When designing your new home, you may want to consider the many benefits of building with geothermal heating and cooling. “Geothermal” or ground source heating and cooling is a win-win situation for homeowners with many benefits. Such benefits include lower operating costs, dependability, resource conservation and environmental preservation, and independence from fossil fuels.
How does geothermal heating and cooling work? First you need to know that the earth only a few feet down from the surface maintains a constant 50F temperature. Geothermal heating and cooling uses a heat pump to capture the heat from the earth under your property in the winter, and the cool in the summer. The heat pump concentrates that relative heat or cool and conveys it to your house. The process consumes electricity to run the heat pump, and this constitutes the operating cost of the system. Since operating the heat pump uses much less energy to heat or cool using propane, oil, natural gas, or direct electric heating, the draw on natural resources is much less than using any of these fuels to get the same result.
That being said, the after-tax and incentive initial cost of installing a geothermal system is comparable to the cost of putting in a propane, oil, or natural gas system. Part of that cost is deploying the heat exchange tubing in the earth, and there is some additional equipment cost involved in the system. However, a significant portion of these costs is made up through Federal tax credits and electric company rebates. A net gain is usually expected through the savings in operating costs over the span of a few years.
Beyond the economic benefits, the system is highly dependable and provides the independence of not having to rely on fuel deliveries and the vagaries of fuel costs.
Plus, geothermal provides the comfort of knowing that the energy source is not a fossil fuel, but the earth itself. A win - win for the homeowner and Earth.
The geothermal heating system implemented on the Hemlock Hill Road property in Litchfield, and offered as an option the property on Flirtation Avenue, New Preston, are designed by Peter Tavino.
For more information on Geothermal energy, please visit www.litchfieldgeothermal.com.
