I am building a house for myself in the Denver area and after reading a lot of posts and doing my own research I have decided the ECR (Earthlinked) DX system is probably the way to go for me. I have a quote from an installer for $56,000.  This amount is much higher than I would have expected and breaks my budget.  I do plan on getting additional quotes from other installers including other brands of ground source heat pumps, but I'd like to bounce the specs for the house and the system off you guys to hear if this is what I should expect for a well installed system.

The house is a 1825 ft ranch with a 1825 ft walkout basement and about 200 ft bonus area on the second floor.  I specified to include all of this area to be temperature controlled.  This house is to have the following insulation, R-29 on the walls and R-49 in the attic, R10 around the foundation underground.  There are a decent amount of windows though. It is on about 40 acres, so I thought a horizontal loop would be the way to go to save some money since space isn't an issue.

The quoted system is a 6 ton ECR geothermal system with high velocity heating/cooling ducts with an air handler (no radiant heat). It also includes domestic hot water heating.  The loop is a horizontal system to be installed by the contractor (however excavation is not included in the bid).  The contractor told me I could go with a smaller system (like a 4-ton), but it would only save me about $1500 and would increase the balance of the system to require an electric heating element to be activated much sooner.

Based on what I've been reading from posts on this board, I would have expected this system to cost close to $30,000.  Should I expect to have to pay the quoted amount for the system or is this contractor's profit margin just big?  I appreciate any suggestions or information you can provide on the direction I should go on this project.  If you know of any good system installers who work at a fair price in the Denver area, I'd like to hear about them too.  Thank you,

Russ

The first place I notice that causes a high price is the high velocity duct system. That is probably adding an extra $5,000-$10,000 to the price.

Next is the domestic hot water. The capacity of the heat pump has to be increased to make up for the domestic water demand. Most likely, the 4 ton unit would be fine if you didn't have the water included. So, with the domestic water adder (increasing the tonnage needed, adding the water module and other parts) it's probably adding $5,000-$8,000, too.

My point, basically, is that your system includes more than just the basic geothermal system.

By the way, good choice on EarthLinked DX.

Get several more quotes including from closed loop systems like climatemaster, waterfurnace. In my case, the DX contractor spec'd an 11 ton system for my 4672 sq ft house, with 2400 walk out basement, all built with nudura ICF. He didn't give me a manual j calc yet doubled the tonnage. The climatemaster installer gave me a 20 page manual j calc properly accounting for the R values of my walls, windows, attic which walls were high gain solar, air infiltration, etc. He sized a 5.5 ton system, incl hot water assist and air handler for half the price.
 I don't care how efficient a DX system is you're not going to get much energy savings with a grossly oversized unit.

If it's an EarthLinked Dealer, he dang well better be doing an accurate load calc., and then he'd better be sizing to that calc. If not, he should be cut off from being a dealer immediately.

Thank you for the suggestions and comments.  I am now in the process of getting more quotes on geothermal systems.  Does anyone have any specific recamendations for installers in the Denver area?  The people I've talked to seem to have little experience with the systems.  The company which did this quote seemed to have the most experience.

I had an independent consultant do the manual D & J calculations which I gave the installer.  The consultant verbally told me I needed a 3.5 ton system, however I don't see that specifically on the printouts.  I assume that is derived off of the total heating (52,000 Btuh) and the total cooling (45,865 Btuh) figures from the form.  The installer told me the 6 ton unit would allow the geothermal system to function without the electrical heating element down to -1 degrees.  I asked about getting a smaller unit (such as a 4 ton) and he said it would only cost about $1500 less and raise the design temperature to over 10 degrees.

I'll definitely look into getting quotes for a more standard system without the high velocity ducting and water heating system.

Thanks,

Russ

Check the IGSHPA website for accredited installers in your area. If there are any home building shows in your city, check them out I found some more local geo installers there in my case.

Russ,

High speed velocity ducting may not be worth the extra cost for a new home that has space for regular size ducting.  Water heating can be energy saving if you have much of a cooling season.  Look at previous posts about preheat tanks for water heating.

I seriously question your load calculation numbers. If you have an R-29 wall, and R-49 ceiling, it shouldn't be that high, unless you're having walls and walls of poor quality glass.

Email me your plan. I'll get it figured out.

I'd need answers to these questions: What kind of insulation is it? What's the U-value and SHGC of the window you're using? Which direction is north on the plan? How tall are the ceilings?

Can't imagine using a high velocity system on anything but a highly constrained remodel / retrofit. Pushing air thru itty-bitty lines has gotta cause a big efficiency hit, not to mention the specialzed blower needed to make that happen.

Don't oversize to meet a low winter design day temperature if you have any interest in economical cooling with effective dehumidification.

The high velocity systems actually can be great on efficiency, too. The biggest problem I've seen with them is the high price. Next is that it's tough to make sure a contractor installs it following ALL manufacturer recommendations in order to minimize sound.

When installed properly, though, they are very quiet, comfortable, and efficient, too.

On the oversizing and cooling dehumidification... In Utah, we're an arid state. We seldom need dehumidification. Even grossly oversized units will de-humidify what's needed. By lots of models, we should be introducing humidity into our systems, even in the cooling mode (though I would highly recommend against that). Anyway, in more humid climates, you're completely correct. Dehumidification is a big point not to miss.

Arid climate - point taken. Go ahead and plan for a reasonable winter design temp.

Humidification in summer out west? Easily done. You get 1000 Btu of cooling for every pint of water evaporated. We here in the steamy south give up 1000 Btu of sensible cooling for every pint we wring out of our muggy air. Are y'all still mounting swamp coolers on roofs out there or has that gone by the wayside? If a good supply of not-to-hard water is available, a swamp cooler might be worth a look.

Years ago, on my first road trip out west, June of 96, I think it was - we stopped for lunch at a hole-in-the-wall diner in the middle of Nebraska. I happened to pick a table fairly near what appeared to be a humongous window AC unit - the box was about the size one would expect on a 20-24 KBtuh window unit.

The unit was making plenty of fairly cool air, though not, upon reflection, the icy blast typically associated with big window units. That, and it was fairly quiet. Perplexed, I saw that it had only a skinny little 2 pring plug and an 18 guage lamp type cord. I actually went outside in search of the big 4 wire 10-12 guage 240 cord and  plug, figuring it might be plugged in outside. No dice.

I finally realized it was a swamp cooler, and that the only power needed was for its blower...

There still are people in CO using swamp coolers on new houses, and usually older houses in Ut still use them. But no new house here in Ut uses swamp coolers. I don't understand why CO uses them. They just don't cut it on so many days.

I have read that increased population and over-irrigation, swimming pools, etc are humidifying formerly arid southwest cities to the point where swamp coolers don't work as well. I've seen threads in other forums discussing ways of swamp cooling in some conditions and operating conventional compressor-based systems when required - nothing beats a swamp cooler for economy of opration under the right conditions - probably why they remain popular, despite disadvantages.