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Geothermal heating - advise required

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  • 24-03-2013 9:48pm
    #1
    rbuckley
    Registered Users Posts: 9 ✭


    Good evening all,

    Myself and my husband are looking to build a 2 bed 2 storey detached home in the country, hopefully timber frame, block finish.

    We need advice on Geothermal heating. My husband wants to use this "New" technology while I can not get my head around why the actual costs are so high. From what I can gather it would cost the bones of €25K for this heating technology plus the running costs per year. We are in our 40's, no children and will probably be using the house 3 to 4 nights a week (we are currently living in the city due to work schedules and will continue too).

    I want to go the usual, of stove in kitchen/sitting room and central oil heating which would have the timer system in place, even if we live to be 80 I can't see where we will save money on the geothermal unit.

    Is there anyone out there that has good/bad experiences with this unit, I would love to hear all points of view,

    thanking you

    Rbuckley


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    #2
    Outkast_IRE
    Registered Users Posts: 7,515 ✭✭✭Outkast_IRE


    Your quite correct i dont think i would personally drop that sort of money on geothermal myself either. The way i see it i would be investing the money into Insulation, Air tightness and then Mechanical heat recovery and ventilation, better to not lose the heat in the 1st place than to be paying massive money for geothermal systems.

    Thats my personal opinion, I would aim to decrease the heat loss from the house to such a point that geothermal becomes uncessary.

    Whats the oreintation of the house, personally i think if i was building a house myself right now i would be looking at this setup.

    1. A large buffer/accumulator tank that multiple heat sources can be connected to.
    2. A large set of solar tubes on the roof feeding into this buffer.
    3. A stove with a back boiler connected to heat the buffer also.
    4. An air to water heat pump used to only heat the buffer, and have this heat pump only set to come on during " night rate electricity" if possible and only if there other heat sources havent heated the tank.

    The system described above is what i would personally be installing, but if his heart is set on geothermal it might be hard to change his mind.


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    #3
    sas
    Registered Users Posts: 1,282 ✭✭✭sas


    Outkast_IRE wrote: »
    Your quite correct i dont think i would personally drop that sort of money on geothermal myself either. The way i see it i would be investing the money into Insulation, Air tightness and then Mechanical heat recovery and ventilation, better to not lose the heat in the 1st place than to be paying massive money for geothermal systems.

    Thats my personal opinion, I would aim to decrease the heat loss from the house to such a point that geothermal becomes uncessary.

    Whats the oreintation of the house, personally i think if i was building a house myself right now i would be looking at this setup.

    1. A large buffer/accumulator tank that multiple heat sources can be connected to.
    2. A large set of solar tubes on the roof feeding into this buffer.
    3. A stove with a back boiler connected to heat the buffer also.
    4. An air to water heat pump used to only heat the buffer, and have this heat pump only set to come on during " night rate electricity" if possible and only if there other heat sources havent heated the tank.

    The system described above is what i would personally be installing, but if his heart is set on geothermal it might be hard to change his mind.

    Hey, the only thing I'd question here is the boiler stove + ASHP.
    Boiler stoves for an airtight house are terribly expensive. You really are looking at 5k by the time a ladomat etc. is included. A suitable dry stove runs around the 2k mark.

    I see my house getting an ASHP in the future. Stove will arrive first though and I'm swaying back and forth on boiler vs dry stove. I do have oil already because it represented a cheap set up cost when we were moving in and running out of money.


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    #4
    Outkast_IRE
    Registered Users Posts: 7,515 ✭✭✭Outkast_IRE


    sas wrote: »
    Hey, the only thing I'd question here is the boiler stove + ASHP.
    Boiler stoves for an airtight house are terribly expensive. You really are looking at 5k by the time a ladomat etc. is included. A suitable dry stove runs around the 2k mark.

    I see my house getting an ASHP in the future. Stove will arrive first though and I'm swaying back and forth on boiler vs dry stove. I do have oil already because it represented a cheap set up cost when we were moving in and running out of money.
    Your quite right boiler stoves for airtight house are very expensive, but in my opinion having the extra heat source connected to the buffer tank is a big positive because as i said, you could set up the ASHP to heat a buffer at night, if the solar and stove have contributed during the day/evening then you reduce the time the air source heat pump needs to run at night, if it needs to run at all.

    And as such we dont know what spec they are building to yet, as i said personally i would put my money into airtightness and insulation before geothermal. And if the money was spent on airtightness yes the expensive stove would be the option then, but i think personally anway i would still lean towards this option before id go with geothermal


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    #5
    lodger222
    Registered Users Posts: 62 ✭✭lodger222


    I don't think that by ground source or heat pump would be suitable in this case because the house is not occupied full time. Floor warming needs the heat to build up and then dissipate it slowly . Put your money into insulation and if you can afford it triple glazed windows with quality frames.
    Also you could consider a log fire stove with an air system ducted to the other rooms in the house. This has an air intake fan taking air from the outside and blowing thorugh a cavity around the fire to heat it up and then it is distributed through ducts to the other rooms.

    I find it a brilliant system , continuously heated fresh air circulated around house.

    But as a previous poster suggested , it is best to get the insulation and orientation correct .


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    #6
    rbuckley
    Registered Users Posts: 9 ✭rbuckley


    thank you all for your responses, greatly appreciated.


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    #7
    etcetc
    Registered Users Posts: 392 ✭✭etcetc


    @ op did you make a decision on this yet? Or are you still evaluating?


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