Geo Thermal Heating & Hot Water Supply

mr_edge_to_you

Hi,

I was at the Homebond/Sustainable Energy presentation last night in CityWest (not a whole lot happening there!) but was chatting to a rep from a geo-thermal heating system supplier. He was assuring me that geo-thermal would provide all of our hot-water services which I was amazed at. I was also enquiring with another rep if I could use solar panels on our south facing garage roof (no south facing roof on the house itself). This guy told me that there really wouldn't be a need for solar panels as the geo-thermal would suffice.

Can any of you who have installed geo-thermal back this up?

Cheers

D.

I moved this from the Energy forum because it had no interest!

Kashkai

What price was he quoting you for the work btw?

We considered going the geo thermal route when we were building our house (2,800 sq ft) 2 years ago but we were looking at prices in excess of €20,000. Factor in the running costs of the compressor (and ESB prices are on an ever upward spiral) and it might not be as cheap to run as the sales rep is letting on. I think you also have to go with underfloor heating as geo thermal doesn't work well with radiators.

Carlow52

Successful geo-thermal is very heavily dependent on the geological structures where the bore holes are placed so unless the rep has detailed information on your precise location...........

muffler

Moved to the RE forum

Quazzie

Prosperous Dave wrote: »

What price was he quoting you for the work btw?

We considered going the geo thermal route when we were building our house (2,800 sq ft) 2 years ago but we were looking at prices in excess of €20,000. Factor in the running costs of the compressor (and ESB prices are on an ever upward spiral) and it might not be as cheap to run as the sales rep is letting on. I think you also have to go with underfloor heating as geo thermal doesn't work well with radiators.

UFH heating is in fact the best way to go when considering Geothermal as radiators require much higher temp increases and therefore much higher electricity usage from the compressor.

In relation to the OP what I would (and actually am) considering doing is installing geothermal with UFH, but also wiring for the addition of a photovolteic solar panel, which can be used to reduce your ESB costs when as expected the ESB start to allow a feedback into the system from such generators. I believe at the moment they are testing the system and expect to roll it out nationwide possible as early as Q4 2010. Ideally if does go ahead it would/should prove to be the best system available.

As always though the energy required to heat a house is hugely related to the insulation spec in the house. No amount of heat supply can compensate for poor insulation levels.

holdfast

I dont think adding PV panels is going to save you anything. ESB is never going to pay more to you than the cost they charge for electicity.

Quazzie

holdfast wrote: »

I dont think adding PV panels is going to save you anything. ESB is never going to pay more to you than the cost they charge for electicity.

They will never do that I agree but I think (might be mistaken) that it is going to work by the feedback being used to wind back your meter, or slowing it down. This at the very least would reduce your ESB bill. I doubt you could create enough to actually eliminate it but a reduction would be nice.

mossy74

I have a geo-thermal system and yes it does provide all of the space heating and hot water we need (The house is approx 3600 sq ft with minimum of 10 ft ceilings throughout so a lot of space to heat!). The downside is that it costs me twice as much to heat it as I was lead to believe by the supplier. And although I suspected that the sales pitch was not entirely true I was disapointed by how much they were wrong/lied. Basically it's costing me about €1600 per year instead of €800 for all the heating and hot water. So the moral of the story is to be very wary of what you are being told by the supplier.

HobNob

Mossy,

Is 1600 including all your electricity for the year or just heating ?

rayh

mossy74 wrote: »

I have a geo-thermal system and yes it does provide all of the space heating and hot water we need (The house is approx 3600 sq ft with minimum of 10 ft ceilings throughout so a lot of space to heat!). The downside is that it costs me twice as much to heat it as I was lead to believe by the supplier. And although I suspected that the sales pitch was not entirely true I was disapointed by how much they were wrong/lied. Basically it's costing me about €1600 per year instead of €800 for all the heating and hot water. So the moral of the story is to be very wary of what you are being told by the supplier.

Have you arrived at any conclusions to these variances and problably more important your solutions?

bladespin

holdfast wrote: »

I dont think adding PV panels is going to save you anything. ESB is never going to pay more to you than the cost they charge for electicity.

Actually that's kind of incorrect, the ESB pay 9c per KW sold back into the grid along with an incentive of 10c, that's 19c for the first 3000kw sold back in, they charge 16c per kw daily rate.

The most important ting to do about geothermal heating is to have it fitted by someone who knows what they're doing (references are a must), if the system isn't suitable for your home, is incorrectly set up or the wrong rating pump used it can cost so much in electricity as to nullify any potential savings, approach with caution, there's a lot of ******* fitting these lately.