We're moving forward with solar for our house and also looking into heat pumps. By chance I've gotten to know one of the pioneers of geothermal (the guy literally wrote the textbook on it and his family is in the business still). We have an old water well on our property from when the house didn't have town water. His comment was that the water well is like having an oil well in your backyard. The advantages of geothermal are huge. I'm fully on this bandwagon for many reasons, not least of which are the economics. I estimate we'll get a day 1 return of 10% on solar. Now there's an opportunity for the government. Subsidize low-cost solar loans instead of (or in addition to) the tax credit.
Lots of others places, you don't have to dig very deep, you can just bury pipes below the frost line, and at that level, the temperature is pretty much the same all year round. So in the winter, it can be much warmer than the ambient air, and in the summer, it's much cooler.
Yeah. Air source heat pumps have gotten so good that ground source makes less sense if you have to dig up an existing property to install, but for new builds, I think it makes a lot of sense.
I suppose it's a high-quality problem to have when you have too many ground source heat pumps like that. Here in North-America, we're pretty far from that, but I think it makes a ton of sense to have maps and rules about how densely they can be packed.
Ideally in new constructions, you can lay everything out to get max efficiency.
It seems like we need to reshore production of all these 50-cents chips back to ally countries.
We're moving forward with solar for our house and also looking into heat pumps. By chance I've gotten to know one of the pioneers of geothermal (the guy literally wrote the textbook on it and his family is in the business still). We have an old water well on our property from when the house didn't have town water. His comment was that the water well is like having an oil well in your backyard. The advantages of geothermal are huge. I'm fully on this bandwagon for many reasons, not least of which are the economics. I estimate we'll get a day 1 return of 10% on solar. Now there's an opportunity for the government. Subsidize low-cost solar loans instead of (or in addition to) the tax credit.
If you already have a well, that's perfect!
Lots of others places, you don't have to dig very deep, you can just bury pipes below the frost line, and at that level, the temperature is pretty much the same all year round. So in the winter, it can be much warmer than the ambient air, and in the summer, it's much cooler.
That's right. Just ten feet down and it's something like 55 degrees all year. It makes all the sense in the world to me.
Yeah. Air source heat pumps have gotten so good that ground source makes less sense if you have to dig up an existing property to install, but for new builds, I think it makes a lot of sense.
Thanks for the very thoughtful comment!
I suppose it's a high-quality problem to have when you have too many ground source heat pumps like that. Here in North-America, we're pretty far from that, but I think it makes a ton of sense to have maps and rules about how densely they can be packed.
Ideally in new constructions, you can lay everything out to get max efficiency.
Thanks again for the great comment! Cheers 💚 🥃