my geo  system  was installed on dec 31 i got my first electric bill yesterday , it is 429.00  higher than i normally get in the winter total of $629.00  have a 5 ton unit 6 vertical closed loops ,the upstairs is cool not even warm.  since installation i have had the techs out 6 times in a month ,thermastate not working right ,filters have had to be cleaned every week , one of them told me not enough air was going in i need more return registers , yesterday i had them come back they the rewired the thermostate ,didn't say if they were going to put in more vents ,they said they were going to think about it, they went in the basement rewired something,its still blowing cooler air not warm   this can't be how its supposed to run
 one tech told me norammly would only be about $50 DOLLARS MORE FOR ELECTRIC ,IF THE INSTALLATION WAS WRONG IN THE FIRST PLACE AND NOT CORRECTLY INSTALLED ,DOES THAT MEAN I SHOULD BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE HIGHER ELECTRIC BILL  OR THE PEOPLE THAT PUT IT IN WRONG . THEY WANT ME TO KEEP A EYE ON MY BILL AND CALL THEM IF IT DOESN'T GO DOWN NEXT MONTH

Need more info:

where are you located?
how big is your house, and how well insulated? new? old?
what is your electric rate per kWh?
is your meter read every month, or estimated?

I'm in the northeast with a big old poorly insulated house - I used about 1600kWh in January or about $200 of electricity (just the heat pump, not counting the rest of the house) and was pretty happy with that.

Hi Mary,

Sorry to hear about your problems. $429 and a cool house is not right. I have a 4.5 ton system and mine costs about $50/month.
It sounds like your emergency electric heat is on all of the time.

Can you give us more info?

Is your house a two story?

What kind of system did you have before? How much did it cost per month?

What brand heat pump? single stage, two stage

How experienced is the crew who installed it?

Did they use any of your existing equipment? blower, ducts,

How often and how long does the heat pump run?

Are the loop pumps running all of the time?

Hope we can help you get this figured out

they used most of the original ducts added some, its dual stage ,have insulated whole house under the sideing ,newer windows ,house is a 2 story 115 year old farm house in the middle of no where ( eastern central illinois ),surrounded by empty feilds in the winter no protection from the wind usually used around 2000 kwh, now used 6833 . geo company recommended the crew that installed it so i assumed they were experienced . it has a back up electric emergncy heat . they told me i wouldn't be needing it when they installed it , is the air coming out of the registers supposed to be less than luke warm? this is the first geo thermal system i have had .don't know any one else that has one, i bought this one to save money really hope it gets better

We had a case very similar to this a few months ago.  He had a two stage heat pump, but only was stage was being turned on by the thermostat.

What kind of heating system did you have prior to this?

You should be able to get 90 to 95° air out of the registers.  You can check this with a simple thermometer.

I would insist that the techs come back and verify that the second stage is working.

How many square feet is your house?  Maybe the system is just too small?

Keep in touch,  we want to help you.

What was the system it replaced? Heat pump, straight electric, oil, gas? Did your usual 2000kwh include heat (sounds really low if it did)? if you heated with oil or gas, how much did you use in a typical season? Did the installer do a heat loss calc? A 2000sq ft house with an medium-high heat loss would have used about 9000kwh if straight electric was used, hopefully a heat pump would have a COP of at least 3, so something in the ballpark of 3000kwh might be reasonable. It really depends on your house and the exact heat loss - nearly impossible to draw conclusions without knowing more details.

I had had the pleasure of paying two heating bills so far in my new house (well new to me, built in 1991) that has Water to Air Geothermal for the downstairs and air to air heat pump for the upstairs. The house is 3000 sq. ft. finished (and 3000 sq. ft. unfinished ie attic, garage, basement) space. I live in Southern New Jersey and the average tempertures have been about 40 degrees each month. My first electric bill was $290 and I was encourged by this, my 2nd and most recent bill was $380. I have been informed by this web site that my statagy of turning the heat down 10 degrees at night and during the day is flawed and that leaving the temperature the same all the time is more efficient which I have been doing. I will see next month weather this works on not. 

