic insulation I am averaging 9.34 kWhrs per day for heat. Of course this doesn't help unless you equalize for outdoor temperature, so if you divide KW by heating degree days, I am using 0.58 kWhrs/heating degree day. Now take this all with a grain of salt since the system has only been operational since September and we still haven't hit our coldest time of year. Furthermore, another little data fact - before we added the attic insulation we were using ~ 0.96 kWhrs/heating degree day. So, at this point it appears that I saved 40% of my electrical cost by insulating my attic. This was the best way I could express what this costs me to help in your decision making process. I'm very interested to know what you decide. |
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Ona
just trying to make my old home better
www.geochoices.com |
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