Is Geothermal Heating & Cooling Worth It?

Is Geothermal Heating & Cooling Worth It? It's been 4 years since I installed my DIY Geothermal System, and with some experience with it, I can firmly say it was worth every penny. It may not be the perfect system for every application, but it is perfect for mine. My average monthly electric bill is only $100 per month for a 6000 square foot house. I think that speaks volumes itself.

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[GabrielSBarbaraS]

As I got older and wiser, I found out the best way to improve efficiency was to move from our 5, 700 sf home to our present 1700 sf home. Now we have a farm with horses, 3000 sf of external shop/ horse barn and a much more happy lifestyle from when what we had when we were chasing our tail . With solar, our electric bill is about 30 to 40 bucks per month with 2 stage air source heat pump. Electric bill with the older home was about $250 per month. Thanks for posting and good luck with your interesting builds Garrett.

[russhills]

Built a ground source heat pump in 1976 in Western Washington state. It performed well at one third cost of a Carrier heat pump next door. Dug down 4ft. 4 loops on 3 trenches for 3 ton unit. Used a r12 pump down system. Never lacked heating and cooling.

[bobwarfel]

I put in the original Geothermal heat pump in 1986 for our all electric house because we had no gas at our location. The cost was twice as much as a system that would use propane. The heat pump was very efficient, we had low electric bills for heating and cooling. After 10 years we needed a part to fix the Geothermal heat pump unit but the company went out of business. We had to buy another system and spent over $15, 000, this lasted for around 15 years until the fluid in the loop ate out the inside of the unit. Then we had to replace the liquid in the loop and another unit which cost over $26, 000. I will not use another Geothermal heat pump system again. In 30 years I spent over $48, 000 on units, I did not get that back in savings. I am going with Mini-splits now.

[not-fishing]

2004 I put in a well-type Geothermal in Folsom California. I designed and built my house as a simple carpenter's house. As a Carpenter I knew to go heavy on the insulation with 2x6 exterior walls and 2" rigid foam over that. The doors and windows are highly insulative as well as the clay tile roof. I put in 4 each 250 foot wells for a 2200 sf house. We had to rock drill but hit water at 85 feet. My electricity bill averages $150 per month without solar with high California electrical bills. My neighbors houses, which are 1, 000 sf bigger, run $750 to $1, 000 per month.
If I had to do it over again I'd also use ICF exterior walls (I've done a large ICF project now) but would still keep the house simple and use the most insulative doors and windows in reason.
Funny how most people don't understand that to really be Green you need to design you're house to Conserve, heat, energy and materials.
In 18 years my repair bills have been $1, 000 for an HVAC Tech to make two trips and replace one of my "pond pumps" that circulates the water.

[pineychristian]

Great install. I'm am hvac tech. I always loved installing Geothermal. I would recommend a outdoor split geothermal system if possible. It keeps the noise outside and they are actually much quite than a all in one package geothermal system. No noise to worry about cause it's just a very low hum..

[tomkelly]

Wow, thanks for the update! yeah as a carpenter, I keep thinking that we ought to install geothermal coils every time we backfill a basement. Same with septic systems, just bury some loops under the weeping bed and the tank. Also waterfront places don't need loops, just intake pipes going close to the bottom of the water body to get the naturally cool in summer and warmer in winter temps down there. I live in Canada so air source heat pumps need to be backed up because they stop working at -18 C when we need it the most!

[anguscampbell]

A far better option for you would be a system that extracts heat from waste grey water from showers, clothes washing and dishwashing. It would be stored temporarily in a large underground tank with the required piping to extract the heat in conjunction and tied into an Air to Air heat pump. Any excess water would flow to the sewage system but some could also be recycled back into the toilets for flushing reducing both the intake on wells or other sources of water as well as reducing the outflow on sewage and this is especially important if you have a septic tank. The storage tank could also be used to store waste heat extracted from PV Panels for use later.

[dubCanuck]

Glad I stumbled across your videos. I didn't have a lot of good info on geothermal, but now on my upcoming build (on an acreage, using hydronic in-floor heating), I'll definitely be planning a geothermal setup. And conveniently, my new build will be of similar size to yours, so your series has been just perfect for me. Thanks!

