Is Geothermal Heating and Cooling Worth the Cost? Heat Pumps Explained 

Could you do a show on combination solar panels? I hear they could be 80% more efficient than regular solar panels

Here in The Netherlands we have a company called Solar Freezer. This is what i am getting installed this summer. You should check this out

YES :D

Do you list where you get the sources from these videos??

Yes, I would love to switch to GSHP & hybrid/combination solar panels & wind, with energy storage, vehicle charging, etc. I just need to find the money.

I wonder if more flexible tubing would help prevent the pipe snapping you experienced. I suppose if too flexible, the hose could crimp and impede the coolant flow.

Sorry to hear this, someone really tried to take advantage of you. Full re-installation wouldn’t have been necessary.

@@WT7005 it probably would have gotten pinched and stopped regardless

It's a warning valid for areas with tectonic activities. But it should have been known in advance, and the flat collectors should have got preference over a deep whole.

Aither geologist fucked up or they didnt employ one, in aither case that fuckup should be on them

I’m in south east BC and am considering a gshp retrofit. I’m curious, how deep are your vertical loops?

Hey Andrew, what's your insulation/envelope like? I'm in YYC looking at a retrofit.

@@gregholloway2656 I think mine are around 200ft deep

@@acedrew1 thanks Andrew!

How is it heating up your house? Do you still need to run a heater/furnace to top up the heat? I understand that the ground is cooler in the summers and how it cools but not how (much) it heats. When outside is -20 i presume that the ground is still kind of cool.... but now I read its 200ft deep, I wonder how warm the ground would be.

Can it be hooked up to an already existing HVAC system or do you have to have a special system?

@@rosstemple7617 Phone your local Hvc to find out.

In those 20 years, how much maintenance or repair have you had to do to the system? Thanks

This isn't "geothermal", it's ground source heat pump

@@peepiepo anything from the ground is geo. you didn't watch the video. yes the geothermal you are thinking of is the Yellowstone geysers. but not all ground is that hot.

Thank you for your input, good to know. I hope everything is fine now. Cheers.

"The previous owner was spending thousands per year on propane"? Thousands?

@@rf7192 I am using thousands on oil every year. I'd say... about 1k every 3-4 months give or take. I've seriously thought about geothermal in the past but I once saw a video where they compared geothermal and "air to water" heat pumps.. the upfront cost was way higher on geo and the payback time was still almost the same on both.

This. I'm shopping for a contractor and service plan. One contractor (who doesn't do residential anymore) strongly recommended against almost all of the other contractors in the area because he had kept getting hired to go and fix their botched jobs. After digging around and reaching out to others with GSHP systems, I found similar bad experiences in cases where the system was either improperly installed or given maintenance by inexperienced people.

@@rf7192 in my area it's not uncommon at all to pay thousands per year on oil or propane.

yi

Holy shit, my grandmothers 4 bedroom+gigantic livingroom+bedroom sized kitchen monster of a house has an HVAC, their replacement HVAC cost them 6,000 NIS (roughly 1800 USD) and it was one of the more overpowered systems for their house. Why are HVAC systems so cheap here in israel when the cost of housing is through the roof? Fucking greedy assholes bubbling the housing market, I hope they all get cancer so they have something useful to use all that money they're sucking out of us.

@@ScarletFlames1 same applies to land thieves as well 🔥

@@ScarletFlames1 מה קורה אחי חחחחח

Well someone has to make money.

This is what I was thinking of doing when I build my barn house.

160m?! They built a mine under your house

That is not ground sourced heat. That is geo-thermal water heating.

WOW, I am very happy to hear that you can drill such a shallow well and reach 65 C water - that is 150F in American terms. That is so hot that it would need to be cooled off to take a shower! It is sort of like paying your natural gas or oil fuel bill only once for the rest of the life of the home, and then some! You should be able to share some of this heat with your neighbors, if they are close by! Maybe tell them you will supply all the hot water they need for $45 euro's a month? Then payback can happen much sooner!

