Just had a new geothermal (gshp) system installed recently and thought I'd put up some pictures for anyone looking into this. We've heated out house with wood and or forced air oil previously. Started out using mostly wood (wood stove in cellar), switched to oil for a few years back when it was cheaper (we installed a new furnace in 1987 and figured we needed to use it for a few years at least) and then switched back to wood full time a few years ago again, with the more recent addition of a solar air heater. Injured my back badly enough (while working on my firewood supply) this summer to take me out of the wood heating business, so it was either dump money into oil, or look at alternatives. We decided to bite the bullet on a geo system as our climate in central NY with it's cloudy cold winters and wet soil is ideal for geo. Payback over oil in our situation should be about 7 years with the 30% federal tax credit factored in.
I started up by having an energy audit done on our place, resulting in me doing some rim joist air sealing, then found a geothermal installer who we totally trust knows his business. He did a great job on the installation. He's an engineer and is as meticulous with his installation as he is with his design calculations. He did recommend replacing and reconfiguring our ducting, something I'm really glad we decided to do. The system works great and keeps our place within a degree of the set point with absolutely no cold spots...a far cry from when we heated with wood or oil. We've only had the system in for a very short time, but have had temps down into the lower 20's, so far, before this recent run of beautiful weather. It's also incredibly quiet, which probably wouldn't have been the case with the existing duct configuration. Should also supply approx. 60% of our hot water.
Unit is a 3 ton climate master tranquility 27 with a ground loop consisting of 3x 600' lines (300' out and back) buried in approx 200' trenches. Even though I was prepared for all the digging, you really don't appreciate the magnitude of it until you actually see it up close and personal. Wasn't really too big a deal with us as most of the lines were buried in our horse paddock with a feed and return line to the manifold trenched out from our house across the driveway to the paddock. Someone with a manicured lawn might have a different outlook. To me, it just means less mowing for a while.
So I'll attach some of the during and after outside pics to this post and some interior pics to a reply.
Scott
I started up by having an energy audit done on our place, resulting in me doing some rim joist air sealing, then found a geothermal installer who we totally trust knows his business. He did a great job on the installation. He's an engineer and is as meticulous with his installation as he is with his design calculations. He did recommend replacing and reconfiguring our ducting, something I'm really glad we decided to do. The system works great and keeps our place within a degree of the set point with absolutely no cold spots...a far cry from when we heated with wood or oil. We've only had the system in for a very short time, but have had temps down into the lower 20's, so far, before this recent run of beautiful weather. It's also incredibly quiet, which probably wouldn't have been the case with the existing duct configuration. Should also supply approx. 60% of our hot water.
Unit is a 3 ton climate master tranquility 27 with a ground loop consisting of 3x 600' lines (300' out and back) buried in approx 200' trenches. Even though I was prepared for all the digging, you really don't appreciate the magnitude of it until you actually see it up close and personal. Wasn't really too big a deal with us as most of the lines were buried in our horse paddock with a feed and return line to the manifold trenched out from our house across the driveway to the paddock. Someone with a manicured lawn might have a different outlook. To me, it just means less mowing for a while.
So I'll attach some of the during and after outside pics to this post and some interior pics to a reply.
Scott