Hello there -

This is our first winter with our geothermal system.  We purchased the home -- 2400 sq ft built in 1940 - last spring and installed the geo right away.  It is a 4 ton Climatemaster with 2-tank water heaters.  We spent considerable $$ upgrading our insulation in the attic with spray foam, and the house has fiberglass in the walls.  The windows are original steel casement windows, but they are in good condition and we plan to restore them in the spring. 

I guess I'm not sure what we expected, but we had heard all of these promises of saving $2,000 per year, etc. (from Climatemaster), we really thought our bills would be super low.  Instead, our electric usage has skyrocketed from 613 kwh in September, to over 3200 kwh per month for Dec, Jan and Feb.  We receive a discount from our electric provider of 50% for all usage over 600 kwh, so our bills are tolerable.  If we didn't get that electric discount, the costs would be astronomical!  We also did this to be green, so it doesn't make me feel great that we are guzzling electric at a discounted rate.  That wasn't the point of all this. 

We spent $27k on our system install and another $5k in insulation for a total of $32,000.  Uncle Sam in going to credit us back 30%, but without it, there is absolutely no way this system comes even close to a reasonable payback period.  Even with the tax credit, I am NOT convinced this system is worth the money.  I am also not convinced that taxpayer dollars are well spent on systems that are not nearly as great as advertised. 

Don't get me wrong, our monthly energy costs are manageable, but I am just not convinced it is worth the tremendous upfront costs. 

We're very happy. So far, using 9 months of data, saving $90/month on average with geothermal compared to electric for a SEER 10 air source heat pump (9 years old), 17 year old AC, and propane (with good pricing) for a 90% furnace (17 years old). This is a little better than we hoped to be.

This is your thread, but I'd be interested to know from the people that respond if their system is running properly, and if their system is under, right, or over sized. Our system is oversized and everything is working properly.

We are very happy with our geothermal with 3 Ton Geocomfort. Our house is less than 2000 SF with heating oil as our old system. Our old oil heat bills is about $2000 per year on a mild winter. The highest electric consumption in the winter we have so far this year is 1330 KW (this includes also our regular appliances) with average temperature of 32 degrees. Highest bill is about $260 (was about $120 then without geo).

ArtModerne ~

There are a few things that I would consider before being dissatisfied with my geo system if I were in your position. But first I have a few questions:

1) Where do you liive?
2) What was the heat source before you installed geo?
3) Do you have any idea what the previous fuel cost was per year? (I assume you do since you are confident that you are not saving $2K per year as promised).
4) What is the calculated heat loss of your home?

I ask because whether your system is giving you a good deal depends on these things. If you previously had a high efficiency natural gas system, you were definitely not going to save a lot per year. On the other hand, if you had an old oil burner, you should be saving quite a bit.

From the numbers you give, you have been using an additional 2600 kwhrs per month since September. I'm surprised about this since my Sept. bill is typically less than my January bill - but not knowing where you are you may have been having consistently cold weather. But using your numbers and say you spend 10 cents per kwhr, you are spending $260 dollars to heat your home. If you are paying one of the nations highest rates (20 cents), you are spending $520 per month to heat your home. If you are paying 20 cents pe kwhr, you should have never been promised a savings of $2k.

To give you a point of reference, I have a 1950 sq ft home that was built in 1940 as well. I installed extra insulation in the attic and paid for all new double paned replacement windows. Before I had geo installed I used approx 1000 gallons of fuel oil per year, we used the oil furnace for 5 years before we had the geo system installed. So, our annual cost to heat our home with oil was anywhere between $2,600 and $4,000 depending on the cost of fuel oil that year. Last year we spent approx $800 to heat our home with geo. I'm confident in this number because I paid extra to have a submeter installed on the geo system. We pay approx 13 cents per kwhr.

So, this is a long way of saying, I am happy with my huge investment. I feel pretty good that even though I'm spending a lot more in electricity, I am spending a lot less money overall. Furthermore, regarding air emissions, I know that the power plants are regulated and required to have air scrubbing controls while my home did not require that so emissions are lower (in my State at least, probably not if you are living in IN, PA or some others).