You can even use excess solar to store thermal energy in your house, i.e. making it a degree or two warmer (in heat mode) or lower (in AC mode), lowering the amount of electricity needed during that afternoon/evening spike in electricity

@@ThomasBomb45 or warm your boiler water to a higher temperature so you need to heat it less over night.

Do you mean operating costs or total cost of ownership?

Solar is actually just as bad if not worse for global warming. All energy = heat and solar is absorbing sun energy that would get reflected back into space. Capturing that heat (in a very inefficient conversion non the less) it adds heat to the closed system that is no longer radiated into space. That is what is meant when people talk about the albedo of the planet. If we want to use solar energy we need to build even more systems that would reduce the amount of sunlight that is absorbed by our atmosphere. Either increasing the amount of ice, building sun shades, reflectors or increasing cloud cover (which also absorbs some sunlight) People need to be careful, because both sides spread a lot of propaganda and in a few years you will be told by the big polluters how they were right all along. Geothermal, Nuclear, Hydro, and ocean hydro are the real energy sources we need to focus on. In addition, we need to do the things I suggested above to reduce the amount of sunlight, We have already lost so much ice, that even going energy neutral would not be enough at this point to stop global warming.

@@excitedbox5705 I really doubt we are putting in enough solar panels to substantially increase global albedo, especially if you are putting them on top of an asphalt shingle roof that is about as dark as the panels.

too cheap and efficient , you don't need to replace every 6/8 /or 10 years everything as is done with wind turbines energy or solar energy

That's exactly right, geothermal is deep heat caused by radioactive decay and earth's internal heat reservoir, as he mentioned earlier in the video. What this video describes is ground-source heat pumps, a different thing altogether. Also as he stated, GSHPs just use the more stable temperatures in the soil to improve the efficiency of heat pump systems somewhat, they do not extract deep heat, which is in the hundreds of degrees C. It seems to have become common to confuse the two terms, but someone making such videos should not be using those terms interchangeably, because it's incorrect.

In Swedish, this is called Earth Heat, and Geothermal is Geothermal still, sure Geothermal means earth heat... But as with most things, there are better solutions than this. 200 meters below the surface the temperature is about 25 degrees Celsius or 77 Fahrenheit, if you had a closed loop system that far down, you could heat an entire city for free. But oh no doing things the common sense way is too expensive, when it would literally just require that they mined out a 200 meter long hole, and then emptied out perhaps 5000 sq.feet of space and laid heat pipes there and then just put some support to make sure that it was stable, then they'd have free heat for the rest of their fucking lives and then more, they could've been immortal and the heat wouldn't run out.

Thank you for letting me know i actually want a geoexchange system

Ground Source is what i remember

How deep did you have to drill and what was the temp coming out of the ground?

@@litoaykiu They drilled 2 boreholes that were each 300 feet deep for our loop. I don’t know the exact temperature of the water.

@@steveseidel9967 Thanks!

With a life span of ten years, a replacement cost of the compressors between 8 and 15k, and electricity prices now at 30cents a kwhr, the comfort is nice but not in way cost effective. My geo unit was installed in 2012, and has an average annual cost (including installation and maintenance) is $17,000 per year. Anyone can decide for themselves if that is cost effective.

@@jku72 Nobody is spending $17k per year. That’s absurd. Also, more than half the cost was the drilling for me. My ground loop has a 60 year warranty. The price of a new compressor is more like $3k. The prices you mention are to replace the entire unit. Also, the entire unit is indoor so it’s not exposed to the elements like a traditional system, so your average lifespan isn’t correct either.

If the loops are installed UNDER the roads outside the house when the suburbs were being set up, costs would be slashed.

@@goranmiljus2664 That's a good point but would traffic vibration reduce the life of the system?

@@goranmiljus2664 but eventual fixing would be a nightmare

I think fuel heating costs are going to skyrocket. Expect your money back much sooner.

What kind of monthly payments are we looking at for say a 3.5ton system? Vertical vs horizontal? I have solar panels and havent paid an electric bill in almost a year... if i'm already not paying an electric bill is something like this even worth it?

