Why don't more people get geothermal

Energy prices are continuing to rise at an alarming rate. If you own a home and have to pay for heating and cooling you know that the price to do so is becoming increasingly less affordable. What if you can pay the same monthly bill, and produce your own energy and not have to pay the energy companies for gas, propane or oil? Why not buy a geothermal system.

We decided to do some research and decide whether a geothermal system could make sense for the average consumer. As we are headquartered in Michigan, we decided this would be a great place to start. Michigan is a fairly cold place in the winter, so if a system could make sense here, it would definitely make sense in other areas.

We contacted energypath.com and geothermalspecialties.com for pricing and information. (A quick note, these are all general numbers, each particular home or business is unique.) A fully installed geothermal unit in an existing home costs roughly $16,000 to $30,000. A replacement geothermal unit is replaces both your current air conditioning and heating units.

Currently in Michigan it costs about $4500 for propane, $2400 for gas and $860 for Geothermal a year. Gas, propane and heating oil go up yearly, while the price of geothermal remains fairly constant. The prices for heating/cooling your home do not include the delivery charges or taxes that are paid.

Does it make sense to install a $20,000 unit in your home, and is it cost effective? Yes, the item that makes geothermal make sense for today's market is many. First of all, you can finance the unit. Instead of putting a bunch of money up front you can spread out the cost of the unit. Secondly, you are replacing you ever increasing bills with one bill that remains constant and is generally half of what you were paying before. The worst case scenario that we can see is that you basically are breaking even on the bills, but the way energy prices are going, we cannot see that happening.

One final note, a geothermal unit, this can be a fairly good selling item on a house. In today's housing market, any advantage you can create will help in trying to sell a home.

If you would like to find out more about buying a geothermal unit please

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Just the other day I read an article about how geothermal heat pump use grew 33% in 2006. 

And even without financial incentives from the government or energy utilities, says John Shonder of the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, “ground-source heat pumps have the lowest life-cycle costs in several cost studies that I’ve done” of heating and air-conditioning systems….

The systems pay for themselves in three to eight years, depending on “location and energy prices,” Mr. Shonder said.

Very cool.  I'm guessing they're not more common because a lot of people aren't aware that it's an option.  I certainly hadn't heard much about it before reading this article.  Not something we need in northern California anyway though :-)

If you use any form of heating and cooling system it would be to your advantage to install Geothermal.  Geothermal is well worth the expense wheather you live in the hottest parts of the South or West or the coldest of the North. Geothermal is the only sensible way to go.

I own Jeff Brewer Mechanical, a full line, licensed and insured, heating and cooling company.  I have been seeing a real increase in people interested in geothermal.  It makes sense to upgrade with energy costs soaring and in the interest of helping the planet.  If you are interested in more info on geothermal, call me at 810-688-4338.  Please visit my new web site at    www.jeffbrewermechanicalllc.com  for more information about us and to see pictures of some of our work on all aspects of heating and cooling.

is geothermal an option for homes in the city where most of a person's property is taken up by the footprint of the house? I'd imagine the installation requires the drilling of quite a few deep holes. Can that be done through a basement? Is it advisable? Does it cost more?

A new furnace and AC unit will cost anywhere from $3k to $9k or more if you have a huge home. $16k to $30k is 3-5 times as much. I imagine that's a hard pill for most homeowners to swallow, even if it is a net gain in the long term. For similar reasons you don't see every homeowner installing solar cells on their rooftops. Yes it's a long term net gain but the pay off date is too far in the future for it to be worth it to most people.

 OK, so I’m late entering this discussion.  I agree with the trend here...geo-thermal is the way to go.  It does cost more but a 3 - 7 year payback is quite good.  The space issue Mattress mentions can be overcome in some circumstances by going down rather than horizontally. 

We are installing geo-thermal units in our new house, and they will use about 500 linear feet of 3/4” ID piping, filled with a conducting liquid called “Environal”.  This “loop” circulates around the 500 ft. circuit and exchanges heat from the ground.  The loop is buried outside of the home about 6 feet deep, and the ground there carries a constant 55 - 58 degrees F.  The loop can be laid out going across and back a space, but will take up a space about 20 ft by 100 ft.  An alternative is to bury the Loop down, rather than horizontally.  You should then only need  top ground space maybe 10 ft by 10 ft, or so, and going deeper, should get to warmer constant temperatures.

In any event, we expect the payback for our system will be 3-4 years as it will carry the bulk of the heating load for the home, and for hot water, as well as most of the cooling load for the house.  The back up system is electric, but we expect the need for that capability will be infrequent.

Happy to discuss further.

We need to replace our heat pump and we are very interested in the geothermal water furnace. I would be very interested in hearing how you are enjoying your water furnace. Thank you very much.

Here is a video on geothermal heating if anyone is interested in this technology.