...isn't that near pokepsie? theres no laughing in pokepsie.

Posted By jerkylips on 07 Jan 2011 10:45 AM

Posted By joe.ami on 05 Jan 2011 10:26 PM

Posted By jerkylips on 05 Jan 2011 02:24 PM
I have one, but it's probably going in the opposite direction that you're looking for. We had an estimate for geo in our new house. I knew that we were building a rather efficient shell so I didn't know if the upfront costs could be justified. The "economics report" that was provided showed that the break even point would be about 6 years. As I looked further into the numbers, it took some serious liberties. I think that the estimated gas costs were increased by 5%/year every year, but electric rates remained stabile. When I looked at the historic increases in our area & projected them forward, just the opposite was true - electric rates were increasing at a much higher rate than gas, and with those numbers it was something like 25 year payback.

This is not by any means a knock on geothermal - but in our case I feel that we were mislead, & I'm guessing that it's not that uncommon.

jerky,
we'd have to see what you were presented with to confirm or deny.
I think most of the pros here have suggested more than once that geo is not a fit in every application. with tax credits available there would be no possible way in my area that geo would take 25 years to pay for itself. longest one i've seen recently in calculations has been 12 years (vertical system against nat gas). Not everyone enjoys our electric rates but....25?
need more info.
If your opinion of the contributers here is that we would divide payback by 4 I'm sorry.
suggesting it is common is also unfair to the pros here.
J

Joe -

I ABSOLUTELY don't think that the contributors here would misrepresent, and you're probably right - my statement was probably too broad.  In any industry, there are going to be good & going to be bad. 

In our case, our house is not large, is really well insulated, and has lots of south-facing high solar gain windows.  Our heat loads are pretty low to begin with.  I posted something recently about our numbers, and overall gas usage last month was 5 btu/hdd/sq ft.  Taking into account gas stove, dryer, etc., I think 4 btu/hdd/sq ft is a fair estimate for heating.  That equates to probably $40/month to heat the house.  That's the reason the payback was so long in our case - because even with gas it's really low.

Again, sorry to make any generalizations about your field..

Posted By Paul Auerbach on 13 Jan 2011 02:27 AM

Posted By jerkylips on 07 Jan 2011 10:45 AM

Posted By joe.ami on 05 Jan 2011 10:26 PM

Posted By jerkylips on 05 Jan 2011 02:24 PM
I have one, but it's probably going in the opposite direction that you're looking for. We had an estimate for geo in our new house. I knew that we were building a rather efficient shell so I didn't know if the upfront costs could be justified. The "economics report" that was provided showed that the break even point would be about 6 years. As I looked further into the numbers, it took some serious liberties. I think that the estimated gas costs were increased by 5%/year every year, but electric rates remained stabile. When I looked at the historic increases in our area & projected them forward, just the opposite was true - electric rates were increasing at a much higher rate than gas, and with those numbers it was something like 25 year payback.

This is not by any means a knock on geothermal - but in our case I feel that we were mislead, & I'm guessing that it's not that uncommon.

jerky,
we'd have to see what you were presented with to confirm or deny.
I think most of the pros here have suggested more than once that geo is not a fit in every application. with tax credits available there would be no possible way in my area that geo would take 25 years to pay for itself. longest one i've seen recently in calculations has been 12 years (vertical system against nat gas). Not everyone enjoys our electric rates but....25?
need more info.
If your opinion of the contributers here is that we would divide payback by 4 I'm sorry.
suggesting it is common is also unfair to the pros here.
J

Joe -

I ABSOLUTELY don't think that the contributors here would misrepresent, and you're probably right - my statement was probably too broad.  In any industry, there are going to be good & going to be bad. 

In our case, our house is not large, is really well insulated, and has lots of south-facing high solar gain windows.  Our heat loads are pretty low to begin with.  I posted something recently about our numbers, and overall gas usage last month was 5 btu/hdd/sq ft.  Taking into account gas stove, dryer, etc., I think 4 btu/hdd/sq ft is a fair estimate for heating.  That equates to probably $40/month to heat the house.  That's the reason the payback was so long in our case - because even with gas it's really low.