I'd be interested to see how many extra kwhrs you use for the entire season and hopefully you will see a savings.

That appears to work out to 80-85 kwh per day for heating. That suggests the system is running continuously with some aux or perhaps there are loop or duct issues such that aux is carrying most or all of the load. What does the installing contractor have to say?

To help we need some data:

Entering and leaving loop water temps
Entering and leaving air temps
Whether a manual J load calc was done and how the design was based on that

Older houses are often problematic - insulation may not be as good as hoped (although the spray foam should have helped) infiltration (air leaks) may be much worse than assumed. Windows may be particularly drafty or otherwise lose lots of heat - single pane with metal frames is about as bad as a window can be in terms of heat loss, even in "good condition"

Ductwork may be leaky or pass through cold areas.

Jury still out for us. We have had our unit for 4 Months and it has been adjusted once or twice a month to make it perform better. We had 70% propane furnace before and we added sq.ft. to the house when we added the Geo. We also added more ducting and insulation.

Pros so far for us.
The heat has never been as equal though out the house as it has been this winter.
No Gas bill. (Received notes from them asking when they should come fill though
Plenty of Hot water.
Humidity has been good
Installer has been Johnny on the spot when my questions are concerning.

Cons
Unit Ran most of Dec almost 24/7 (wrong loop pump speed) and by the end of the month it could not keep the house warm without the Aux. (since adjusted)
Temp not as constant as the old gas. (The temp will drop up to 5 degrees in the evenings and early mornings)
Had to adjust the Aux cut in outside temp by 5deg to correct temp drop. ($)
Not as quiet as when the gas furnace was new but quieter than the gas furnace when it was replaced.(19 years old Trane only one no heat service call ever)
Heat not as warm as gas (knew this ahead of time but hard to get use too. Can't dry the mitten on the register anymore ;( )
Worried loop is not up to snuff yet. Hopping compaction over the summer will help.(mostly sand and gravel)

Operational Cost
Still up in the air. Too many adjustments made this winter to make a definitive assessment. Looking for a way to figure it out with the outdoor temp variation to compare to past years.

Should have a better "Picture by the beginning of next Month" for this first winter anyway.

Good luck with yours, and update your windows as best you can and check for air infiltration.

A lot of valid points here. I don't think comparing our previous system/ costs would be fair or relevant. The house had the original, 1940 oil furnace. I'm sure it burned up a mountain of fuel. The proper comparison would have been between another new, high efficiency furnace and a geo. We probably spent $20k more on the geo that we would have on another system. Payback period is a long, long time....

Yes, we have historic windows. It is an old house, and we expect some leakage. How can Climatemaster claim on the website that you will save $2000 per year? That is pucky.

I just think someone should do a more thorough analysis of the true efficiency of geo heating. Based on our massive 100 kwh per day electric consumption, I don't think this system is as great as advertised. And I don't think the US taxpayer should be fronting that much money if the system isn't truly very efficient.

just to throw something out there, I got my geothermal bid for our new house recently & found some interesting things on it. I don't know if this is consistent with what others have seen.

The bid included a "economic analysis" of geothermal vs. a gas system. The contractor said that they did a heat loss calc based on the info provided by the builder. At the top of the doc it shows lifetime savings of $96,000 & average monthly savings of $334. A little further down, it lists 1st year savings of $522. That made me look a little closer - how can I have an average MONTHLY savings of $334 when I'm only saving $522 in a year? After digging into the numbers, they took some pretty big "liberties" to come up with the numbers they did.

First, the savings were based on geothermal compared to a 90% efficiency gas furnace. Realistically, who builds a new house & installs a 90% furnace?

Next, the 'average savings'. In looking at the year-over-year numbers, they have an assumption that the costs increase by 15% per year, every year. That is not realistic. At that rate, utility rates would double roughly every 5 years.