Awesome! Thank you!

Except another guy's Explain Send topic very complicated way

@@UndecidedMF how many feet of underground piping would you recommend for a 15 x 100 foot building ? How many feet deep should it be buried ? What is the recommended pipe diameter and wall thickness ? You've got me interested in geo-thermal energy , Thanks for any advice you can give .

Link to that video? I can’t seem to find it

The difference is Matt Ferrell doesn't understand heat pumps, he even says a liquid can be compressed.

Well good thing you are retiring soon because after about 10 years those solar panels are going to be working at half their original output and if they are still functioning after 15 and make it to their pay out life time of 20 year it'll be a miracle but it'll be your kids or the next owners problem then. Also don't expect that electric car to last more than 6 years, maybe 8 before you are paying essentially what you put into it to replace the batteries. (At least 20 grand) Green energy isn't nearly as green as you think, solar panels use a LOT of coal and other "dirty" processes to make them but never turn about their carbon footprint they make in their creation.

@@SilvaDreams Thank you for some common sense in this comment section. 👏

@@SilvaDreams Even if at the point green energy sourcers are enough to self-sustain the manufacturing, the materials require mining and refining. And even then, materials are subject to degredation, whether it is mechanical or electrical.

@@SilvaDreams "after about 10 years those solar panels are going to be working at half their original output" • Most panels warranty 90% at 10 years, and 80% at 25 years... "don't expect that electric car to last more than 6 years, maybe 8" • Teslas *worst* warranty level is "8 years or 160,000 km, whichever comes first, with minimum 70% retention of Battery capacity over the warranty period." and they're not going to risk having them fail within warranty periods, so you'll get substantially longer than that. Independent sites list it at 300,000 to 500,000 on average, with some test vehicles having 150,000 km with 90% efficiency still. "solar panels use a LOT of coal and other "dirty" processes to make them but never turn about their carbon footprint" • Boomer misinformation easily disproven with a quick google search. The manufacturing threshold was passed a long time ago, and solar currently sits at 5-20% of the carbon footprint of gas or coal (depending on if/what carbon capture technology is being used by them, and which of the two you look at)

@@SilvaDreams you know that top modern solar panels guarantee 90% functionality in 30 years right?

That would be nice, but who would be financially responsible for fixing it whenever it has a problem in an area that's not on any residents property? Issues that are on a residents property would work like sewage and water lines, where the homeowner is responsible, but who would have to pay for fixing the system if it's main reservoir busted or something, the township? I don't think they'd be too happy to have it built then, since air units by comparison are all on the homeowner.

Probably great for a small dense area, but not so great for a large sprawling subdivision.

@@kadewiedeman3127 HOA can finally make itself useful

@@lucassalas1572 oof, I can only imagine the HOA fee of living in a place with that system, now. The ridiculous $200/month ones here in NJ would look like chump change by comparison.

That's called district heating and happens around the world. We'll see more of it in the future in our urban landscapes.

Does the ground freeze in your area?

Thank you!!!!!

most places have it, it's also sometimes called "directional boring". It's a super common service since thats what they use to get power or data lines under roads so if you cant find someone to do it you can try calling local utility companies to see who they hire. It's almost never done in house since the codes are pretty stringent, it's highly specialized equipment, and they have really high insurance so it's almost always contracted out.

@@squamish4244 It's pretty rare for the ground to freeze more than a foot down, and even that often takes months of freezing temperatures. Burial depths for plumbing lines vary but 1ft or more is common but almost everyone requires them to be buried below the frost line. I commonly see them buried at the same depth as power lines which are 24 inches measured from the top of the pipe.

If that loop isn’t at least 6 to 8 feet deep you efficiency will definitely not be as good as it should be, a geo will only be as efficient as the ground loop due to the fact that it is the means of the thermal transfer.

I too am a HVAC tech and agree that Geo isn't as good as people think; many break downs, costly repairs, potential difficulties to access equipment.

