I have given it some thought and quite frankly, I am not very concerned. The system is very efficient and the load for daytime heating, is generally less than evening and nightime. In my instance, on sunny winter days the sun comes halfway through our home so I have definitely have a passive assist happening naturally. In the summer we only use the system to reduce humidity in the evening, if needed. Shade trees & vines protect the home in the summer so heat is not an issue, but humidity can be if it persists for more than a few days and manages to infiltrate the home. Room/ceiling fans are also helpful just to keep some air moving and make you feel cooler under the circumstances.

I plan to put my hot water booster tank on a timer so if it needs to come on to top up my solar hot water system contribution, it will only do so at night. I am looking at putting a timer on my hottub as well, since it is already quite efficient and a temperature topping up each night should keep it at a comfortable temperature for my late evening dip.

I just brought my attic insulation up to R50 and did a bit more weatherstripping, installed all new high efficiency toilets and had the follow-up REEP study done today.

I will be presenting my pilot project documentary at the upcoming CREW public event at KPL next Thursday - 'Earth Energy & You'. Please see the list of News and Events for details. Please help pass the word.

In regard to the 'Sonic'  drilling rig used in my installation, this is a versatile, non-invasive drilling rig particularly useful in a small compact urban environment. This was a brand new $1million rig that was used to meet my requirements and highly recommended. The drilling arrangements were made through NextEnergy of Elmira and I suggest you contact them as to the availability of this rig coming to your site. I hope this is helpful and wish you well with your installation. I trust you will be as pleased as I am with my geothermal heating and cooling system.

I believe you are referring to my presentation. With geothermal, you don't have a flame or heat source that super heats the air and dries it out before distributing it throughout your home. It is a very gentle heat. You also don't have a lot of air infiltration from outside via other vents typical of a combustion heat source so your envelope is tighter. Through cooking, bathing/showering, household plants, etc., you have natural moisture produced in your home that is not dried by the heat source, or exhausted to the outside in exhange for really dry cold air from the outside infiltrating.

In my instance, even with the coldest winter days, the air in my home stays within the comfort range as far as the humidity is concerned, hence I don't need a humidifier. The geothermal cooling phase also has a dehumification function if you wish only to reduce the humidity in the summer without really cooling your home down to almost uncomfortable levels to achieve that end. This also saves you a great deal of unnecessary energy consumption and cost.

I believe that geothermal is one of the most comfortable and efficient systems for heating and cooling your home.

If you are interested in a more cost effective system you might consider our products @ www.enerquestinc.org we have the most reasonably geothermal and solar thermal products on the market.519-593-2525www.enerquestinc.org Enerquest is making renewable do-able

Here's another point of reference if it's of any use. 

We're in our third winter in our house (2000 sq ft 30-yr old country home).  We had oil heat the first winter, which cost about $1800-2000.  We put in a geothermal system for the second winter, and the electricity bill was about $500-600 higher than the previous year.  So our heating cost is about 25-30% of what it was with oil.  This winter is looking to be in the same ballpark.

There's a few things that complicate a careful comparison.  For example, we insulated parts of the basement halfway through the second winter, and we managed to reduce air leakage by about 15% as well.  In addition, the geo system does some water heating, so part of the overall cost reduction (don't know exactly how much because the primary water heater is also electric) is due to reduced water heating cost.

Our system cost about 15k after rebates, so by saving about $1500/yr, we are on track to have the system pay for itself in about 10 years.  Less if oil prices bounce back up again.  This is longer than what the geothermal marketers suggest (take them with a grain of salt), but still very worthwhile.

If you're replacing a gas furnace, I'd expect a longer payback period.  The rule of thumb a few years ago was that oil heating is about twice that of gas, but this may have changed lately, and also depends on the efficiency of the furnace you're replacing.  My gut feel is that replacing gas with geo is something you'd do out of principle rather than economics.  Perhaps if you're building from scratch, or need to replace your furnace anyways, it makes more sense.  (Although you don't get the rebate for new construction...)

Note also that you can get more than 7k in rebates.  OPA also had (has?) some rebates if you're replacing low/mid efficiency furnace or A/C, and there is an Ontario RST rebate, so the total rebate was more like 8k for us.

A couple of other observations: both REEP and the geo quotes significantly overestimated the cost of heating our house (and therefore the payback period as well).  Based on their heat loss estimate and heating assumptions, they said we should have been spending 3-4k per year on oil, while we actually spent 2k.  Do some sanity checks to compare what they say you're spending with what you actually are!  And don't oversize your system.  Most of the quotes we received wanted to install a 5-ton unit.  But given our actual energy usage, we thought this was overkill and put a 4-ton unit in instead.  It has been just fine - we haven't used the backup resistance heater at all, even on the coldest days.

Last fall we put in a solar water heater as well.  It's nicely complementary to the geo preheat system (geo does winters best, solar does summers best).  We think the payback period will be a little longer (maybe 15 years), but are looking forward to how it works this summer.

I've taken those numbers and placed them a spreadsheet to see how they came out.  I don't know if I can past an excel documnet to this blog but I'll give it a shot.

Overview:

If their gas cost is similar to my home, then they would see $ 1,000 dollars of savings each year by switching.

Here is the data from my friend - hopefully the formatting is ok:

It's in dollars as it's the amount of hydro billed.

Month  2005  2006  2007  2008  2009

Jan     201     180    202    200      198

Mar    270     234     262    228

May    188    191      185    171*

Jul     190    189       174    233

Sep    173   172      201    282

Nov    142   193      177     263

Total  1165  1160  1201  1376

Home about 5100 sq-ft

Gas furnace & water heater removed May 2008

Geothermal & elec water heater running June 2008

What I find really odd in the data is why the Jan 2009  bill is lower - while previous months are higher.

Be sure to attend that night.  The presenter has done a Kitchener geothermal vertical  installation within the last year and combined it with solar hot water heating.  I guess another thing to consider is not only the savings to you, but as a long term solution. 

Review all of the provided calculations with a fine tooth comb!

In the case of my friend the payback is going to be around 12 years because of:

1) various gov/agency incentivies and removal of an old A/C maximized their grants available

2) they would make use of the geothermal as an A/C

3) they would run the furnace with the fan constantly on low speed

4) they compared the cost of geo to an mid-eff furnace with an A/C motor (fan constantly on is around $400-$500/yr

5) their furnace and A/C needed replacement or were getting very very old

6) they factored in a generous savings on the water pre-heating via the geothermal compressor (it's waste heat pre-heats home water) as well as removal of the Kit. Utilities gas water heater and it's rental fees

7) they factored in a savings for the removal of the gas mains to the home (save about $250/yr connection fee) so the home is now all electric.

In my case most of those don't apply.

Just look at what it costs to heat your home.  In my case it's $350/winter + $250 for the gas connection fee.  Going thru REEP evaluations for typical older homes - you see $500/yr in water heating, $1600/yr in space heating.  With figures like that a geothermal system can bring savings ... but if you're not using that ... then - are the savings there?  You figure it out.

Just how much will the cost of a geothermal install upgrade the home efficiency?  Friends replaced all of their windows and tore off the siding and and put 6" of (green soy) foam insulation on for about the cost of a geothermal system and their cost savings will be signif., the home will be much more comfortable and use far less energy to heat.