I looked at it after I posted and I decided it was 5 times too long! I was wondering if the posts went out immediately. It appears that they do.

Small "voids" you could deal with, not knowing how big is another question...... large passages or potential huge rooms/opening....... you are not going to have enough pea gravel dump trucks or whole dump trucks for that matter, to fill these voids unless they are texas sized dump trucks. You have to understand that some of these caverns are potentially huge, some may be voids like 183eej says small little nooks and crannies. But....... With the deepest cave in missouri right up the hill, you can litterly stand a full sized hot air balloon in it and still have tons of room. It is the largest entrance to a known cave in North america 204 ft high, 225 feet wide and 411 feet long and this is just one room, the cathederal room and there are many rooms and passages. Wikipedia Marvel cave to get an idea of its expanse ........ there are several more sister caves connected. Sooooo, I just want my DX without the hassles. Sorry for getting off topic but I really feel I have very limited options in my location, warrantied by manufacture and installer per their specs. I really do not want to "go splunken" and deal with a crap shoot....... to heat and cool my house, but nice thought.

In addition to locating any cavern maps, check to see if there are other nearby well logs at http://www.dnr.mo.gov/env/wrc/logmain/stone.pdf

Angled borings are another option that are becoming more common for water loops and could also be considered depending on the capability of local drillers.

-Adam
Hydrogeologist

In our area, the county health department maintains information on residential wells.

I am surprised that electric companies offer any kind of incentive in heating dominated climates for geothermal (mine sure didn't). The reason I say this is because electric demand per house goes up when geo is installed in these heating dominated climates. This is because most heating fuels are either oil or gas, electric heat is typically cost prohibitive by comparison. So, if you have an electric company that is trying to get you to use less electricity (in a heating dominated area) geo would not be the way to go.

For the homeowner, it's a different story. While I use a lot more electricity, the cost of heating my home is still 1/3 that of what I was paying in oil costs, so it is a smart decision.

Regarding the permit, look into the depth of the hole. In New York State, you need a permit for any hole drilled over 500ft, which is why most geo wells are drilled to 450 ft (like mine).

I'm not saying you should not fight the battle... if they advertise the incentive, they need to stick by it. Make sure you print that page of their website before they go and change it on you!

In Texas, the goal of the utility is to reduce peak demand for electricity in the summer.  Our summers are so blazing hot that the demand on the grid for cooling far exceeds winter time demand because so many customers use natural gas for heating in the winter.  By installing geothermal down here, utilities can reduce the amount they have to invest in generating capacity to meet the cooling demand in the summer and get better utilization of that same equipment in the winter by converting natural gas heating over to geothermal heat. 

The customers wins because both heating and cooling costs for the home goes down.  The electric utility wins because they don't have to invest as much in generating capacity to meet the summer spike in demand.  The utilities also win because of better utilization of the wind generators in west Texas.

I am trying to figure out if Missouri has any regs/laws on Utility rebates as eluded by a few post up (183eej's post).
I did hear back from the Missouri Department of Resources (DNR) and as I thought by the regs dated Aug. 2009... that all heat pumps ground source has to be installed by a lic. installer and no special permit is needed for a DX refrigerant systems, just if you want to go vertical you have to get prior approval, not a permit. They suggested I contact the Missouri DNR energy division to see what their take is on the disparity of the rebates.
I did hear back from the Springfield New-Leader news paper and they want to run an editorial sections on this issue, but I told the gentlemen to hold off until I got one more source of denial up the food chain from Associated Electric of Springfield, I want to be certain that the information supplied by the accounts manager at White River is correct and not his bad information. I do not want to be pointing fingers until I have another denial from higher up. If I get this information, I think I will email a note to the Missouri attorney Generals office to see if they can find any violations of state law. Probably not, but worth a try. Since Utilities are highly regulated in this state, I should see what the Missouri Utility commission has to say about this. I am sure I am stirring up a hornets nest here. Waiting to hear back from Mr. Parson of Earthlinked. My wife had a cow when she answered the phone this morning and it was the newspaper. I may be just chasing my tail, but nothing is going to change unless you make change happen.

Yikesl........I got this response from the the Missouri Earthlinked distributor. Which kind of leaves me in dilemma or whether to try to get this issue revisited in this state. Would have been nice to know about this prior to all this.

