My wife and I are interested in buying a 1850's two-story brick appx. 4,600 sq. ft. house. The place was remodeled in the 1970's (new electric, plumbing, insulation). Windows and roof are approximately 10 years old. Currently, the house has an electric heat pump heating/cooling system; 4 outdoor units, main furnace/ac in cellar. If purchased, we are considering a geothermal heat/cooling system. The property is located in central KY and seems to be fairly suitable for a horizontal loop system. Flat space is not a problem, possible karst topography, fertile soil, possible underground wells. Does anyone have experience with a similar situation? Do's and don'ts? Any helpful advice? Thanks!

KY has lots of rocks....choose wisely on the horizontal loop system. The slinky system might be an option.

No natural gas around?

Do you have ducting in the house?

I have geo and natural gas. It is 20 percent cheaper to run NG. We use the geo for ac in the summer when the rates are about a quarter of the normal rates. We get no discount in the winter rates anymore like we used to for geo.

Yeah I think it would be next to impossible to actually realize a positive ROI with GSHP in most places. Expensive to get and maintain. Make sure the company you hire is insured and bonded so you can successfully obtain a legal judgment given very high percentage bad installs. We have seen lots law suits and many companies become insolvent.

If the seller is willing to share the heating history on the place, use some wintertime power bills and the nameplate HSPF of the existing heat pumps against heating degree-day data for the meter reading dates to put an upper bound on the actual heat load. See:

http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/guest-blogs/out-old-new (It's a bit more complicated with heat pumps than with natural gas, but if you can get a year's worth of power bills with exact meter reading dates and kwh use I can walk you through it.)

It can be hard to do an adequate Manual-J on an 1850s antique, and the last thing you want to do with a heat pump (ground source or otherwise) is oversize it, which leads to higher up-front excessive cycling, lower comfort and lower as-used efficiency than the equipment is capable of when properly sized to the load. You'll save money up front if you hire a competent engineer to run the load numbers using aggressive assumptions (per the manual), rather than letting an HVAC or geo installer run the load numbers. There is a natural human instinct on the HVAC pro's part to be conservative, usually TOO conservative, to avoid the 5AM call from the irate shivvering customer who spent the tens of thousands of dollars to not be cold at 5AM on the coldest night of the year. But that conservative approach oversizes the system. Energy nerds whose living and reputations are made on the accuracy of their numbers are more apt to get it right. Even if it cost you another grand to get those numbers, it's going to save you that much and more on up front costs, as well as operation & maintenance. Even if you opt for a completely different solution, the room-by-room Manual-J can still be the driving document for equipment and distribution decisions.

Ground source heat pump (GSHP) pricing varies (a lot) from region to region, contractor to contractor, and every system is highly customized, with the ultimate comfort and efficiency in the hands of the designers & installers. There is real design risk. In my area (southern New England) GSHP is usually more expensive than better-class air sourced heat pumps + enough solar to more than offset any difference in annual power use due to the (usually but not always) lower efficiency of air source heat pumps.

Yeah GSHP is right name. Geothermal is GSHP scam name. Geothermal is available natural hot water on property which is great but extremely rare. GSHP is the opposite of great.

First of all, thanks for the replies. I really appreciate the feedback.

Natural gas is not an option for this neighborhood, unfortunately. I guess a tank could be installed and have gas delievered if we decided to go that route. The house has duct work ran throughout and from what I can tell, the exterior walls (as well as interior walls and ceilings) have been insulated.
I am not very educated on geothermal, but I have been told that this lot has about two foot of soil to rock, which is good for geothermal. (Please let me know if I've been misinformed.)

If we do decide to go this route, I will definitely look in to reputable installers of geothermal. My boss is very impressed with his system (heats/cools around 8,000 sq. ft. with no more than a $300/mth electric bill). Thanks for the heads up though on what to watch for.

Unfortunately the former owner is not involved since this is a foreclosure. However, I have spoke with the electric company and this past winter's highest electric bill was $615. Not a bill that I want to get used to paying. Getting 12 months worth of electric bill shouldn't be a problem.
I am an engineer myself (civil) but the last thing I want to do is to assume I know what I'm doing with it comes to this type of thing. I really appreciate the input from those experienced with this type of system.

Why don't you post on the geo forum?

I'm a new user and didn't see that. My bad.

icfbound I find your tag lines offensive.

I agree with TWhite....

Also next he is going to want us to call our refrigerators Air Source Heat Pumps..... Could you go to the ASHP and grab me a beer....

Posted By TWhite on 23 May 2018 05:07 PM
icfbound I find your tag lines offensive.

Why rise to the bait?