Again, sorry to make any generalizations about your field..

Fellow Geo Professionals,

From Jerky's description of the quote and business case for design and installation it appears we're the company that provided the proposal and estimate.  From his presentation to the forum you would think the business case was slanted or somehow misrepresented.  If Jerky would be so kind as to let us know if Total Green is to whom he's referring and if it's us I'll post the full proposal and we can all review it for accuracy.

A BTU is a BTU.  It cost considerably more to generate a BTU from any fossil fuel than it does by geothermal.  How much more is determined by the electric rates and cost of fossil fuel at the time. 

Paul
Total Green Geothermal

Hi

Just found this.  So I guess to get back to the topic of urban myths and legends, the myth would be….

“Ground Source Heat Pumps always pay for themselves.”

Probably not the way you wanted it to go but I also agree with this.  Don’t get me wrong.  I am three years into a new heat pump myself, and so far I love it.  It is saving me $40 a month in energy compared to my old electric system (small house).  It cost me $5,000 more (after tax breaks) than a new electric, so it will take 10.4 years to pay out.  I doubt the heat pump can go 10 years without a replacement or at least some hefty repairs, but we will see.  If it wasn’t for the tax breaks, it certainly wouldn’t pay.  Which doesn’t make for a very level playing field.  I don’t like that the government is giving so much tax break just to sway people to Geo systems.  I had rather Government stayed out of the way of business and industry.

Here is another myth that goes along with my heat pump story.

“Variable speed well pumps save energy.”

My well man told me this so I let him install a 1 ½ HP vary pump in my well for the new geo system.   At first I wasn’t at all happey with my new geo system because the electric bill went up $50 per month.  After my well man changed out the vary pump to a smaller regular pump, it cut back by $90 a month, thus savings of 40 from my old system.  I was just lucky my well man traded out the pumps or the geo would have been a really bad idea.  I was also glad he gave me back $1,000 for the difference in the vary pump or it would have added two more years to the payback.  Jerkylips is right.  Read the fine print on everything.  Every industry has there way of skewing the numbers.  Also good to have reputable contractors.  My well man could have left me hanging on this, but he was a stand up guy.

Posted By Tommyboy on 15 Jan 2011 07:07 PM

Hi

Just found this.  So I guess to get back to the topic of urban myths and legends, the myth would be….

 

“Ground Source Heat Pumps always pay for themselves.”

 

Probably not the way you wanted it to go but I also agree with this.  Don’t get me wrong.  I am three years into a new heat pump myself, and so far I love it.  It is saving me $40 a month in energy compared to my old electric system (small house).  It cost me $5,000 more (after tax breaks) than a new electric, so it will take 10.4 years to pay out.  I doubt the heat pump can go 10 years without a replacement or at least some hefty repairs, but we will see.  If it wasn’t for the tax breaks, it certainly wouldn’t pay.  Which doesn’t make for a very level playing field.  I don’t like that the government is giving so much tax break just to sway people to Geo systems.  I had rather Government stayed out of the way of business and industry.

 

Here is another myth that goes along with my heat pump story.

 

“Variable speed well pumps save energy.”

 

My well man told me this so I let him install a 1 ½ HP vary pump in my well for the new geo system.   At first I wasn’t at all happey with my new geo system because the electric bill went up $50 per month.  After my well man changed out the vary pump to a smaller regular pump, it cut back by $90 a month, thus savings of 40 from my old system.  I was just lucky my well man traded out the pumps or the geo would have been a really bad idea.  I was also glad he gave me back $1,000 for the difference in the vary pump or it would have added two more years to the payback.  Jerkylips is right.  Read the fine print on everything.  Every industry has there way of skewing the numbers.  Also good to have reputable contractors.  My well man could have left me hanging on this, but he was a stand up guy.