I don't understand how a well driller can give a firm quote. I had to have a well drilled here several years ago and everyone of them quoted by the ft. They don't know how far down it might take to hit water.

Not that I know anything about wells, on the Contract it does say up to 400 foot included, unless I am reading this wrong?

I guess I should have said start with an accurate load.

I contacted a few well driller/geothermal installers to setup times for them to give me quotes, hopefully one of them does an accurate load.  I don't even know who does load calculations so I posted on Craigslist asking for that but no responses yet, Apparently I don't know how to use the software correctly.

Posted By oceanstatetuning on 15 Jan 2014 10:11 AM
I contacted a few well driller/geothermal installers to setup times for them to give me quotes, hopefully one of them does an accurate load.  I don't even know who does load calculations so I posted on Craigslist asking for that but no responses yet, Apparently I don't know how to use the software correctly.

Some of the freeware is not particularly accurate. Not a big deal as Dana points out if you are running a gas furnace, but when sizing refrigeration (AC, ASHP or geo) the incremental jumps require much more infrastructure (larger ducts, larger electric circuits, more ground loops).....

Posted By oceanstatetuning on 15 Jan 2014 10:11 AM
I contacted a few well driller/geothermal installers to setup times for them to give me quotes, hopefully one of them does an accurate load.  I don't even know who does load calculations so I posted on Craigslist asking for that but no responses yet, Apparently I don't know how to use the software correctly.

Be prepared to pay for it, but get a full assessment including blower door testing (and air sealing remediation) from somebody like Energy Monster in Worcester, MA (primarily a weatherization company) or Advanced Energy Concepts in Auburn, MA (who also does HVAC design, including solar & geothermal) before even bothering with getting quotes from other geothermal installers. (FWIW: Advanced Energy oversized the equipment by ~50% on their quotes on a deep energy retrofit project I was involved with, but are reasonably competent in most aspects. Their quote came in before the final R-values and air leakage was known- it came in under 500cfm/50 on the blower door tests, which is about 75% lower than the leakage of a pretty-tight house that size. Their Manual-J likely oversized it by at least 35-40% based on just the infiltration assumptions, and was above the next sizing step down.)

The first couple of grand you spend on air sealing & insulation upgrades will pay back 5x in reduced system sizing on a geothermal system.

Any geo installer who doesn't even offer to do a Manual-J (even a sloppy one), isn't worth contracting with.  But having a third party heat load calc from a competent practitioners to start with helps.  When going with geothermal every installation is a custom design- your ultimate efficiency is in the hands of the designer, and if the designers don't even bother to calculate the load up front, it doesn't bode well for how careful they are going to be on the rest of the design.  In this climate it's not uncommon to see geo-systems underperforming bast-of-class mini-splits on annualized efficiency. 

A right-sized Mitsubishi MSZ-FExxNA or Fujitsu AOU-xxRLS2-H will see a seasonal average COP a hair over 3.0 in our climate, and will hit the high-2s even in northern VT & ME.  (VT is even subsidizing these model series for homes heated with with oil or propane, to the tune of $750 for the first unit, $500 for a second, but only the -H version of the RLS2, since the 99% outside design temps in N-VT are below -5F.)  A pair of -FE18s would likely more than cover YOUR load, at an all-in turnkey cost of under $9K (or half that if you go with a mostly DIY installation.)  But right-sizing it would be better than blindly specifying a model.  A geo system of comparable output would likely run $25-35K, and if you get a competent designer it'll use about 1/3 less power than a mini-split based approach.  For the difference in cash you could swap out your U0.35 windows for U0.18 triple panes on the rooms you care about and air-seal /spot-insulate the place to reduce room-to-room temperature difference, and run with a pair of higher-output 1-tons  like the -12RLS-H, (one per floor), achieving the same or better power-use reduction.  But get the room-by-room Manual-J before trotting down either path.