@Zombie Eric Harris Air to air ductless heat pump technology has been so efficient recently that it’s the only reasonable choice especially when building a well insulated home to modern codes or better.

💯percent correct. Way too many videos and comments based on 10 to 20 year old technologies. DHP all the way

Problem with ground source heat pumps is that efficiency numbers don't include the recirculation pump's energy consumption.

Especially this winter

60 meteres underground? really? seems excessively deep, no?

@@oj5193 no just curious because I had no idea and was just surprised

@Zombie Eric Harris The cost of the new closed loop system was 18k and some change. Overall it's been the best investment since we've owned our home. Next up is having our crawl space encapsulated.

@Zombie Eric Harris I'm not so sure I would change a thing in how mine was put in place. My salesman sold me the system, the company already had a well drilling company they used, who not only drilled the wells but installed the loops of tubing, and then connected all of the tubing into the manifold that attaches to the unit. It was "one stop shopping " and it limits the number of persons who have their fingers in the equation. If one subcontractor messes up on their step it can destroy the whole system, and with one person (or contractor) in charge, anything goes wrong it's on them. Good luck with whatever you decide!

Everyone should check with their local electric company to see what they'll help pay for in this regard. Often it's substantial.

A tight well insulated house beats all technology solutions including solar. Maintenance free with zero annual cost. A tube of caulk is $2.

@@kirkland5674 some people like ventilation, as even a small rise in CO2 makes a surprising difference to your mental state and ability. You can insulate as much as you want but if your ventilation system in drawing 10% - 30% fresh air then you will need a system to keep the house at the correct temperature.

Did you end up going with ground source heat?

With as old as that system is you might want to keep an eye on the underground piping, it is likely to start failing like the mounts for the compressor.

Imagine the amount of C02 that would've emitted in the environment by burning that much amount of propane!

@Man Fully Alive I just put in another Water Furnace geothermal furnace last December after the first one dead 27 years later. The first on cost about $5,000 to install the new one $17,000. The air to air heat exchange was going to be over $18,000 and I didn't get a tax rebate. Right now in the US there a 26% tax rebate you get for a new geothermal system so I get about $3,000 back.

Are air to air exchangers functional below freezing temperatures?

Heated Floors! Nothing like walking across the tile in your bathroom and it's slightly warm. Nice.

One should use caution with pretreating water with a WSHP as a source as that type of tank storage can fall into a temperature range the promotes the growth of legionella bacteria.

Doesn't it need to be under a certain depth so it doesn't get affected by the weather? I don't think there would be any thawing of the driveway or patio.

@@samsonli9490 it is at a depth such that the weather effect is reduced, then the difference in temperature is amplified (basically you go from a huge volume of barely above outside temp water to a small volume of lukewarm water). if your driveway is way "smaller" (quotes are because it's not directly the surface area that we compare) than your underground source, you can use your source to melt the snow. The whole cycle is twisted and clever, but there is no free energy, you're cooling your underground to heat the sky.

Not just preheat, you can make hot water with ground source heat pump with no problem. It just needs pump that is capable to make hot enough water so tank is legionella safe. But it is common in europe to do this.

Really interesting! Thanks for sharing.

The Scandinavians should take over the world. You guys would have the rest of us sorted in a decade.

We live in southern Wisconsin and our closed loop, horizontal system has been great but it has struggled when we have a polar vortex or long stretches of cold temps in the teens and below.

@@jamescassidy5797 yup they're sized to be efficient, so you definitely want a wood burner or something else for backup.

I think like most homes / builders, undersized systems save the build cost. The builders pocket the savings, the home owners stuck with a unit that won't perform when temperatures are extreme or the unit ages. I installed for years, if the home required a 2.5 ton HP, I bumped to 3 ton with at least a 10kw strip. If 3 ton was close I jumped to 4 ton, or zoned it if was a 2 story. Just installed a propane gas furnace with a HP, in my rental home and t-stat set to 40 degrees. 40 or above HP will give you all the heat the home needs, below 40 burns propane. Very efficient and can get into single digits and the house is comfortable. If I build more homes I'm investing in premium windows, closed cell foam insulation and a ground loop HP with a gas fireplace, as a auxiliary form of heat. I live in the land of retirement homes at the Delaware beaches. Older people like heat. Me too.