[tazman]

Please keep these updates coming. Your videos have inspired my family and my parents to sell our houses and do this ourselves. We have purchased land and just starting the steps to build our dream home. I'm using ICF and geothermal thanks greatly to you sharing your experience. These updates on anything you did allows me to make any adjustments based on things i might hear. I would like to hear more about the hot water tank being heated by geothermal. Keep up these great videos and perfect format.

[gadsdonflag]

My geothermal system in Western Oregon works great and it's over 20 years old. It's also connected to my hot water heater.
I only have it serviced every other year.

[thomasjeffersoncry]

I put my Geo thermal in 11 years ago. love it.

[earlyriser]

about to build a new house on a farm with plenty of land...and we have been discussing your system as an option

[KillerNetDog]

I did the same about ten years ago, I put it into an old leaky farmhouse on 11 acres, put about 2000' of loop under the pasture, and it's been great. If it hadn't I would have set iy up to use my well water from my current 450' well and and put the return over into the pond. The whole thing unit as well as installing it myself cost about $6, 000. Only problem I've had with it is the condensation drain plugging up after 5-6 years which is common for all types of systems around here.

[serversurfer]

Regarding your farmhouse example, I still think a ground loop heat pump is the way to go. With "no" insulation, any system you install is gonna run continuously, so it may as well be as efficient as possible, and nothing that I'm aware of can beat ground loop. More efficient still would be a coat of spray foam in the cavities of the exterior walls though. That can be done after the tax credit though. 🤓👍

[yt]

Although I am reading this one year after it was put on YouTube, there is a comment that I'd like to make regarding propane. He said that the price was volatile during certain times of the year and he is absolutely correct. If you have a propane tank that belongs to the propane supplier, you are paying the highest price for propane particularly in the winter months, astronomically high per gallon. I got an education on propane purchasing when I was a Director at a 501 C nonprofit organization. Subsequently at the same time I was moving to a home that had electric heat and I wanted to change it to propane. Here is what is necessary to get the lowest price and it is unbelievably cost saving. You must own your own propane tanks. I recommend you buy two 1000 gallon either below ground or above ground propane tanks that you own. Each tank will hold 85% of 1000 gallons. in my situation one 850 gallons would handle one winter season. I didn't need to buy any additional propane during the winter. The only time that I bought propane was in mid June or early July when the price was lowest. Because you own your own tanks you contact all of the suppliers in your area and give them the information that you own your own tanks and you're interested in filling one or more within the next week or two. You will be stunned at how low the price is comparatively. If you can't handle buying one or two propane tanks, I recommend you don't attempt to heat your home with propane. A good thing to remember is that electric heat is 100% efficient. If you insulate properly and I mean properly that is also a very good option.

[guywilliams]

Thank you for the update I watch the very first one. Plan on putting one in my little farm in Tennessee. I'm going to go for a very large field I have a greenhouse I want to cool and heat and a few other projects on the property that I want to use it for two.

[PaganWizard]

You can further your efforts to quiet the noise heard in your son's bedroom either by the use of spray foam insulation, or a much more DIY friendlier installation of some rock wool. Rock wool installs just as easy as the pink stuff, it's fire proof, there is no need to worry about fiberglass fibers, and there is the sound deadening aspect of it as well.

[chrismaxny]

We have a 1700sq ft home built in 1987 and had a geothermal system installed in September 2021. From Nov 21 to May 22 it cost an average of $175.57 per month. The system is closed loop with two wells each 288 ft deep and a 5 ton Geo Unit. We live in the Hudson Valley where temps can range from -5F to 95F depending on the season. In Jan and Feb we used about 100 gallons of heating oil each month with our old system. That would translate to about $350 - $500 depending on the price of oil in addition to the electric the furnace used. Our electric is about .23.5 per kwh. Love the Geothermal!

[Stuart]

Helpful tips on installing this type of system. Thank you

[kino_cinante]

Rockwool safe and sound would way better for sound deadening between floor joists.