On Tue, 05 Feb 2008 17:49:43 -0000, (Chris
Lewis) wrote:

Up north of that border, geothermals (and other forms of ground-source)
HPs are becoming quite popular and well known. We had a guy come in
to give our house a full workup and provide an quote for switching our
house over from baseboard electric to geothermal.

IIRC, he quoted us a 5 ton unit (2200 SF two floor house, _almost_ R2000
construction). This geothermal "style" involves drilling a 100' bore
hole per ton (minimum 10' apart), dropping a loop of tubing down each
hole, and backfilling.

There were "combination" and "separate" units. The separate units
were were the air handler and air heat exchange was one place, and
the control box and pumps were in another (close to where the
wells are). The "combo" unit is when it's all in one box. The "separate"
unit was thought to be more effective for us.

As I recall, the full quote (including $3K for ductwork -
we have a very open-concept house, and we were going to be able to
"cheat" a bit and still get proper airflow) was around $18K.

In contrast, a straight forced air gas furnace install (not including
ductwork) would be $7K - there is no gas in this area, though there may
be in another year or two.

The claim was our heating power consumption would decline by about
60%. I worked it out having a break even point of about 10 years. We
decided to wait a few more years and check again - they have us on their
calender to call back, but they're doing so much business now, we may
have to call them ;-)

Do google searches for "geothermal ontario" and you'll find _lots_
of references/descriptions of how it works, installers etc. We get
rebates for installing geothermal now. H'm, the break even just got
a lot shorter ;-)

Hi Chris,

In addition to the geothermal option, I might recommend looking at one
(or more) Fujitsu ductless heat pumps. The operating costs would be
slightly higher than a geo-exchange (but not by much) and it wouldn't
provide DHW (perhaps its biggest drawback if your household uses a lot
of hot water), but the upfront costs would be far lower and the
installation a whole lot simpler. Generally speaking, these units are
a good choice for energy-efficient, open concept homes such as your
own.

The current generation of Fujitsus with the inverter drives work down
to -15C (5F), although I'm told by someone who lives in Montreal that
his continues to operate all the way to -20C (-4F). I've crunched the
IRR and NPV numbers for the Fujitsu based on our local climate and
energy costs (7,800 HDD / $0.1067 per kWh) and I know of nothing that
matches its technical or financial performance. These truly are in a
class of their own.

Cheers,
Paul