I have been busy working on the house and am backed up on updates. I just had geothermal heat and air conditioning installed in our home. This involved tearing out the old oil burning furnace and digging up the back yard to lay down pipes that carry water to and from the geothermal unit. I am using the company
Geonomic Development to have this done. Below are some photos.
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| You can see the pipes in his hand coming out from the ground. |
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| More pipes... |
Some photos of the unit:
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| These units are made in the US and distributed right here in Portland. |
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| Here you can see the duct work that was done. We had to add ducts and vents to all the basement rooms. |
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| You can see the footprint of the old giant furnace, which was placed in the middle of the room, inefficiently using space. |
Geonomic Development has been really great to work with. We highly recommend contacting them for Geothermal services in Oregon.
We are now generating air conditioning with our backyard! In the Winter, we will be generating heat! I really couldn't explain how it works... I think there is a tiny wizard that lives in the unit who makes it happen. Magic.
*UPDATE 4/10/15: I learned how this happens - it is a heat pump system that brings in air from underground, which is a stable temp year round and heats or cools it to your desired temp. So if it's HOT out and you want AC, bring in the 55* air right out of the ground, instead of cooling down the 95* air from outside. No cooling needed. In the winter, bring in 55* air and heat it to 67* (or whatever) with electricity, rather than trying to heat the outside air (20*-40*) to 67*. Saves money and energy! We have experienced low bills since it was installed 2.5 years ago!
Hey there! This is a good read. I will be looking forward to visit your page again and for your other posts as well. Thank you for sharing your thoughts about Geothermal heating in your area. I am glad to stop by your site and know more about Geothermal heating. Keep it up!
ReplyDeleteSome parts of the world, including substantial portions of the western USA, are underlain by relatively shallow geothermal resources. Similar conditions exist in Iceland, parts of Japan, and other geothermal hot spots around the world. In these areas, water or steam may be captured from natural hot springs and piped directly into radiators or heat exchangers. Alternatively, the heat may come from waste heat supplied by co-generation from a geothermal electrical plant or from deep wells into hot aquifers. Direct geothermal heating is far more efficient than geothermal electricity generation and has less demanding temperature requirements, so it is viable over a large geographical range. If the shallow ground is hot but dry, air or water may be circulated through earth tubes or downhole heat exchangers which act as heat exchangers with the ground.
No carbon monoxide risk because there is no combustion.
Geothermal Heating MA