New Home Heating Ideas

   / New Home Heating Ideas #71  
1 year ago we built a new house with 5500 sq ft of heated space over two floors in Nova Scotia, Canada. Heating season is from Oct till June. AC usually July and August. We decided to build a house that was as efficient as possible without compromising style and our particular wants and needs.
We spent the extra bucks and built with ICF from footing to roof, R70 in roof, large South facing energy efficient windows, very airtight with heat recovery air exchange system, and geothermal heat and AC. 2" rigid insulation under concrete floor. Geothermal uses water from 600' well, not enough soil to bury horizontal system effectively.

Heating and cooling costs less than $100/month. My previous 3500 sq ft house cost over $350 a month to heat, no AC. Geothermal will pay for itself in about 7-8 years with the added bonus of AC when needed. I haven't accounted for the cost of ICF, which would most likely take the payback closer to 15 years. ICF has many benefits beyond energy efficiency. The house is almost sounproof. No road noise. Very quiet in major storms. Boats on the lake are barely noticed.

After living in the house for a full year I would recommend both ICF and geothermal.
 
   / New Home Heating Ideas #72  
Heating and cooing for less than 100 bucks a month, in Canada, that's impressive!
 
   / New Home Heating Ideas #73  
it actually may be closer to $80 a month. Total electric is about 250 a month. Everything is electric. Freezer, 2 fridges, 2 ranges, electric fireplace, bar fridge, electric heat in garages, cloathes washer and dryer. Air exchanger runs 24/7. If i deduct my electrical bill from previous 3500 sq ft house which didn't have as many elec. Appliaces it works out about 80. We Heep the house 22C during the day and drop to 19C at night.
On sunny days in January with temps at 10 or 12 C below zero the inside temps rise to 24-26C from solar gain from south facing windows. Heating systems doesn't come on for hours at a time.
 
   / New Home Heating Ideas #74  
That is awesome, my nephew installed Geo Thermal last year and loves it. It has saved him a ton of money on propane. I am just waiting for my furnace to take a crap and I will be installing also. I use about 2400.00 dollars a year in propane and I figure it will pay for itself in 5 to 10 years. I am hoping when I do it I can include my garage as I currently use in floor heating with a electric boiler and it gets expensive whent the temps are in single digits for very long.
 
   / New Home Heating Ideas #75  
pjb09 said:
1 year ago we built a new house with 5500 sq ft of heated space over two floors in Nova Scotia, Canada. Heating season is from Oct till June. AC usually July and August. We decided to build a house that was as efficient as possible without compromising style and our particular wants and needs.
We spent the extra bucks and built with ICF from footing to roof, R70 in roof, large South facing energy efficient windows, very airtight with heat recovery air exchange system, and geothermal heat and AC. 2" rigid insulation under concrete floor. Geothermal uses water from 600' well, not enough soil to bury horizontal system effectively.

Heating and cooling costs less than $100/month. My previous 3500 sq ft house cost over $350 a month to heat, no AC. Geothermal will pay for itself in about 7-8 years with the added bonus of AC when needed. I haven't accounted for the cost of ICF, which would most likely take the payback closer to 15 years. ICF has many benefits beyond energy efficiency. The house is almost sounproof. No road noise. Very quiet in major storms. Boats on the lake are barely noticed.

After living in the house for a full year I would recommend both ICF and geothermal.
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Welcome to TBN PJB09. I can tell you that TBN members love house building threads. If you have pictures and floor plans to share, I suggest you start a thread on your build, especially since you went with ICF and geothermal as that will definitely pique members interest. If you do start a thread, please post a link to it here so we can easily find it.
 
   / New Home Heating Ideas #76  
pjb09 said:
it actually may be closer to $80 a month. Total electric is about 250 a month. Everything is electric. Freezer, 2 fridges, 2 ranges, electric fireplace, bar fridge, electric heat in garages, cloathes washer and dryer. Air exchanger runs 24/7. If i deduct my electrical bill from previous 3500 sq ft house which didn't have as many elec. Appliaces it works out about 80. We Heep the house 22C during the day and drop to 19C at night.
On sunny days in January with temps at 10 or 12 C below zero the inside temps rise to 24-26C from solar gain from south facing windows. Heating systems doesn't come on for hours at a time.
Click to expand...

With your super insulation, is there any provision for fresh air?
 
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   / New Home Heating Ideas #77  
pjb09 said:
it actually may be closer to $80 a month. Total electric is about 250 a month. Everything is electric. Freezer, 2 fridges, 2 ranges, electric fireplace, bar fridge, electric heat in garages, cloathes washer and dryer. Air exchanger runs 24/7. If i deduct my electrical bill from previous 3500 sq ft house which didn't have as many elec. Appliaces it works out about 80. We Heep the house 22C during the day and drop to 19C at night.
On sunny days in January with temps at 10 or 12 C below zero the inside temps rise to 24-26C from solar gain from south facing windows. Heating systems doesn't come on for hours at a time.
Click to expand...
This sounds like a fantastic home, and the efficiency is awesome!
 
   / New Home Heating Ideas #80  
Yes I do have full ventilation system with heat recovery at about 80% efficiency, runs 24/7 and automatically adjusts speed based on humidity levels.

Another thing to improve energy use, we installed two 60 gal water heaters. The first one (not hooked to power) feeds water to the second one which is powered. The geothermal unit has a desuperheater which feeds water to the first tank at 80 - 90 degrees F and when the main hot water tank requires water it feeds from the first tank at 80 or 90 degrees heated for free from geothermal system. The second tank is only raising temp. 50 deg or so. Without this it would have to raise temp from ground water temp of about 42 deg F.

It also means recovery time on the hot water tank is much shorter.
 
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