Residential Geothermal Heating and Cooling

By David Munisteri

When you are building a home, you might wonder whether residential and geothermal heating and cooling go well together. After all, geothermal requires that a well be drilled and it can have a higher initial cost than installing a conventional system. Once you begin to consider the advantages of geothermal, however, it will quickly become clear that residential and geothermal heating and cooling do make sense and that geothermal may just be the best way to heat and cool your home.

Benefits of Geothermal

One of the biggest and most obvious benefits of geothermal is that you can achieve significant savings on your electricity bills and on your bills for heating and cooling your home. Geothermal is far more energy efficient- some estimates suggest as much as 400 times more energy efficient- than other heating and cooling systems. In most cases, a geothermal unit will not only provide air conditioning and help with heating your home, but it will also preheat your water or help to warm it up before it gets to the hot water tank. This can give you yet another source of money and energy savings, since hot water heaters are a major contributor to raising the monthly utility bill.

While the reduced energy costs are somewhat offset by the increased cost of installing a geothermal unit, this is true only for a limited period of time. After a few short years, you will have made up the difference in cost for the geothermal unit. With tax credits available on a federal level through 2016, and with many local utility companies offering rebates, the payback period may be even shorter. As long as you remain in the residence, any additional savings on your energy costs after this point will be pure profit. If you sell your home, on the other hand, the geothermal system can raise your asking price and can be a major benefit that encourages buyers to buy.

Aside from the energy benefits, geothermal also has other advantages as well. For one thing, the system tends to run much more quietly than conventional heating and cooling systems do. You won't have to worry about a noisy air conditioner kicking on or a furnace going on and off at regular intervals, but you will instead enjoy nice, quiet power from the geothermal system. This can make your home a more peaceful place to be.

Some who have experience with residential and geothermal heating and cooling also report that their homes feel less humid or warmer, on the whole, once geothermal is installed as compared to with their prior heating and cooling system. This, too, can be a significant advantage, especially if you feel as if your home has cold places or if it can't quite get warm.

With all of these different benefits of geothermal, it is clear that residential and geothermal heating and cooling can work together and that installing a geothermal unit in a residential home can be a great investment in your future comfort and your long-term utility savings.

Learn more about residential geothermal heating and cooling and geothermal heat pumps at Sandium.Com.

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