Looking at the first year savings ($522/year), that comes out to $43/month. Once I factored in the higher mortgage payment, most of that savings is eaten up in additional interest.

I'm not posting this to bash geothermal in any way - I think it's a great system & in the right situation would probably save someone a lot of money. For us, building a very tight, very energy efficient house, the gains are limited. The problem that I have is that this dealer is, in essence, misrepresenting the savings (in my opinion). For a system that is less than mainstream, the last thing needed is unhappy customers telling everyone they know that they aren't saving nearly what they were "promised".

ArtModerne ~ Don't take this the wrong way because I don't even own a ClimateMaster, but if you go on their website and use their savings calculator, you will find that there is not a HUGE savings when compared to a high efficiency natural gas system. To me, it doesn't look like there are any underhanded scams going on with Climatemaster or the government concerning geo.

Regarding efficiency, these things are tested. Look at numbers like COP. While many ratings are taken under ideal conditions, they do give you a sense of how the system performs. But the fact is, if you look at efficiencies, the geothermal system is without a doubt the most efficient considering energy in vs heat out. That is a technology which I don't mind my government supporting.

I did decide on a geo system after some research. If you had the option of high efficiency gas or if your electric rates are really high, then the likelyhook of you saving a ton of money was not there. I did not have the option of nat gas so geo was a good choice for me. Also, geo does give a HUGE savings when it comes to cooling - so depending on what your climate is (still don't know what your HDD's or CDD's could be) you may save quite a bit in the summer as well.

Did your installer give you ANY idea of what your monthly usage would be? I'm surprised that they didn't.

Ok, let's compare geothermal to 2 new 13 SEER air source heat pumps in our situation. These heat pumps would have cost us $10,000 (not energy star rated and no $1,500 tax credit available.) Our geothermal cost after the 30% tax credit should be $17,500. Incremental cost is $7,500 for geothermal. I'll conservatively estimate (for argument sake) that the 13 SEER heat pumps would have saved us 40% of what the geothermal system is saving us. So, our $90 monthly savings may have been $36 with a conventional system. That leaves a $54 incremental monthly savings for geothermal. $7,500 incremental unit cost / $54 incremental savings per month / 12 months per year = 11.6 year payback to go with geothermal vs air source heat pumps. Keep in mind that 11 years is approximately half the life of a geothermal unit. Savings would even be greater considering air source heat pumps may only last 15 years (on the outside in my opinion). Also, we should be able to reuse our ground loop when the system needs replacing in 20-30 years, so replacement cost should be cheaper. Electric rate increases would shorten this payback time as well. Sounds like a worth while government credit to me.

Maybe you should not apply for the credit if you feel so strongly that the government should not be providing the credit (sorry for being a little smart.) You have a great resource here with many pros and homeowners that have first hand experience with geothermal. Why not concentrate on utilizing this resource to see if these people can help you more instead of contending that geothermal is not worth it?

Hi,
I found your post.  thanks for the comments.  To me it looks like, we need to look very closely to what the dealer is saying and try to figure out what is hype.  We spent about $45,000  plus maybe $10,000 for insualtion work  foam(I tend to lose track of a couple of thousand).  If I am there are no installer issues and this is the best I will get  I would have to wonder if we made the right decision.  The only saving issue for us is a tax credt of about $21,000. 

We are looking at getting another system--not sure what--that could be tied could be tied into our geo system that would help in cold weather.

I really start to question the validity of geo complaints on here when the poster doesn't respond with information to those that are trying to help them find out what is wrong and fix it. I would think a poster with a valid complaint would welcome the help rather than just criticize the product. Leads me to believe it's just someone with an agenda rather than an actual geo owner.

I have had my geo system (Open loop cupro-nickel CM split 4-ton with DSH and using a 400 foot deep well) for a 2000 sq ft 2-level home with 2 zones in the Boston area since October 2007. It was a retrofit put in when I bought the place (it was also undergoing a major refurbishment at the same time) so the investment got folded into the mortgage. I can say without any question it has been a outstanding choice, on all dimensions: comfort, air quality and economics.