FWIW,  I recently cobbled up this table recently for developers of a large multi-use building complex in the Boston area, that will have on the order of 100 new apartments built up in the next year or so. (Among the alternate solutions  they were considering included through-wall AC + gas-fired hot water hydro-air):

The +5F output of a few better-class mini-splits
	Mitsubishi Hyper Heating- see http://www.mitsubishipro.com/media/226460/h2i_bro.pdf  and  http://www.mitsubishipro.com/en/professional/products/heat-pump-systems/m--p-single-zone/m-series-heat-pump-systems/msz-femuz-fe
10900	MSZ/MUZ- FE09NA
12500	MSZ/MUZ- FE12NA
21600	MSZ/MUZ- FE18NA
	Fujitsu Halcyon XLTH. See: http://smartgreenbuild.com/pdf/Fujitsu-RLS2H.pdf
15000	AOU/ASU 9RLS2H    (about 9000BTU/hr @ -15F)
17000	AOU/ASU 12RLS2H   (about 12000BTU/hr @ -15F)
18000	AOU/ASU 15RLS2H   (about 15000BTU/hr @ -15F)

Dana, you are just a walking compendium of knowledge!  Wish I was half as smart as you!  Thank you!

Best regards,

Bill

This seemed to be a very good program... http://www.hvaccomputer.com/ It's only $50 for home use. The hardest part is trying to decide how tight your house is... that's a real guess unless you get a blower test. Between the above program and my actual oil usage is how I determined what size system I needed.

Select "average" unless you are in a truly old farm house

Posted By Bill Neukranz on 15 Jan 2014 02:30 PM
Dana, you are just a walking compendium of knowledge!  Wish I was half as smart as you!  Thank you!

Best regards,

Bill

Hell, even I wish I was half as smart as me!   

The symptoms of having "...a mind like steel garbage-can..." isn't exactly the same thing as "smart".

BTW: What geo (competently done & otherwise) actually costs in a state very near the Ocean State. It's pretty pricey, even after tax credits and other incentives.  Oversizing it would be a crime.

You don't have to gut your house to reduce the heat load signficantly with air-sealing and spot-insulating, and every BTU/hr reduction counts.

Hmmmm Dana, that is pricey, but it is also a study last updated in 2012 that disclaims it's own figures.

The disclaimer was: "These averages can be somewhat misleading when trying to determine the expected cost of a particular project, because site conditions, equipment selection and location all have a significant impact on costs."

Sure, YMMV.

It wasn't a study- it was a rebate program, a rebate program that IIRC has not been re-funded due to the low benefit the subsidy provided to the ratepayers/tax payers (that, and the objection that it was a reverse Robin Hood subsidy for the already extremely well-off.) It's politically squishy in a state like CT, to say the least, but the average $/ton costs are consistent with (non-tabulated uncompiled) quotes seen here in MA.

Were it an actual study they would have defined the 1-sigma points on the $/ton averages, and measured the average system performance etc., which SFAIK has not been done. A $9K/ton average means that some were significantly MORE expensive, if others were significantly less.

And while you don't save $9K/ton for every ton of load reduction, less load is still more (more comfort, more energy use savings, more mechanicals cost saving), and the house in question has PLENTY of treatable load reduction possibilities. Going with a lowball bid for an oversized system by a contractor who doesn't even run the Manual-J is not likely to be the optimal expenditure of funds. Get the load down to something manageable, and use a contractor who calculates and understands the real loads. (I've provided links to competent contractors located less than 40 miles from OceanState's house for both the weatherization and the geo.)

"And while you don't save $9K/ton for every ton of load reduction, less load is still more".

I'm with you there.

we continue to install systems for an average of $6300/ton in 2013, in a high price state like New York.

We are a little lower than that even, but I don't know what math they are using. Most folks pick DSH and buffer tank as well as WiFi thermostats and often new water heaters which could add quite a bit per ton on a resi job (if not seperated from the "cost of geo".
Even with vertical bores and those other accessories included I wouldn't hit 9K/ton on a 3 ton.

$6300/ton is with DSH, 2 tanks (including buffer tank), dual stage Waterfurnace or Bosch, touchscreen thermostat. Vertical bores add $1200/ton, other areas of the country may vary.

Your doing closed loop bores for $1200/ton?

Posted By Calladrilling on 21 Jan 2014 10:10 PM
Your doing closed loop bores for $1200/ton?

Dan we had this before. Vertical loops ADD $1200/ton, so that is $1200/ton above the per ton price of a horizontal loopfield….

I'm sorry, I do remember that conversation now. That makes more sense now.