geothermal energy

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kwired said:
it depends on where you live, cost of different sources of energy, and wether ground loop is required to determine if this type of heating is for you. I live in a place that has one of the lowest electric rates in the country - in fact there are many homes here heated with electric resistance heat and usually cost less to heat than with gas or oil.
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That's all well and good, but here in New England is pretty hard to find electricity for less than 15 cents/KwHr nowadays. That makes geothermal, which requires backup heat and emergency heat, to be a lot less appealing.
 
peter d said:
That's all well and good, but here in New England is pretty hard to find electricity for less than 15 cents/KwHr nowadays. That makes geothermal, which requires backup heat and emergency heat, to be a lot less appealing.
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Yep, the job i'm on now is going with electric backup heat, that increased the service from 200a to 320a. I seriously doubt they will ever recoup the expense of the system being installed, I'm pretty sure its costing around 70k plus our price of bigger service, wiring the furnaces, etc, etc.... the list goes on....
 
stickboy1375 said:
Yep, the job i'm on now is going with electric backup heat, that increased the service from 200a to 320a. I seriously doubt they will ever recoup the expense of the system being installed, I'm pretty sure its costing around 70k plus our price of bigger service, wiring the furnaces, etc, etc.... the list goes on....
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That's funny...sounds just like the job I am on now. Electric supplemental heat, we had to bump up to a 320 as well. Plus lots of 6/2 and 6/3 NM cable.
 
peter d said:
That's funny...sounds just like the job I am on now. Electric supplemental heat, we had to bump up to a 320 as well. Plus lots of 6/2 and 6/3 NM cable.
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I have not yet seen the furnaces so I dont know the heat load yet, but I'll take some pics when the stuff gets on the job.
 
stickboy1375 said:
I have not yet seen the furnaces so I dont know the heat load yet, but I'll take some pics when the stuff gets on the job.
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The ones we are wiring is a normal hydronic air handler with an emergency heater installed aftermarket.
 
peter d said:
The ones we are wiring is a normal hydronic air handler with an emergency heater installed aftermarket.
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How are they extracting the heat from the water? Some type of compressor no? I kind of thought this was setup just like a heatpump...?
 
stickboy1375 said:
How are they extracting the heat from the water? Some type of compressor no? I kind of thought this was setup just like a heatpump...?
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Yup, it's a regular heatpump excepts it uses the water from the well for the heat transfer rather than air. Plus the heat pump equipment is mounted indoors instead of outside.
 
stickboy1375 said:
How many wells did they drill on your job?
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Only one. I think the whole system is a joke, but it's going to be a winter time rental anyway so the owners don't seem to care. Also, they think it's going to be cheap to heat the place so they aren't concerned about insulation. :roll:
 
peter d said:
Only one. I think the whole system is a joke, but it's going to be a winter time rental anyway so the owners don't seem to care. Also, they think it's going to be cheap to heat the place so they aren't concerned about insulation. :roll:
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Haha, pretty funny stuff. My job, they are going with spray foam, the owners are trying to go pretty green with this house, lots of fluorescents, etc...
 
stickboy1375 said:
Haha, pretty funny stuff. My job, they are going with spray foam, the owners are trying to go pretty green with this house, lots of fluorescents, etc...
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Yeah, you can't get much more "green" that lots of electric resistance heating, right? :roll: ;)
 
stickboy1375 said:
Yep... I really cant wait to see what they are spending a month in electricty, this whole setup seems wrong to me.
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Well with CL&P the bill will be so small you won't believe it. :roll: ;)
 
peter d said:
Yeah, you can't get much more "green" that lots of electric resistance heating, right? :roll: ;)
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I don't think any heating system can really be called Green.

If you think about it electric resistance heating might be more green then oil, gas or wood.

Sure the electricity needs to be produced but a modern power plant burns cleaner then any home systems.
 
peter d said:
Well with CL&P the bill will be so small you won't believe it. :roll: ;)
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I live in a smaller size house and my bill is over $200 a month, now granted the laundry alone in my house is a killer, but I couldn't imagine two heat pumps running all the time.
 
stickboy1375 said:
I live in a smaller size house and my bill is over $200 a month, now granted the laundry alone in my house is a killer, but I couldn't imagine two heat pumps running all the time.
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Maybe you can run your own set of lines down to Groton Public Utilities...their rates are 25% less than CL&P. ;)
 
Some towns, in bygone days, had central steam plants, and you paid your steam bill to the city. Any places still like that? Seems like a good idea, to me. Put in a really efficient central system, and distribute it around. Where I have the shop, one of the tenants in the same complex sells compressed air that way, to whoever wants to buy it. A real bonus for tenants with lots of compressed air needs but not enough capital to buy a monster compressor.
 
mdshunk said:
Some towns, in bygone days, had central steam plants, and you paid your steam bill to the city. Any places still like that? .
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University of Maine has a steam plant. The problem is the piping was put in when oil cost 10 cents/gallons. You can see where the lines run in the winter, no snow:)
 
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