Now the home is all electric since when I replaced the previous fuel oil based heating system with cast iron radiators with the water-to-air heating and cooling system. My decision to go with a geo system was based on my intent to add central cooling anyway (the home had none before). The additional investment was about $15K over the investment for a central air system for which they had to do the ducts etc, anyway. The overall contract was for $29K with $10K for the well drilling contractor.

The system has worked well, and the bills seem very reasonable (not as low as some closed loop systems but pretty good for a 1923 home). The home wasn't that well insulated but in 2008 we brought the insulation of the entire house to R-30 using cellulose and the heating bills have certainly come down a lot since the insulation.

I have learned to manage the system better too over time. I set the t-stats to 64 in both floors which I find perfectly comfortable for me. The higher level zone usually stays about 2 degrees above the lower level zone due to the natural upward flow of heat. I usually set it to 62 at night. With this configuration, the higher level zone rarely has to come on and only the lower level goes on from time to time. I usually set the t-stat a little higher to 66 if I have some guests especially if they are staying/sleeping over - most people like it warmer than I do, I guess!


The last inspection done last week found my EWT at 47 and LWT at 42, and everything looks like the system is running fine.

In terms of my bills, my lowest bills are usually around $85 for around 480 KWh (about 15-16KWh per day) for October when I am probably not using the geothermal for heating or cooling, and the highest is around $185 for around 1100 KWh (about 35-36 KWh per day) for January/February. So I am spending around $100 additionally for around 600 KWh for heating in the worst heating month. (Yes - we pay around $0.16 in MA for electricity).

I don't have exact comparisons, but I know my neighbors say they go through around 100 gallons of fuel oil a month which would suggest around $250 a month in their worst month. So I suspect I am saving at least around 40-50% - about what I thought would be a ballpark number of what I thought I would save when I did my original calculations.

I wish I had found this forum in August 2007; I would have asked so many more important questions regarding the design choices. I knew some stuff on geo but not nearly so much as I have learned in the last month on this forum!

For example, my well driller put in a single stage pump; now based on what I read here, I could have pushed for a variable speed pump willing to make the additional investment. I don't know how my installer designed the system - did he do a Manual-J? What water flow did he plan for? But I cannot complain - he seems to have done a really good job - so far I have had absolutely no problems for 3 heating and cooling seasons. Only thing I didn't know before I committed to this was how disruptive the drilling would be to our backyard. But we fixed that ourselves at low expense.

Thanks all the great folks in this forum who really do so much to help the geo community and educate others make better-informed choices!

Sam

If you do not know the previous heating costs, how can you say the system is not saving money?
If you do know the heat load and can tell us your average cost/kw hour, we can estimate operating costs to see if something is wrong.
By the way, do you dispute the value of an investment in insulation? Was it only good advice if a geo system was installed? I ask because you appear to be criticicizing a recommendation to insulate your home.
What does your installing contractor have to say about your bills? Why is the CM website responsible for your operating cost projections? How much experience does your installing contractor have in geo.
You have also not identified how much of your electric bill is geo vs well water, hot water, perhaps electric resistance heat in baths, regular household consumption etc.
Sorry if our tone is occasionally challanging, but the information provided so far does not necessarily mean major problems. We can not tell without more information.

One of the old arguments against geo is high electric bills curiously no one mentions that these "high" bills are often half the amount of their old propane or oil bills.

Good luck,
Joe

Curt raises an interesting issue regarding old homes.

Yes, they are problematic in that they lose a lot of heat, And so the returns from investments in insulation are quite attractive. I am in 1923 home and we definitely saw reductions in our bills after we upgraded our insulation with coated cellulose for a relatively low amount - about $2000. I estimate we are saving about $500 a year.