Mr. (..........I added soxster here...........) -
I apologize for my slow response.
Getting back into the saddle after a sort of holiday during the Holiday.
We have a peculiar issue in the State of Missouri that relates to our DX product and R.E.C. rebates.
Many years ago (probably 15 or 20 yrs.) Dresser Industries made a number of poor installations of their DX product.
They experienced many failures involving both the copper loop assemblies and the manifolds which were field-fabricated and installed. (Earthlinked components are shipped factory assembled)
As a result of those developments, Associated Electric and their electric distribution organizations (local RECs such as White River) have
excluded all DX systems from their rebate programs twenty years later (compare the design of a car twenty years old, or a television, or a heat pump).
Associated services all of Missouri.
In effect our DX technology is not eligible for rebates in Missouri.
Obviously, this represents a huge issue as it applies to our marketing efforts.
Additionally, it helps to minimize serious consideration of Earthlinked Technology to consumers wanting to consider proactive energy solutions.
No other state in the union has such a rebate policy. It's unfortunate on a number of levels.
The DX technology is more effective in it's elegant simplicity.
It is more efficient to operate when compared to the water-based ground source systems.
Basing rebate criteria on dated technology and poor installation practices does a great disservice to the consumers who are seeking effective solutions.
The R.E.C. organizations have no warranty exposure. They serve no role in the maintenance of any installed equipment.
If you are familiar with their rebate criteria, you may be aware that they require the ground source heat pump to be sized large enough to not need a back up
heat source. For example we size a ground source heat pump to meet the heat demand of an outside air temp of 0 degrees.
70 degrees inside on a day such as today with an outside temp of 0 equates to what is termed in the HVAC industry as sized to a 70 degree Delta. (70 degree differential)
It's the industry standard. It's important because in Missouri heating is a bigger load than cooling. The R.E.C. requirement for rebate requires an 80 degree Delta and NO back up heat.
HVAC professionals know that oversizing capacity of the heating aspect adversely impacts cooling comfort in Missouri.
Servicing HVAC contractors can predict that oversized HVAC equipment will too easily satisfy a thermostat setting in Missouri summers but typically not create enough air movement
to effectively remove humidity. Consumers report that such an environment creates an air comfort effect similar to living in a cave - uncomfortable humidity levels.

Essentially Mr. ..............I can not create a rebate program to include our DX.
But I would suggest to you that you are considering the most effective solution.
The 70 degree Delta load design will create a better comfort level.
And typically the oversized alternative will cost about as much as the REC rebate will pay to essentially add their arbitrary extra capacity.
We can certainly discuss this further. I can submit documentation concerning our Missouri phenomenon.

Oh brother!!!!!!! I think I need to find my cave.

Would a 2 stage system be oversized for a/c in your area? What a shame that they require oversized equipment.

I kinda like the idea of boring a hole in a cave and using it as a source of warm air for an air source HP. It'd be pretty weird for some spelunker to be crawling through and find a bore hole. Even weirder if the drill bit came through while he was crawling through. I wonder if anyone has ever drilled into one of the tourist caves?

If one of those tourist caves goes under your property it seems like you ought to be able to charge rent for the use.

As far as over sizing......I am thinking that this is for geo only but looking at their rebate forms ....a manual J of 70 is required..... not 80..... as he eluded. Also electric heat is allowed as a back up as long as it is on a separate breaker and is wired to thermostat as a secondary heat sources. Maybe the web designers of white river elect coop totally g0t this screwed up. Who knows. Sounds like there are some very very sour grapes in our state about the DX systems (have they been "hexed"?? Can the cave warlocks undue this "hex" of evil doers from previous times (probably not). I contacted the editorial board of the local news paper again this afternoon...... after the Earthlinked dealer gave me the troubling info on previous installs of years ago, to see if they are willing to get involved in undoing this DX utility bias. At least have it looked at again. Looks like expensive propane split high efficiency air source system may be in my future......this is sad.....Any body want to buy a house, potentially over a cave, that cannot have a reasonably priced geo system installed??

Got a second response from letters to local news papers on the rebate disparity issue. Not sure when they will be published.....What I really need is one of the larger Newspapers with an investigative department to see what the hell is really going on in this state as far as geothermal is concerned. I am hoping to Speak again to the Springfield News leader tomorrow to see if their paper is willing to go beyond an editorial spot on this issue. Is there truly environmental issues with DX systems or is somebody not wanting to play nice with the rest of the geothermal industry due to other reasons (financial?? Political??) This may be off topic for some who are having issues with their geo thermal systems, sorry, but I feel that at least the people in the state of Missouri needs to be aware of the apparent disarray of geo thermal in this state and the utilities coops agenda that they are pushing. I would really think that the Misssori DNR would have some issues with this.... Sorry if I am boring anybody.