Ground water heat pump?

[pennwalk]

We have been thinking about replacing our oil fired furnace with a ground water heat pump. Two years ago we got estimates to do the work but we were put off by the price. We took another crack at it recently and were shocked to have the updated estimates come in about $5000 more that the last time. When I sat down and looked at the estimates I realized that the 3 companies had all specified different size systems. 3,4,5 ton. I am wondering if the costs really went up that much in 2 years and if anyone knows a web site that I can work out what size system we need to check the proposals?

Chris

 

[moeh1]

Someone on this board lives down in PA (Techman? I think) and put his own in (he is a contractor) and he is happy, hopefully he'll chime in. I was really intrigued a couple years ago, but the cost and low number of sales and service people were working against me. There is one big HVAC forum online for both homeowners and professionals but I no longer have it bookmarked. To really assess your needs you can either do a Manual J calculation or call in a professional energy audit firm to assess your lheating and colling loads. Probably well worth your money given the ranges you are seeing. You don't want to oversize or you won't get rid of the humidity. If you undersize, backup heat may eat up all your savings...
By the way, I went with an upper end air source heat pump and am quite happy. The ground source seem to have a payback period between 10 and 20 years, thats was the hard sell for me

 

[Hammy]

I have a geothermal heat pump. Its great! I can't say enough about it. However, that being said, I just built a house for my mother and we had an air source heat pump installed. It's a higher end 3 Ton unit and works great. The break down in operating cost isn't all that different.

In an average 1800 sf house, our electric company ran a cost comparison to heat that average house using different energy sources. Of course the geothermal came in as the most efficient and costing around $256 a year but the air source was only about $130 more per year, which isn't a lot. I'm not sure why everyone isn't replacing their gas furnaces with heat pumps.

Here's a link to the cost comparison. It's not the link you were looking for but its good information.

Fuel Cost Comparison

 

[srossman]

there also a new air source heat pump made by hallowell industries that is supposed to work to -30F unlike a normal heat pump which requires backup heat at around 32F. I've started to look into these new heat pumps, but haven't decided what direction to go in yet.

 

[mahlers]

I've been thinking of installing a geothermal heat pump for some time, but haven't gotten around to calling around for prices yet (house won't be livable for at least another year). Price-wise, what are we talking for the cost of the system itself (not including labor, that varies so much region-to-region that any numbers probably won't be meaningful)? I'm thinking of installing two 2-ton units - one for each side of the house. The Water Furnace units look really nice - anyone have experience with those?

 

[KAB]

We have been thinking about replacing our oil fired furnace with a ground water heat pump. Two years ago we got estimates to do the work but we were put off by the price. We took another crack at it recently and were shocked to have the updated estimates come in about $5000 more that the last time. When I sat down and looked at the estimates I realized that the 3 companies had all specified different size systems. 3,4,5 ton. I am wondering if the costs really went up that much in 2 years and if anyone knows a web site that I can work out what size system we need to check the proposals?

Chris

Here is a good good website to get information: GreenBuildingTalk - Insulating Concrete Forms (ICF), Structural Insulated Panels (SIP), Radiant Heating, Geothermal Heat Pumps, Solar Power

There is a lot of knowledge on that site. I would want to make sure that whoever installs the system does a correct heat loss/ cooling load calculation. Too big of a system is just as bad as to small of a system.

Kurt

 

[Tig]

Water furnace was quite popular around here when I built. A couple neigbours had them but have long since replaced them. Water issues I think. I felt water furnace was over powered in cooling (in Canada). I opted for a Rockton which had passive water cooling (no compressor in summer). That was 18 years ago. I like it so much I will take it with me when I move to the country side.

 

[Bill Barrett]

Here is a heat loss heat gain program Don Sleeth is a great guy.
I was installing a geothermal unit today. They are high end on the cost meter. Also check out this other site, the guy has real time monitoring of his system as it runs, very cool. If you have any questions just holler.

HVAC, HVAC/R, heating ventilation and air conditioning heat loss

Real-Time HVAC monitoring page for OurCoolHouse.com

 

[BobRip]

I looked at this briefly when I built my house. I went with ICF which keeps our heating and cooling cost to $30 a month. This is so low that a normal two speed heat pump works fine and heats the house down to around 20 F. I only have the emergency heat kick in about once a year, if that. Put you money in insulation, it last forever if done right.

 

[Hammy]

Mine is a Water Furnace brand. From the research I did, they seemed to be the Cadilac system.

I don't have number's for the system alone without the labor to install.

I did dig/backfill my own trenches. I have a 6 Ton unit that heats/cools 5500 sf (floor square footage). I have 6 trenches that are 6-7' deep and 130' long (each).

Mine runs great and has been doing so for 2 years now.