Geothermal Heating Systems (Kalispell: house, luxury, living in)

[AsForMeAndMyHouse]

Ok, so I've heard all the hype about how great geothermal systems are, but they seem VERY expensive compared to the conventional. What's the truth?

I'm building my house in the Kalispell area and the prices I'm getting are $35,000 for the geothermal system vs. $17,000 for the conventional. Is this worth it? I'm building a 4000 sqft house with a big 2000 sqft. shop all on radiant heat.

Thanks!

[jimj]

My neighbor has a boiler system runing his 3700 sqft house and a 1900 sqft shop and he's very pleased with it. It can also deice his walkways and driveways if he turns on those zones. It's wood fired with a gas backup and can also use pellets and oil or from what I've been told waste oil.
In fact he just won the Parade of homes best of class, luxury $750,000 to $1.5 million.
He got it at http://www.axmen.com/

[bigtrees]

Originally Posted by AsForMeAndMyHouse

Ok, so I've heard all the hype about how great geothermal systems are, but they seem VERY expensive compared to the conventional. What's the truth?

I'm building my house in the Kalispell area and the prices I'm getting are $35,000 for the geothermal system vs. $17,000 for the conventional. Is this worth it? I'm building a 4000 sqft house with a big 2000 sqft. shop all on radiant heat.

Thanks!

Yes, geothermal systems are well worth the money if you are planning on living in your home for a long time.

The reason why is the efficiency. They run at about 350% efficiency, which means for every 1kw of electricity you use to run the system you add 3.5kw of heat to your home. For comparison, fireplaces are about 10-20% efficient, wood stoves can get up to about 60% (or so), and highly efficient propane or natural gas furnances will get to about 80% efficiency.

The one exception I can think of with geothermal heat is if you have natural gas at your property. Natural gas is cheap enough that it is competitive with geothermal.

In Montana, you will use a closed loop system where you run antifreeze through coils in the ground. Some other places you use well water but not in Montana. The ground stays plenty warm in Montana (six feet underground) so you can run your system all winter long.

[AsForMeAndMyHouse]

Originally Posted by bigtrees

The one exception I can think of with geothermal heat is if you have natural gas at your property. Natural gas is cheap enough that it is competitive with geothermal.

Thanks. I don't have natural gas, just propane, so it's probably better I use geothermal, right?

[bigtrees]

If you don't have natural gas, you have several options for heat:

- Wood. Very messy. Incredible amount of work. Fun at Christmas, but big pain in rear rest of year.You get bark bits everywhere, your house is a mess, you have to clean ash, etc, etc, etc.

- Wood pellet: Very clean. Easy to haul in to house, very little ash to clean. More expensive than wood. I don't know how it compares to electric or propane.

- Electric: Reliable. Clean. No carbon monoxide issues. Always there unless power failure (but every source of heat fails when the power goes out except wood stove). Easy for wife to turn up heat when she is cold. Check with your provider, but often comparable to propane. 100% efficiency.

- Propane: Reliable. Clean. Relatively expensive. (Often comparable to electric, but check with your providers to compare.) Usually 80% efficient.