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06-13-2012, 07:00 AM | #2 |
Buddy Christ is a Chiefs fan
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06-13-2012, 07:02 AM | #3 |
Not dead yet...
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My parents have a wood boiler system at their place, they use it to help heat their home, and their pool. The pool is about 66k gallons and the house is a little over 3500 square feet. Pretty large heating space in my opinion. Taking their heating area they're heating into consideration, I still have to arn you that those boiler systems are not a set it and forget it kind of thing. You may be running morning and evening duty filling the thing up. That may vary depending on the heated space, and even though it really doesn't heat their whole home, it does provide them a pretty good break on the electric bill... Just my 2 cents...
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06-13-2012, 07:07 AM | #4 | |
Don't tread on me.
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06-13-2012, 07:29 AM | #5 |
Quit your bullshit
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Is this going to be your first house?
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06-13-2012, 07:46 AM | #6 |
Scarlett Johansson's boytoy
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I have experience with geothermal on a commercial level. We did a project last year with 72 wells on it for a National Guard facility.
You muust have your soils tested for thermal conductivity, so are not as suited. If you have shallow rock, etc. that will be an issue. You will typically find that you need one 300' well for every 1.5 tons of HVAC needed. Costs of drilling vary widely. One concern in the midwest is that sometimes you may need supplemental heating, but probably not in a home. You MUST make sure you use an experienced and reputable contractor. It is possible to "burn out" your site if it is not designed properly. In other words you must extract about the same amount of cooling in the summer as you deposit heat in the winter, otherwise you will have problems down the line. Here is a place to start: http://www.igshpa.okstate.edu/index.htm
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06-13-2012, 08:09 AM | #7 |
Keepin it Real
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We install geo, its expensive up front, has government rebates, and in the long run you save money. If I could ever afford the up front costs, I'd be all over it.
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06-13-2012, 08:35 AM | #8 |
Supporter
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I'll be building within the next year and I am of the belief that if you are building a house to stay a long time, it's a no brainer to install geothermal. I'm leaning that way very heavily with zones and the heated basement floor. Hot water is taken care of too.
With the rebates and incentives, it isn't really any higher than normal heating-cooling. I'm not doing wood heat because I don't want to be cutting wood and stuffing it in an outdoor stove in Feb in 10 years. |
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06-13-2012, 08:49 AM | #9 |
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If you're designing your own, build in a thermal mass: http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/...n/thermal.html
As a person who aspires to be a survivalist, I would build a thermal mass that contains a large quantity of sealed water. It would act as a thermal mass while also giving you a huge emergency water supply.* *Note that I have no idea if this is feasible or if you end up being a mosquito breeding ground, but it seems like it would be possible.
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06-13-2012, 08:53 AM | #10 |
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While not necessarily energy-efficient, our biggest regrets in our kitchen remodel a few years ago are:
1. Not installing that in-floor heating wiring in our kitchen. Maybe it's just the configuration of our house, but the tile floor gets cold in the winter and the in-floor heating would have been pretty cheap. 2. I don't think my wife wanted this, but I missed the opportunity to build an automatic pet water system. Envision a weight pad on the floor in some out of the way corner where, when the pet steps on it, starts a downward-facing water fountain that goes into a little 12"x12" pool with automatic overflow drain. That would've been the coolest thing ever.
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06-13-2012, 09:59 AM | #11 |
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Geothermal is awesome but you must be certain you're staying in the house and it's not practical for tract homes simply because you'll never, ever get out of it on resale what you put into it if anything ever happens that requires you to sell. It costs in the tens of thousands so that's a lot of months and years to recoup that investment.
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06-13-2012, 10:03 AM | #12 |
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Is geothermal the same thing as a heat pump?
When I replaced our furnace last year, I inquired about a heat pump and the contractor really didn't like the idea. I can't remember if his reasoning was more for return on investment or some technical reason in our house, though.
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06-13-2012, 10:03 AM | #13 | |
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06-13-2012, 10:07 AM | #14 |
Psycho Bag Of Squanch
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Are those rebated expiring soon?
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06-13-2012, 10:13 AM | #15 |
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What's the difference?
And this is assuming that I don't live in Iceland.
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