How many square feet of area would a pond need to be ? I'm wondering if I put in a 10'x40' lap pool that was only 4' feet deep, and ran the piping under a vinyl pool liner would that be of any use for a heat pump ? Southern California desert so more a cooling climate than a heating one. A pool that would hold 1300 gallons and it takes 8.33btu to raise each gallon 1F, so 11,000btu for each degree of heat it absorbs. A 36,000btu/h heat pump would transfer 3.3F per hour to the pool ? Doesn't seem right.

@@jamescassidy5797 That's what the wood burner is for, those extreme cold days!

We have that in the loop of ours and it completely heats the water to hotter than we would ever need! When we first bought the house, it was June and the previous owners had turned the water heater completely off when they moved out the previous fall. When the temperature dropped in September that year, we thought the water heater was broken! Paid to have the plumber out, only to have him tell us it wasn't broken, just turned off LOL The loop had been keeping our water hot the whole summer all by itself!

of course....if your buyers dont have to incur the initial cost

Not likely a big benefit in resale dollars but likely a great benefit to interest a buyer in that house vs. one without.

.. straight to hell, enjoy the trip.

@@kermit56780 I bet you are a blast a parties

The appraisers really don't care. All they're concerned about is whether the house is heated and/or cooled. A prospective buyer will care, though.

Absolutely!!! It’s just too cold in the Northeast!

Yeah, I may have oversimplified things.

Liquids aren’t compressible. Just saying.

@@UndecidedMF Yeah it we really needed to show the refrigerant to water heat exchanger that acts as the condenser or evaporator depending on heating or cooling mode. I know how this works already so it was good enough for me, but the diagrams looked weird. I paused at 2:38 to put this out here :)

@@maxmintz511 That's not *exactly* true, they just have very very small compressibility compared to gases. Even solids can be compressed, at an even smaller amount.

Yep. That animation is just plain wrong.

🤯 he/she definitely needs to do a virtual tour one day

For people who are extremely concerned about the environment geothermal heating might be slightly better because of the mining needed to create solar panels

@@blondie2654 if they are that concerned why are they using robber pipes?

@@yurlim I don’t know and solar panels require mining Nothing is perfect

But your solar will only last 20 years ?

How is your home actually being heated though? I understand that you're using solar to power whatever devices you have - but what device is doing the actual heating? Is it air sourced heat pump? Electric baseboard?

Over time his opinion....exchanged thermal energy.

@Chris Tombs 🙄

Why is it greener? Instead of oil you are now using electric

And what happened 2 years ago?..

@@Steellmor Mechanical failure eventually happens in every system, they likely had to pull the piping out and replace it.

@@SilvaDreams I was just curious what exactly happened since he already mentioned it and the way he did it was kinda funny and intriguing.

@@SilvaDreams pull the piping out and replace it??? its more like the heat pump its self needed fixing. not much to go wrong with the piping.

where do you live?

@@raullasvegas MD. Maryland ?

Maryland, the state referenced in the video that has a $3000 grant for geothermal

@@EdwardRomano My apologies, You said that in your comment. Is there a lower temperature limit for your system? If the outside temp is too cold, does the heat pump still work?

Once you go a few feet down the earth is consistently ~55 degrees no matter where you are. A ground source heat pump is just like an air source heat pump, its just using the 55 degree earth for it's heat exchange instead of the ambient air. An air source heat pump can create heat on even very cold days and cold on even very hot days. Ground source heat pumps are more efficient because they only ever operate at 55 degrees no matter what time of year it is.

it really isnt very affordable unless you are talking new construction or just have an extra $10K burning a hole in your pocket...then there is almost no reason to not install it...digging the pit for the system doesn't cost much when you already have the earth mover to make your foundation and what ever landscaping you are doing before the home build begins...it really cuts the cost of installation.