Trolls come in all flavors & stripes, but you don't have to bite at every bit o' chum offered. Keeping your posts on-topic is a good strategy (that is unless you actually LIKE flame-wars.)

Posted By Dana1 on 24 May 2018 06:03 PM

Posted By TWhite on 23 May 2018 05:07 PM
icfbound I find your tag lines offensive.

Why rise to the bait?

Trolls come in all flavors & stripes, but you don't have to bite at every bit o' chum offered. Keeping your posts on-topic is a good strategy (that is unless you actually LIKE flame-wars.)

I am tired of having to be silent to appease people without manners.

Really? I don’t recall the Republicans exhibiting any good manners or even civility when we had an environmentally conscious and honest President who actually cared about the middle class. I believe we still have a first amendment and we haven’t completely turned into a dictatorship just yet although that may be our future if things don’t change. At least Icfbound contributed to this post and stayed on topic which is more than you have done. I suspect you are a Trump supporter troll yourself.

ASHPs these days are nearly as good as GSHPs and they can be had for a fraction of GSHP acquisition cost. GSHPs are complex and tend to have a significant amount of design, setup and maintenance issues. There are certainly applications where they make good sense, but the average residential HVAC situation is usually not one of them.

I have a GSHP and am extremely satisfied with the performance.
My "complaint" is that we don't political or religious views in tag lines. I am not a troll.

Well, I am not political and certainly not religious...not many engineers/scientists are... I miss the days when people recognized and respected facts from fiction and tried to behave honorably. However, I think those days largely ended shortly after we elected our first black President. Clearly our country wasn’t ready for that and the Republicans and Russians took full advantage of that. People get the government they deserve... On the other hand, all the open strife has also led to more constructive conversation around some issues which is a good thing. I agree with Dana that it is just best to let people say what they will as they are fully entitled to do and not instigate a flame war over it. Just stay on topic and try to ignore the various flavors of trolls as tedious as that can be...

I suspect most everyone who has a relatively new working GSHP is extremely satisfied with the performance. The real question is whether they would have been better served with a slightly lower performance ASHP that had a much lower acquisition cost, which is why one should do a ROI analysis before just succumbing to the higher GSHP performance numbers. And I also wonder how satisfied these folks are if they are still in the same house after 10 years or so and the failure/maintenance issues begin. How long have you had your GSHP?

et tu, sailawayrb ?

I'm not willing to even tangentially touch anything related to religion, race, presidents past & present or any other crap the internet trolls feed on, even if I DO have strongly held considered opinions on subjects under those headings.

Life is too short to waste any precious time offended by the less polite, ill mannered or intentionally provocative.

Words to live by:

Never ascribe malice to that which could be explained by ignorance.

Not that malice doesn't exist, just that it's not as common as the easily-offended may think, and it's not really worth the bandwidth to discuss those things in any depth with anonymous folks on an internet forum (but in person, sure!) That goes 10x for an internet forum that has a completely different topical focus.

Posted By sailawayrb on 25 May 2018 06:03 PM
Well, I am not political and certainly not religious...not many engineers/scientists are... I miss the days when people recognized and respected facts from fiction and tried to behave honorably. However, I think those days largely ended shortly after we elected our first black President. Clearly our country wasn’t ready for that and the Republicans and Russians took full advantage of that...

Not political?  What was all that political tripe that you posted after you said that?

Not political. Statement of fact and power to truth. If you don't think so reach behind and pull your head out.

Posted By icfbound on 26 May 2018 02:31 PM
Not political. Statement of fact and power to truth. If you don't think so reach behind and pull your head out.

Why the personal attack?  Displaced anger?  Still haven't gotten over the fact that your candidate lost the election, even with the DNC attempted rigging of the election and the FBI "Insurance Policy"?  I would make sure you have a safe space in that ICF home, because I suspect you will need it for the next 6-1/2 years.

Posted By arkie6 on 27 May 2018 02:37 AM

Posted By icfbound on 26 May 2018 02:31 PM
Not political. Statement of fact and power to truth. If you don't think so reach behind and pull your head out.

Why the personal attack?  Displaced anger?  Still haven't gotten over the fact that your candidate lost the election, even with the DNC attempted rigging of the election and the FBI "Insurance Policy"?  I would make sure you have a safe space in that ICF home, because I suspect you will need it for the next 6-1/2 years.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/19/politics/five-debunked-russia-claims-donald-trump-allies/index.html

Republican: A greedy racist person who uses DECEPTION, hate, FEAR and religion to deceive weak minded people to gain political power to maintain their self-serving agenda.

So again statement of fact and power to truth. And in your case your head will just stay there until you become nonexistent. Time is on our side.