Geothermal in the news

Dave Yates (GrandPAH)

See if you can spot Lois in the video(G)!



<a href="http://www.whtm.com/news/stories/1109/681038_video.html?ref=newsstory">[url=http://www.whtm.com/news/stories/1109/681038_video.html?ref=newsstory]http://www.whtm.com/news/stories/1109/681038_video.html?ref=newsstory</a>

Mark Eatherton

I saw her...

Sittin' at the table ;-)



Nice job Hollywood.



ME

Robert O'Connor_12

Not your Grandpah's Geo

I love it!

Robert O'Connor/NJ

DanHolohan

Looking good!

And I like the gray hair. Makes you look even wiser!

John Mills_5

Look out Richard

Nice job Dave!

Dave Yates (GrandPAH)

Gray-beard

Not too sure about the wise unless it's wisenheimer, but if gray gets me there, I can certainly use the help(G).



As they say.... opportunity knocks but once & I couldn't see refusing an invite to participate. It was a mad dash to crunch the revised numbers (latest dereg info is we'll see a 26% rate hike next year & all my previous calcs were based on a different percentage) in time for the press conference. Had just three hours advance notice!



What they didn't show? I ran three sets of calcs: geo compared to 13-SEER 6-HSPF heat pump with gas 80% furnace back-up; and their previous system which was a standing-pilot 78% eff furnace and 10-SEER A/C. Then the same scenario with the 26% electric rate hike. And lastly - tax credit territory - compared the geo to a hi-eff 16-SEER 2-stage heat pump using a hi-eff condensing furnace as second-stage; and last, but not least, a hi-eff condensing furnace with a 2-stage 16-SEER A/C. Geo still kicked butt.



The wells are oversized, as are all geo wells we install, so that there is ample capacity to extract heat and I size our geo systems to the heating load instead of the smaller cooling load - after spending time with the customers to explain why and obtain, from them, what percentage of the heating load they want to have the geo system address.



Their previous HVAC system and its ductwork had to be completely scrapped. The ductwork was grossly undersized and it's registers face velocity sounded like they lived next to an airport! Virtually impossible not to have made an improvement by doing virtually anything! 



The owners became good friends in the process as do most customers.

Radiator Ranger

Geothermal

Nice! Thanks for your work with geothermal systems and posting the link!



"Virtually impossible not to have made an improvement by doing virtually anything!"



The fact is that you took action to get a more functional system working for you customer. Even though there were a lot of ways to make improvements, you made improvements that others would not have seen, improvements that make a long term difference. Goodness indeed.



Gwen

Dave Yates (GrandPAH)

Federal tax credits & PA's alt energy bill

Have re-energized geothermal. Everyone wins. We're pricing a PV system for one customer who has an older geo system & they want the PV to be large enough to give them a net-zero energy use.



A few of the pics from Rep DePasquale's installation. You'll like the before pic. That chimney rises up to the main support beam, and, from there routes around that obstruction with terra-cotta pipe that's exposed in the stair-well. Seems a shame to tear out such fine ductwork and remove those CO spewing appliances, but work is work!



Mrs. DePasquale hand dug the back half of the basement, poured that concrete deck and walk the runs the length of the previous crawl space and built that concrete block wall!

scott markle_2

savings

I'm not disputing the operating cost advantages of geo, but the numbers quoted in that TV spot seem a bit unrealistic.



80K $ saved in 17 years? that's $4700 saved every year! Seems to me you would have to bring the operating costs down to close to zero to achieve that kind of savings.



Perhaps you can clarify.

Dave Yates (GrandPAH)

figures don't lie

The one set of figures she got wrong, was saying they spent just $10K for the twin geo systems. However, the savings projected should be spot-on & start from the ClimateMaster design program's operating cost analysis that compared geo to a standard 80% gas furnace & 10-SEER A/C (what they had) to tax credit eligible 16-SEER 2-stage A/C with a hi-eff condensing gas furnace. We're going to have electric deregulation next year with a projected 26% increase and that's factored in for all three of the comparisons since all three use power (2nd pass through in the CM program - however, I did not bump up the cost of nat gas - just the electric in order to be as fair as possible). For the geo systems, I used an electric water heater, but for the two other comparisons, I used standard gas water heaters. As a result, all forms of energy utilized were incorporated for their HVAC and domestic hot water operating cost analysis.



First year at 11-cents per kWh & second year at 14-cents per kWh.



The quandry was how to project forward for continuing escallation of fuel costs. The DOE has historical charts showing past patterns for nat gas & electricity and I settled in on 5% for an annual increase, which is a few % points under historical averages. My excel spread sheets are on the work computer & I'll post them if anyone wants to have a look-see. As you might expect, the savings get better the more expensive the fuels become.



Musy say though: never thought I'd live to see the day heat pumps would be the least expensive way to condition buildings and heat water!