Also (from my basic understanding) Air source heat pumps have the ability to modulate, allowing them to slowly ramp up and down heating and cooling more efficiently. As far as I can find Ground source units do not seem to do this and seem to be more ON/OFF units

Most whole-house heat pumps you would buy from US manufacturers can't modulate either (other than possibly being 2-stage). Only newer inverter heat pumps can modulate, and these are the highest efficiency units.

Geothermal and Air to Air Heat pump and cooling units come in inverter types. This allows them to operate as low as 25% up to 100% efficiency.

I disagree. In a norther European climate at least, we need heat for around six months of the year, when air temperatures are at their lowest. ASHP are less efficient when air temperatures drop. Ground temperatures are almost constant, and in the winter are several degrees higher than air temperatures, so it makes more sense to use ground systems where space and finances allow.

Air source heat pumps work terribly in colder climates, even with great insulation.

If you want to save on energy costs look at heat conservation. There are many things you can do to reduce energy costs that will find it pointless even considering a heat pump.

what a massive bullshit...

Just find whatever is the cheapest heating unit to run and use it.

How much did you spend on your last car or truck? Did you recoup part of that cost through savings over the years (did the car or truck gain in value or lose value)?

@@blessedarmadillo8257 if its a truck it actually may have gained if it was bought used. I've had mine for over a year now bought it used and it's worth more now. Used car market is insane at the moment. Same goes for my wife's Jeep Grand Cherokee.

That's pretty expensive

@@christophervanzetta for a 4000sqft house and a garage that seems pretty good to me, but I suppose that depends on what’s heating or cooling your house. Propane is much more expensive than natural gas, and electric heating is kind of expensive too. I’ve lived in apartments with 1000sqft and paid $80/month in gas during the winter. If I scaled that to 4000 sqft that $250/mo seems good to me.

@@christophervanzetta your right. It was put in in 2005 when Geothermal was rather rare in michigan. its much cheaper now. However it did include two 200 gallon water heaters and the electrical panel.

I pay the same for two natural gas units and two AC coils (central air) in Iowa. Each unit cost $1200 installed. same square footage. Sorry to say but it will be the next home owner that will recoup the cost of your Geothermal

it's kinda bad, as air circulation system could be combined with ventilation system to supply fresh air

@@s.i.m.c.a Floor heating provides much better comfort, and requires less energy. There is usually a separate system for air circulation that runs 24/7. We are currently building a house and there is an air vent in every room, as well as floor and ceiling heating. The fresh air from the outside also goes through a heat exchanger and a filter. One more advantage is that during summer months, cold ground water can be circulated in the ceiling to cool down the house, which requires very little energy.

We have a geo system , downside is our electric bill is $450 low up to $900 . The unit itself was $20 G, life is maybe 20 years . Cost a fortune to repair and after 7 years we had one of the main components go in the unit. No geo for 30 days , hard to use standby emergency power. This was pre pandemic, waiting for the parts. I can only imagine now how long the wait would be. So $5 G for a furnace or $20 grand for a unit. Neighbor just got solar $35G . So if you had both then you would save money but how much because the upfront costs are huge . Wanted to share personal experience, there’s a lot to it

I am at the other end of your scale a retired Refrigeration /AC engineer one of the best jobs ever you will get to places most people never see.

15 years - wow

we over-insulated the house --- ?!?! you cannot do it easily, compared to what?! ;-)

Damn bro it's 2021!😂

Had a closed loop system in a previous house and loved it. Very efficient, comfortable and reliable. Our hearing Bill's were less than half that of a traditional forced air system and our cooling bills were about 20%.

