OT Geothermal

I got pricing today on converting my propane heat and hot water over to geothermal. It was right at 12K after rebates and tax breaks for a 5 ton unit. I have a 10 year old 96% furnace.

They are going to give me a price to convert my shop from resistive heating to geothermal. We can get the incentives if we do them both at the same time.

My shop has infloor with electric boiler.

The 96% furnace is still of value. With a generator your gas furnace will operate. The resistive heat won't. The Geo thermal might.
I would do it for the economics and resale value of the home. Jim

I have not made the decision yet to proceed. I have a 20kW generator, so should be able to run the resistive if needed.

so david, what do you figure the "payback" time frame is. When will the yearly savings equal the cost of installation??gobble

They are saying 8 years payback. I am also looking at putting in 8kW of solar, that is supposed to have a 3-5 year payback.

I want to get my place paid off and reduce my utility costs before I retire in 10 years.

Retirement, figure up the overhead cost of being in your home. Yearly utilities(gas, water,sewerage, electric), garbage,telephone, internet,property taxes. It can be a startling number. Sounds like you've got a plan. gobble

The 12k was after the 30% federal tax credit? You might check with your local electric company on incentives from them. I just found out mine will give a $300 per ton rebate. Do they give you a special rate if you put it on a seperate meter? Mine goes from 0.060320 per kWh to 0.038240. In addition the state allows for a property tax exemption. Check your state energy incentives to find what is available to you. You can use your old furnace as the backup also instead of relying on the heat strips.

I miss having geothermal. We put it in a log home we built in '92. Summer A/C was almost free, cost very little to cool a 2,400 sq. ft. house. Heating wasn't too bad, electric bill was around $250 or so a month. We calculated a 7 yr. payback and hit that pretty close. At the time no natural gas available and propane was horribly expense. Standard heat pumps weren't up to the job. Have oil fired hot water heat now and the cost of oil is killing us, payed $3.80/gallon + sales tax last fill for almost 400 gallons. Luckily on a budget plan with the supplier. We put in an air to air heat pump too but is really only effective in milder weather.

I would think your generator would handle the geothermal, other than the compressor, you will probably have only a couple of circulation pumps to run and the fan to move the air in the house.

We live in north central Minnesota and have had Geo thermal(closed loop) for 12 years. We have been pleased with the results. Geo thermal was more attractive in 2000 when we installed it compared to today's prices, but I still think it is worth considering and current systems are more efficient than ours. Our house was built with Geo thermal in mind which is also helpful and we use a combination of in floor radiant and forced air heating. We have two backup heating systems (in-plenum and propane). We had three energy analysis reviews done and all came up with a 7-8 year payback. Our actual payback was closer to 5 years. We also worked with our electrical company and have what they call Dual-fuel which gives us a reduced electrical rate. if I remember correctly the rate is 5.3 cents a kwh. Keep in mind that your air conditioning costs are also significantly reduced. Do your homework and work with your elecrical supplier.

It was 26K before incentives, state rebate, federal rebate and utility rebate.

We had our closed loop geothermal put it in fall 2008. Our old condensing gas furnace was 24 years old and parts no longer available. I was afraid the way external_link talked he would put carbon tax in place if elected. We went from $150/month peak gas bills and $80 peak electric bills in winter to $140/month year around budget plan electric. That is also paying to heat a hot tub year around. Typical monthly gas bill now is $17 to run clothes dryer, stove and grill.
You probably won"t have to worry about the generator holding up the resistive heat, our system has never failed or gone to resistive backup in 4 1/2 years. Love it! We"re trying to scale down our expenses to retire in 10 years or so too. E-mail me if you have any other questions. Brian

Forgot to add ours was $16K. Tax rebates gave us $3K back.

I put geothermal in a new construction house last fall--no incentives for new consruction. This is what I learned--the difference in the cost of a geothermal and a conventional propane forced air furnace is the price of the ground conversion (in my case wells). Mine is also a 5 ton unit and there were 5 250 foot wells. cost just over $30K. I also learned the dealers try real hard to Yankee Traders (sharp) and raise the price so that they get the incentive and you pay the whole bill. So be sure you cost out replacement of your existing furnace with the same thing.
In your case this is what I would do--of course you will do what you think best. Your existing furnace isn't all that old and could serve as the back up heat source instead of electric heat strips. Then ask around for the cost of drilling wells or digging the trenches or whatever they are proposing. So now you have the cost of just the air handler component--replacing you old furnace--the cost of the heat source--drilling wells/digging trenches--and you already own the backup heat source and the duct work. I suspect replacing the furnace is around $1K. Drilling a 250 foot well around here (Washington DC to Norfolk) is about $1K per well. So I would expect you could put convert to geothermal for about $6K maybe slightly more. What's the incentive? $6K?
Just what i learned from my experience--took me a year to learn it.

Your wrong on that. It is a federal tax credit for residential. Doesn't matter if old or new provided it is your residence. Check link.
tax credits

You really need to make sure the savings will be what they say they will. I have had mine figured several times and the pay back is too long to suit me. I just have a good furnace and get by fine.