But as an installer made the argument when I asked him, if your home is old, and if your home is not tht well insulated, it actually argues that you should use the lowest cost means which is geothermal. It would cost you more if you used oil or gas . I actually find that logic persuasive unless one can make the case that geo heat is different from the hot or cold blasts that they get sitting close to cast iron radiators or in front of hot air vents. Some may prefer that to the more even temperature one gets from a geo furnace.

Of course, as I mentioned above, I think in many old homes, the returns from investments in newer insulation methods can be very attractive.


Sam

Interesting point about an inefficient home benefiting from the lowest cost source of heat. It is true that geo generally offers the lowest OPERATING cost per btu delivered.

The flaw in the reasoning lies in the number of btus required. The incremental cost of specifying extra heat from a traditional system; gas, oil or even air source heat pump is usually minor - a few tens of thousands more btuh capacity costs a few hundred extra bucks upfront.

Geo is different - the incremental cost adder for an additional ton of capacity, a mere extra 10,000 btuh or so, generally runs to several thousand dollars, mostly in the form of an expanded loop field.

Therefore, the best strategy is to pluck as much low to medium hanging fruit as is reasonably feasible on the load side, then attack the remaining load with a right-sized (some aux strips included) geo system

Thanks to Curt for his insightful response. I understand, while the operating costs may be lower for geothermal installs, matching heating/cooling loads with equipment investments may sometimes make it not as attractive since the costs of tonnage go up in quantum amounts. Based on your comments, I understand that a good design should sometimes choose an optimal combination of a geothermal unit (maybe a little below the load) but augmented maybe with additional heat supplied with electrical strips. But can you see a situation in an old home where you would recommend not choosing a Geothermal unit as part of the solution? There is one I can think of - where your time horizon for holding the home is shorter than your payback period and where you are not sure you will see the geo investment in an appreciated home price. Are there others? Sam

Posted By samhariharan on 25 Feb 2010 10:16 AM
Thanks to Curt for his insightful response. I understand, while the operating costs may be lower for geothermal installs, matching heating/cooling loads with equipment investments may sometimes make it not as attractive since the costs of tonnage go up in quantum amounts. Based on your comments, I understand that a good design should sometimes choose an optimal combination of a geothermal unit (maybe a little below the load) but augmented maybe with additional heat supplied with electrical strips. But can you see a situation in an old home where you would recommend not choosing a Geothermal unit as part of the solution? There is one I can think of - where your time horizon for holding the home is shorter than your payback period and where you are not sure you will see the geo investment in an appreciated home price. Are there others? Sam

The other factor that we looked at is the price of natural gas vs. electric, and where we're expecting them to go in the future.  Right now (in our area, at least) electric prices are rising faster than natural gas.  If that trend continues, it makes geothermal look less attractive. 

Do I think that trend will continue?  Probably not.  BUT, in our situation we were already looking at a 10+ year payback.  If electric prices continue to rise at this rate, even for a few years, it moves that payback out longer.

The way we're looking at it, right now it makes the most sense to go with a high efficiency furnace, but if the trend reverses we will have the option to upgrade to a geothermal system down the road.

You've summed up the economy of it, but people have to make choices based on budgets and goals. When remodling an old home I would pick geo over more expensive flooring or cupboards, I would not choose it over making the home livable by move in time.
One point I make to folks (in MI) is that you will pay for geo either way. Either you purchase it up front or you pay extra on your heating bill in perpetuity.
In between is a cheap gas furnace now and geo later (perhaps financed by an equity loan once all other improvements are made).
J

Yes- absolutely.

If your time horizon for being in the home is short, skip geo. It is not yet mainstream enough where the extra investment will translate into perceived value by potential buyers.

I wish that weren't the case, but it is now. I couldn't reasonably ask you to spring for a geo system if you expect to sell in 3-5 years.

Save the money for the house you buy with intent to stay in for 10+ years.

I heat and cool my 3400 SF Florida house with geo for <$40 per month, but the construction methods employed were pricey and geared toward staying there for awhile, ideally for life.

Your Mileage May Vary