You CAN obviously supliment Ground Source Heating with Black Panel roof mounting systems (Like a solar panel, but, its black with pipes running through them) So as the sun shines down water is pumped up to the roof, through the pipes zigzagging through a set of black panels, and then back down into an insulated water tank. And you don't need to have intense summer sun to make good hot water either... 🤔😏👍😎🇬🇧

I also have a 19th century house. If you’re going to air condition as well as heat a ground source heat pump would be great! However you should also do what I did to increase the efficiency of my old house. I had no insulation and when I renovated I insulated the house and put 1 inch Styrofoam on the outside under new siding. We added all new double pane windows and cut our oil bills in half to begin with. That should make your heating and cooling much less expensive. Also you can size the heat pump up to 25% over your air conditioning load and still dehumidifier the house in the summer. Good luck!

Hi, what brand have you purchased, thanks

@@sghinescu9768 Kensa

How much did all the system costed you without installation, how many Kw...much appreciated

Check on cost of vertical system… and his was talking about a single house, you said yours was for 8 apartments….

In Switzerland everything is 2-3 times more expensive than elsewhere. Especially when it comes to specialised work you cannot do yourself. I also live in CH and found that costs between companies can vary wildly. I would ask at least 3-4 quotes and ask them to provide you with an ROI calculation vs oil. Theirs margins are ridiculous, if you challenge them, you will be surprised. Most work with developers, who just pass down the costs to new house buyers without questioning them. They have gotten used to this easy way of making money. Electricians are the worst in my opinion.

Can you share how much you paid for it? In New England and I'm being told it would be like $150K

@@TravelersWarden shouldn't be more than $20k or they are lying

@@jacobstrutner8232 This guy wasn't quoting me for a system. he had just put in our new air source mini splits. Just telling me the cost in the area for geotherm.

@@TravelersWarden No way it's $150k, even if it was a vertical loop, which is the most expensive setup for geothermal, it shouldn't be more than 40-45k. Even the "high end" price on a closed horizontal loop seems to be about 30-35k.

@@reck0n3r You're absolutely right. I forgot about these comments and I had gone back and checked with my HVAC guy - it was $150K for a 20K square foot rich person's house on the beach. So....that makes more sense.

I know it can go to below -40 in the winter. How well does it work at these temperatures? I live in northern Ontario.

yup. the kind of ground you have matters a lot too. Just the cost to dig can skyrocket with these systems.

I think you can charge the residents for the power savings I mean they would literally lose nothing. If they now pay X for the heating, they would still pay that X.

@@AhmedAshraf-pd7mu trying to convince them would not be easy.

@@rcmrcm3370 yeah, some people are not rational enough, but some would be happy to do that Personally if I were them I'd actually be glad. Lowering my carbon emissions without doing any effort from my side or any extra expenses!

If it's any comfort, there's plenty of other options for efficiency, and the best way is to reduce total heating and cooling! High efficiency windows now are coming at at R-5 to R-7, and proper sealing of doors and windows are essentially leakless. Home ventilation ERVs can replace options like 'trickle vents' and high efficiency wall insulation in concert with these measures can reduce your total heating load to half of the amount shown here or less. That's the best way to save energy.

Work, watch spending, and save. You can get there if you want to bad enough.

@@fredbecker607 You clearly have not been following the mania that is the US housing market. Granted if/when it mellows out, such practical advice may be worthwhile again.

@@amannin1 exactly. I feel for my kids. We've left them with an impossible market.

1) 3d printed houses are coming along, which will bring down the manufacturing costs dramatically. 2) In ~8-10 years, fully automated cars will eliminate the long commute issues of living out in the country where the land prices are lower and the roads are lower speeds. So this will allow you to sleep on the way to & from work. Which will in turn, exponentially add to the geographic footprint of how far away you could live from work. And just sleep for an hour or two, going to and from work. Maybe locate equidistant, in the countryside, between 2, 3 or 4 or more large cities, and countless smaller towns, multiplying the job prospects. While simultaneously taking advantage of lower land prices, AND the fully worked out 3d home building technology...all inside of about ~10 years from now. And with the 3d formula of the newly rediscovered art of Roman concrete, which we already know lasts over 2000 years, your house will last...longer than you'll ever need it to without falling down. Because the Roman concrete structures are still standing 2000 years later. And termites & fire & tornadoes do not affect concrete. Just don't build on an earthquake fault or in a flood zone, and you're set for life. 3) Locate where there's a small year around stream or an underground spring, and you can get your electricity for free from an inexpensive micro-hydro setup. And if it's internal to the house, or to the side & enclosed, and running off an underground spring, it'll never freeze up. And you'll be set. 😂 Your generation WILL be able to afford housing again...just give the technology some time to catch up. Especially the automatic self-driving cars, and the high speed flying drone suits that will come within 20 years, the travel time & sheer aggravation of long commutes will just disappear, as an issue. Driving will be sleeping time. And the flying drone suits will be hundreds of miles an hour, so 100 mile commute will be ~15 minutes each way. Either way, you can live WAY out where the land is cheap.