After reading about some people that claim there total heating/cooling bill for the year is $1500 and others that say they have $650 a month bills, I don't yet know if my system is effective as it could be or it's right in line where it should. One thing that I'm 

suspicious of is if your heating is thrown in with your general electric bill, how then do you seperate out what part of the bill is for heating and what is for lights,appliances, electronics, etc. I will be posting my next electric bill soon as I get it to see if a stable room temperature is more efficeint or not.   

   

We like to put separate meters on our geothermal installations. Then the homeowners can see proof of the operating cost of just the geothermal. They usually are more efficient than what is estimated before installation. (we typically see an average in field COP of 4.5)

Mary T, for your situation, it really sounds like the electric heat is running a lot more than it should be. Most likely a control issue. Make them fix it. Also, make sure the duct is sized large enough. What size is the main trunk supply and return?

I have a similar problem / question (not to hi-jack). I purchased this home last year (in KY - moved in February) and was so excited to have a water furnace in place (about 8 years old). My electric bills have been around $350 for December and January. I was really disappointed as I came here from a 150 yr old 2100 SF house with a heat pump and it was never this high. I am heating 3000 ft here, but I keep zone 1 at 68 and zone 2 at 66. I assume two speed fan since the air flow varies but it may be the dampers actuating. The house was built in the 70's and I have taken several steps to increase the energy efficiency. But I can't find a clear answer as to whether the system is performing up to snuff.

Thx in advance!

BTW, I have also pulled the history from the co-op and my bills aren't relatively high compared to the PO.  BUT, they we using a programmable stat (not smart recovery) so that had to be hurting the overall efficiency.  I immediately stopped using that stat.

I have a Programmable thermostat as well, but I just set the tempature for "Hold" and it stays the same for now on. What do you mean you pulled the history from the co-op? Is it possible to get utility bills for a house that were owned by previous owners? I would think that would be confidential information of the previous owners.

Same here - I just keep it on hold.

 

As for the bills, I pulled 12 months prior to purchase via the realtor.  These were meaningless as the house had been vacant.  So I called the co-op and sweet talked the lady into reviewing the bills for me.  She couldn't tell me exact numbers but she could say things like "for the month of december your bill was  bit higher but not dramatically so" not exact science here, LOL.

15 below with the wind chill here today ,what i have discovered is that i no longer have heat in several of my rooms that previously did before the geo was installed , the installer was out friday and increased the size of 1 return register as a result one room is a little warmer ,when i ask him about the heat upstairs he ignored me again ,since all the bedrooms are all upstairs i really expected them to be at least warm ,they were before with the propane heat. the fan has been running all the time, but i guess the extreme cold has a lot to do with it today. when they meassure the house they assured me a 5 ton would be big enough for the house,but it seems like only 3 rooms on the first floor are somewhat warm the rest cool or cold ,can i expect it to be warmer eventually?

How many sq. ft. is your house? Mine is 3000 sq ft and my 5 ton Geothermal unit Only heats the downstairs, and I have a seperate air to air Heat pump for the upstairs. I may changed the unit to a open loop water geothermal system in the future depending of cost and projected savings.  

Mary, this is TOO HIGH for a geothermal system.  There are any number of reasons this could be...

Ducting incorrectly sized, bank heaters running to keep up with demand, Pump operating all the time (this is a closed loop horizontal, correct?), zoning and CFM head pressure.  When they sized the system, did they do a thorough Manual J or other heat load calc?  The morons who installed this should shot because they give geo a bad name.  If you contact me directly at [email protected] I'll try to help you out.

Paul Auerbach
Total Green LLc

The Meter reader came out today to read my electric meter, so I took my own reading after him and calculated what my next bill will be. I came up with $507, apparently I don't have a backup/artillery heating source and my stratagy of turning the heat down at night and during the day is a sound one. Roughly 25% more efficient.