Geothermal per Sunday Times

bamboozle

there was an article in yesterday's sunday times on the different forms of heating a home, it suggested the cost of installing geothermal in a 1000 square foot home was 6-7k...does this sound right? i always thought it was around 20k

muffler

Its possible although how many "one off" houses do you see being built that are 1000 sq. ft.?

bamboozle

muffler wrote: »

Its possible although how many "one off" houses do you see being built that are 1000 sq. ft.?

i'm putting a small extension onto a 1000 sq. ft house, in this situation are the costs much higher?

muffler

Given the current problems with the building industry I think if you shop around for product prices and can get some help with the ground works from family/friends then you should get it done a bit cheaper that you would have done a year ago. Personally I wouldnt have much of an idea as to the cost as a lot of these systems are site specific and yours will also be a partial retro-fit.

sinnerboy

Did not see that article . 1000 sq ft properties tend to be located in built up urban areas .

So - no space for horizontal collector pipes - rule of thumb - area required approx 3 x floor area .

Vertical bores - are deep - very deep - 100m + . Cost of bores alone - typically €7-10K

So op - are you sure the artricle said geothermal , or did it just say heat pump ? ( who ever heard of wrong inforamtion in a newspaper ? )

You may get an air to water heat pump for the figures indicated

bamboozle

yeah article definately said geothermal, gave it as installation cost of 6-7k and annual running/heating costs of €250.
In comparison it said Gas was 2k installation and 1400 PA running/heating. and Wood Pellet was 12k installation and €750 running/heating.

sinnerboy

Doesn't really stack up - only if you omit the collectors ( which you can't )

6-7K only will get you the pump alone . then approx €5k for horizontal , €10 for vertical

topcatcbr

bamboozle wrote: »

yeah article definately said geothermal, gave it as installation cost of 6-7k and annual running/heating costs of €250.
In comparison it said Gas was 2k installation and 1400 PA running/heating. and Wood Pellet was 12k installation and €750 running/heating.

12K for wood pellet seem steep maybee they got mixed up

sas

topcatcbr wrote: »

12K for wood pellet seem steep maybee they got mixed up

Scarily enough I got a quote of just under 20k for a certain brand of imported pellet boiler last year. This didn't even include the plumbing of the boiler. Outrageous and needless to say I politely ended my interest.

rayh

While I do accept that this thread was in response to a newspaper article, there are a number of issues regarding geothermal heating systems in Ireland that merit some discussion. Some of which and have been raised in this thread.
A Geothermal Heating system is basically the compression of heat energy from a collector source via a heat pump mechanism, generally using electric energy as the power source.
In Ireland our electric power generation efficiency is just over 40% and a further 14% is lost in transmission, which means for every unit of energy delivered required 3 units of primary energy to produce and its consequent carbon burden.
The general performance of a heat pump system is in the 4:1 region up to about 40C, however above this figure the performance drops fairly significant as users of this system will discover during the out of heating season when DHW is the dominant requirement and as a geothermal system performance is the sum of a number of systems.
As already pointed out a horizontal collector area of 3 times the floor area is a general rule of thumb, but some sites will require much larger area, while others are not suitable for this system due to soil types and coupled to this we have a number of issues with respect to the future servicing of refrigerants.
In general we must give very serious consideration before we consider any activity which requires us to convert electric energy to heat in Ireland and as we move closer to a carbon tax a new reality will emerge and a 30 year timeframe of operation will place the capital costs in a different perspective.

heinbloed

Concerning cheap articles: There is of course a difference in journalist's work when we compare a tabloid paper with one that has an international reputation. The Finacial Times has warned against the usage of heatpumps, see here: http://constructireland.ie/vb/showthread.php?t=394 What heatpump sellers are frequently hiding is the fact that if a heat pump is used for "heating" then not the ANUAL COP is to be considered -which is usually stated at the box -but the SEASONAL COP , the effective seasonal efficiency.That means calculating for wintertime when going for heating..... This seasonal COP is much lower then the anual COP when looking at the soil or water courses or the outside air tapped into.Since winter is colder then summer.Furtheron the overall COP of the ENTIRE heating system has to be looked at, not the only theoretical anual COP of the heating system but the seasonal COP of the heating system. Who heats in summer? Only the winter input versus the winter output has to be calculated. Why do they want us to calculate the electric energy for cheap using the anual COP whilest the old inefficient powerplants are not delivering in summer because there is no need for their coughing service?And why are the distributing pumps for the house are NOT taken into the calculation, only the collector pump and the compressor pump?A seasonal COP of 4.6 has to be achieved by a heating system that has to heat a house.To be as good as a condensing boiler.That is primary energy input to the ENTIRE heating system versus useable energy output delivered into the home.No heatpump can match or top this 4.6 without aid. That is the reason why most serious installers combine a solar system to it or some other form of secondary CO2 free source to the heatpump.One has to ask the serious questions, but what does that matter to tabloids....