@@fredbecker607 with the current housing market around the world even a decent profession will need decades of work to pay off the costs of the land, the house itself is small potatoes. Small savings here and there won't significantly turn back the clock on that. That's why lots of millennials aren't even trying to save for a house. Purchasing power is so messed up right now, i could buy a few Rolls Royce's before getting a decent plot close-ish to a city with good jobs.

Inverter heat pumps are just as efficient and some even more especially with Ductless finally booming in the US. take a look at those products as well.

@@michaelhatfull3305 Do you know what is meant by an inverter compressor system? It has nothing to do with the type of liquid or gas being moved by the compressor, only an inverter that varies the speed of the compressor no matter what the compressor is pumping which includes geothermal heat transfer as well if someone wanted to make an inverter geothermal compressor. They are more efficient but a little over 10% more efficient at best, not 50%. But the other reasons with comfort, constant temperature maintenance, less inrush current so the lights don't dim and the compressor doesn't make a lot of noise for a second are enough to convince me, just a nicer experience. The benefits of an inverter system are that the system starts up at 36%(depending on mfr and model) compressor speed thus reducing the inrush current as many houses with heat pumps cannot start the compressor with solar battery storage as the inrush current(many times the current required to run it once spinning) is too high for the amount the battery bank can discharge for that first half an rpm of the motor. In an inverter driven compressor system, the compressor is always on, it does not cycle and can keep a more constant temperature in the house as it gracefully varies the speed up and down based on what is needed at any given time so the positives alone make it more comfortable and less distracting whether it saves money or not, you would not get that constant cycling where the lights dim for a fraction of a second and make more noise starting like a an aircraft engine ramping up. The reason why it at least saves SOME energy is that the compressor doesn't cycle on to full and then to off and then to full every 2 degree change so it is utilized to only what it needs at any given moment, nothing more, nothing less, just constant temperature and no cycling. Where I live, I have a 3 ton heat pump as a packaged unit on the roof at 16 SEER. The only inverter packaged system is made by Bosch and the 3 ton model is 18 SEER and the 5 ton model is 19 seer so there is SOME gain in efficiency, 12% if everyone is telling the truth but not earth shattering. We are still talking about inverter compressors in conventional refrigerant systems. The same improvement could be had in a geothermal system which is already more efficient than conventional refrigeration by a good margin as I hinted at earlier but I am sure the execution and location will vary this a lot. In the summer it often reaches 120 outside and I have seen 122 and to keep the house at 75 degrees, it runs over 23 hours per day and this is an R19 insulated house at only 1300+ square feet. The maximum temp these things are rated to cool at is 125 degrees. The low temperature at dawn is just under 90 sometimes but it can get below 80 on some summer nights. My summer bills are around 300 dollars to keep the house at 75 and this is with a 16 SEER rating, it would save 35 dollars a month for the 18 SEER inverter unit on paper at least. I would still use an inverter for the many benefits in constant temperature, variable compressor speed with no cycling irritation and being able to start the darn thing from battery storage if you have solar. The temptation to convert to either a ducted or unducted split system is certainly there. I use a hospital grade air filter, the ductless system would turn that into several filters but it would be easy to add mini in in the ceiling exchanger in the garage though. I am very interested in ductless just for this reason. There is a limit to how many you can connect to a compressor but I am sure the options are growing by the day.