Sorry Eric  I did miss that.  That said the tank heaters will add 120-150$ a month.  I am not saying that there is not other problems.  Just that is a very large part of the bill.  Also all the thought put into saving money on heating, I think that there is a missed opportunity to use some of the raident to get rid for this cost.  Heck it costs more to heat the tanks then it does to heat my home(3000sqf natural gas froced air) Next house passive solar, radient floors and no heater for the animals.  Should save me 3-400$ a month.

Thank you everyone for the help/advice!  It's so nice to have people who understand and to bounce our frustrations off and to get real help.  We have some ideas of where to go from here:

I think the livestock water heater may be one answer to an energy hog.  The tank is a rubbermaid 150gal tank with a 'plug' heater installed that runs ALL THE TIME!  This heater draws 1500 W and does not have a thermostat to turn it off/on.  We have turned it OFF temporarily!  We have Scottish Highlanders that are actually quite tough so they probably won't mind.  We will look for other options to keep the water from freezing, but may have to turn the heater on&off until winter is over.

We are planning on contacting our geo dealer (eagle Mtn) and have them review our system again, install a power meter on the system, and  help us to better understand 'reset control' as mentioned earlier in this thread. 

We have further plans to insulate/weatherize our house.  One major project will be filling the 'void' under the sod roof with blown cellulose to creat a closed 'sandwich' (BTW, is there another thread anyone knows of, or should we start one, regarding sod roofs?).  We have many cans of pur-fil spray foam and we're not afraid to use them!

It was mentioned that the propane water heater with it's fan-exhaust may be a source of heat removal from the house.  Does anyone have any suggestions on alternatives?

Also, I forgot to mention this, but the geothermal unit is NOT constantly running, even on very cold days.

THANKS TO ALL
Christine & Bill 



   

Christine & Bill,

I would highly recommend checking out the Marathon Water Heaters .  I have the 85 gallon version that is hooked to my geothermal unit's desuperheater.  They are Seamless blow molded polybutene tank with no anode rod, so NEVER any rotten egg smell.  It is one of the most energy efficient water heater available.  Not to mention the life time warranty. 

Regards,

Well, I think that's most of the mystery solved - taking $120/month off those bills makes them a lot more reasonable. Still somewhat higher than I'd expect around here for a new house of that size, but taking into account all the insulation issues, well within the realm of possibility.

I think you mentioned before that you didn't run the tank heater the first year - did the installation of the tank heater correspond at all in timing with the insulation work you did? You may have actually cut your heat loss by 25% or so, but it was counteracted by the heater.

Good idea to talk to Eagle Mtn about a reset control and power meter. They know what they're doing and should know best what will work with your system. As I said, if your buffer tank doesn't have a reset control now, there's a good change you could save 20% with that alone. Email me offline if you'd like me to run some calculations for you - I did a lot of system simulation when I was designing mine, and I hit the energy use pretty close. I'd be interested to try another system and see if it was a fluke or not! My email is braman at braymo dot net, I'm not sure if the email feature through this site works.

EDIT: I like Carlo's idea of using the heat pump to warm your tank - you'd need a heat exchanger and antifreeze, but I bet it would pay for itself pretty quickly. You could probably just wrap PEX around the outside of the tank (and then insulation around that), so there would be little possibility of contamination, and you could use a food-grade antifreeze for additional safety. Also in the short term, what about insulating the tank as he did? If you do that and add a thermostat to the heater it would probably help a lot.

"On the exterior walls that form the basement, there is 2" rigid insulation that starts about 3 ft. below grade and goes down to the bottom of the foundaton."

(Sorry I don't know how to make the cute little quote box :) )

Maybe things are a lot different in New York than in Kansas, but I think that when we only partially insulate foundation walls, we leave the uninsulated area at the bottom, and insulate from grade to about 4 feet down.  The theory being that the ground near the surface will get a lot colder in the winter and a lot hotter in the summer, than the deep earth.

So the foundation ends up being insulated from changes caused by weather/climate, and the deep uninsulated earth serves as a thermal mass.  Mostly though, we insulate the whole thing, and it seems like that would be far more sensible in a colder climate than it is here.

I'm sorry you guys have taken such a beating on your house.  If it were me, I would lawyer up and go after these scoundrels.



Paul

Has anybody measured the amperage draw on the heat pump during it's full cycle?  is the unit short cycling or does it have a long run time?  What is the differential on the aquastat?  Why is the buffer tank temperature 118 to 120 degree's for in floor radiant? Much hotter than required.

Econar GW670 series heat pumps have a high pressure drop across their load side heat exchanger and require two pumps in series to overcome that pressure drop. Econar used to recommend two Grundfos UP26-99F pumps, most recently they upgraded that to two UP26-116F pumps.  Are two pumps installed on the hydronic side of the unit?  Are P/T Ports installed ?  What is the pressure drop?

The point is; It is easy to determine if the heat pump is causing the excessive energy usage by verifying it's performance. If the performance is within spec, then a close look at run time would be appropriate.  If the run time is excessive, then the complete installation should be reviewed to ensure the energy is going where it is supposed go.

This is not rocket science... a volt meter, ampmeter, pressure gauge and thermometer along with common sense will surely get to the root of the problem.

                   I truly wish you success.