{"id":1300,"date":"2011-06-10T22:00:22","date_gmt":"2011-06-11T02:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/?p=1300"},"modified":"2011-06-09T16:56:30","modified_gmt":"2011-06-09T20:56:30","slug":"green-homes-tour-residential-geothermal-heating-and-cooling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/2011\/06\/green-homes-tour-residential-geothermal-heating-and-cooling\/","title":{"rendered":"Green Homes Tour: Residential Geothermal Heating and Cooling"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>House<\/strong>: 90 years old<\/p>\n<p><strong>System Description<\/strong>: In a closed loop piping system, water is pumped 300 feet underground, where it takes on the 55 degree underground temperature. It is pumped back into the basement to a heat pump unit with a set of copper coils containing a refrigerant that has a very low boiling point. Contact with the 55-degree water makes the coolant boil, and the resulting heat is pumped through the house as forced hot air heating. In summer the system runs backwards. The heat pump puts heat from the house back into the water. The water is pumped underground, where it releases the heat and returns to a 55 degree temperature.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Green-Homes-geothermal-fuel-savings.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Green-Homes-geothermal-fuel-savings-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Green Homes geothermal fuel savings\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1301\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Green-Homes-geothermal-fuel-savings-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Green-Homes-geothermal-fuel-savings.jpg 432w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Components<\/strong>: Two vertical 300-foot wells, piping, heat exchanger, pump, air ducts<\/p>\n<p><strong>System provides<\/strong>: 100% of home heating, 100% of home cooling (Electricity is used to pump water and distribute warm\/cool air.)\u00a0\u00a0 No hot water is provided. Oil hot water heater is used.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Previous heating and cooling system<\/strong>: Oil furnace, forced air. 2 window air conditioners<\/p>\n<p><strong>Installation<\/strong>: Fall, 2009 by Gray Co. Plumbing, Heating and Air conditioning.\u00a0 Bedford, MA\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.graycompany.net\/\">www.graycompany.net<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Town permits involved: <\/strong>Yes. About 9 sign-offs needed.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Price<\/strong>: $34,000 minus $10,200 federal tax rebate = $23,800<\/p>\n<p>Price included replacement of leaky air ducts. System eliminated the need to replace the oil furnace.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Green-Homes-geothermal-electric.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Green-Homes-geothermal-electric-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Green Homes geothermal electric\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1302\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Green-Homes-geothermal-electric-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Green-Homes-geothermal-electric.jpg 432w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Payback Period<\/strong> \u2013 about 6 years, including amount saved for not having to spend $10,000-$12,000 to replace furnace and air conditioning. Savings: about $1,900 per year for reduced oil expenditures.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Advantages:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Heat pumps are efficient because they transfer existing heat rather than burning fuel to make heat<\/li>\n<li>Provides heating and air conditioning in one efficient system with existing ducts<\/li>\n<li>House is cleaner with no oil or natural gas being burned to heat your home<\/li>\n<li>Geothermal heat is warm, not hot heat, so it doesn\u2019t dry out your house in winter<\/li>\n<li>Geothermal air conditioning removes more moisture than a typical central air system because it has more capacity (the size is set for the heating needs)<\/li>\n<li>Geothermal systems operate most efficiently when kept at near constant temperatures so even though we\u2019re saving significantly on heating we keep the house warmer than we used to both day and night<\/li>\n<li>Although the system is expensive to install, about \u00bd the cost is for the wells which won\u2019t need replacement even when the furnace does<\/li>\n<li>Our \u201ccarbon footprint\u201d is lowered beyond our reduced energy use because electricity sources are getting greener and oil isn\u2019t.<\/li>\n<li>The price of oil is going up, while the price of electricity has been stable.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1303\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1303\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Green-Homes-geothermal-carbon-reduction.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Green-Homes-geothermal-carbon-reduction-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Green Homes geothermal carbon reduction\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1303\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Green-Homes-geothermal-carbon-reduction-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Green-Homes-geothermal-carbon-reduction.jpg 432w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1303\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Approximately 38% reduction in CO2 emissions<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Disadvantages: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Cost of upfront installation.<\/li>\n<li>Remaining challenge to heat areas furthest from the furnace (family room addition)<\/li>\n<li>Air blows more loudly than oil system.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>House: 90 years old System Description: In a closed loop piping system, water is pumped 300 feet underground, where it takes on the 55 degree underground temperature. It is pumped back into the basement to a heat pump unit with<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[77],"class_list":["post-1300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-at-home","tag-green-homes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1300\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}