Posted By TheOpticZone on 14 Mar 2013 10:14 AM
Can I get a idea of what a normal electric bill from people who have a Geo unit?  I am new to Geothermal and we just built a new house, so I have nothing to compare the bill too.  We have a Waterfurnace Synergy3D unit and we are heating a total of 4700 sq ft.  Average temperature in February was 22 degrees.

Thanks,

Jon

I think the answers on this thread show you that there is no "normal".  I live in a similar climate to yours and even in the coldest month of the year, my electric bill isn't more than $185 (0.12 /kwh electricity).  But then, my house is only 1400 sq ft. (and built in the 1840's).

Did anyone do a heat loss analysis of your house when the system was sized?  That should tell you what to expect.  I found, at least in our case, that the analysis that was done on our house was pretty close to reality.

Posted By sesmith on 16 Mar 2013 09:29 AM
You should be able to compare your geo electrical use (especially since it's on a separate meter) with the amount of gas you used in the years you previously heated with gas.  Correct the gas usage with your estimate of efficiency (since you're comparing to electricity which is close to 100%).  Covert both the gas # and the electricity # to btu, and you should get a rough idea of how your geo compares (you might hope for a 3:1 factor, at least, but you may be guessing incorrectly on the efficiency of the old gas unit)  .  You could get fancy and correct for HDD and make some guestimates on duct losses, etc between the 2 systems, but I would think that just a simple ball park would make things pretty clear one way or the other. If you're using the geo for water heating, you might want to add in water heating costs as well.

I'm also wondering why your Dec. #s are much higher than your Jan #s when Jan is usually the coldest month.  Maybe the answer was in your second chart which was tooo smaaaal for these old eyes to read.

Thanks, I will ask our contractor to provide this info. We used less kwh in January because we ran emergency heat more: we used 65 therms of gas in Jan vs 15 in December. As soon as we saw gas backup was kicking in, we switched to emergency heat (all gass, geo off). In early January we also switched to a hard-wired stat based on some erratic operation that contractor is blaming on a neighbors ham radio.

Posted By tamar on 16 Mar 2013 11:53 AM Thanks, I will ask our contractor to provide this info.

I doubt your contractor would have that info. You should easily be able to calculate it yourself using your old, and new utility bills.

Posted By sesmith on 16 Mar 2013 01:16 PM

Posted By tamar on 16 Mar 2013 11:53 AM Thanks, I will ask our contractor to provide this info.

I doubt your contractor would have that info. You should easily be able to calculate it yourself using your old, and new utility bills.

Unfortunately, our contractor DOES have this info, as there have been almost constant tweeks, replaced parts, rewiring, and service calls since day 1. We are currently heating with all gas, as the SpacePak blower motor was deemed bad on Feb 20. This past summer, during our 100 degree heat wave we had no air conditioning or fan for 3 weeks while waiting for replacement tvx. For a while contractor kept stating that it was too soon to judge whether the system will save us money since there was always something wrong. Now we no longer hear that.... However, even with no technical skills it sounds like I might be able to handle this one.

"This past summer, during our 100 degree heat wave we had no air conditioning or fan for 3 weeks while waiting for replacement tvx. "

TXV's are readily available and fairly universal......perhaps less can be said about your contractor.