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Why choose a geothermal heating system?
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But I couldn’t get over how much common sense geothermal made to me – using the natural heat underground to heat your house, versus depending on a very expensive fossil fuel (also from underground) that was probably drilled thousands of miles away in a manner that is not sustainable and the daily use of which contributes to global warning.
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Alexandra writes about the 'green' and budget-friendly renovation of a 100-year-old farmhouse in south-central Connecticut.
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I then called the geothermal contractor who came with the highest recommendation from other local contractors and from our well driller. His name is Tony Silverio.
He sat with Martin and me for more than an hour and explained the pros and cons of geothermal (which I’ll get into in the next blog). but the bottom line, he said, was that with a geothermal system's annual heating and cooling costs are estimated to be between 65 and 70 percent less annually than a traditional fossil fuel system.
Then to help soften the blow of the initial up front costs, there are federal and state tax credits. When you take advantage of them, what looks like an outrageously expensive system becomes a more moderate one.
This was confirmed in Interesting Energy Facts:
Geothermal energy can provide not only 100 percent of home heating, but also air conditioning and hot water, and it requires no additional use of oil, natural gas [although you can use it] or any other fossil fuel. And the payback on geothermal is more than acceptable. If you consider the 30 percent federal tax credit, payback usually takes less than five years in new construction and somewhere around seven years for retrofits. This translates to gigantic 15 percent annual return on investment simply by installing a geothermal system, which is really a number from which many other energy sources are still far off.
The logic in this whole story is quite simple, namely homeowners pay back the investment with the money they would have paid to oil or gas company. After payback, the savings continue with an average return of more than 65 percent – percentage that is likely to be even higher as fossil fuel prices are very likely to increase after recession is over.
OK, I was sold. But there are limitations and drawbacks to using a geothermal system, which I’ll talk about next.
Editor's note: Alexandra Marks will be blogging twice a week about her green and budget-friendly restoration of a 1902 farmhouse in Connecticut. See a photo gallery of the early days of the project by clicking here. You can read all she's written about the project so far by clicking here and then looking for Sheep Dog Hollow under Topics on the right side of the page.
You'll find numerous articles about the environment at the Monitor’s main environment page. Also, check out our Bright Green blog archive and our RSS feed.
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