THE BIG DIG
Introducing the most efficient, cost-effective way to heat and cool your home: geothermal power, by transferring and storing heat from the earth, with a geoexchange system.
by Jeff Persons
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A 75% savings on energy bills is
right under your feet.
That said,MOTHERand Jeff Persons,
owner of Geo-Source One in Dublin, Ohio, would like to
introduce the most energy-efficient and cost-effective way
to heat, cool and produce domestic hot water: geothermal
energy. This type of power is literally and figuratively a
groundbreaking way to reduce your electricity bills by
actually using the temperature of the earth to heat and
cool your home. Basically, all you need to get started is
some polyethylene pipe, a compressor in the basement and a
hole in the ground, and you'll save up to 75% on monthly
electricity bills! - Sam Martin
EXCHANGING HEAT WITH THE PLANET
One of the most frequent comments we hear from our
customers who have switched from conventional heating
systems to geothermal is that the system's so quiet they
cannot tell if it's operating. Many customers tell me they
feel the need to check the thermostat and system in the
basement to be certain that everything is still working.
(Another thing they often say is, "we only wish we had
decided to switch to geothermal long ago.")
Since soil temperatures several feet below the surface
remain at a nearly constant 50°F year round, the earth
actually acts as a massive low temperature solar storage
unit - cooler than surface temperatures in the summer,
warmer than the surface in the winter. Geothermal energy,
also known as geoexchange, is literally the transfer and
storage of heat from the earth.
Similar to your kitchen refrigerator, a residential
geoexchange system uses water or a nontoxic refrigerant
that circulates through a ground loop where it absorbs
heat. A compressor then amplifies this heat to a higher
useful temperature before rejecting the heat through a
finned heat-exchange coil into the household duct system.
This system also allows the cooled refrigerant to flow into
an expansion valve so that a "reversing valve" can
automatically change the direction of refrigerant flow to
provide air conditioning. Many residential systems also
incorporate a small auxiliary heat exchanger called a
desuperheater to heat the domestic water supply, providing
60% of the normal household hotwater load. In the summer,
the hot water is a byproduct of air conditioning and in
winter, hot water is made at one-third the cost of
operating an electric hot water tank.
While a geoexchange system will not relieve you completely
of dependence on grid power, it will dramatically reduce
the amount of electricity you need from your local utility
without sacrificing comfort. Indeed, this type of system
can provide heat up to 100°F and air conditioning down
to 45°F. In summer months, if the compressor in your
basement has to work only to reject heat to the cool earth
rather than the much hotter outdoor temperatures, it can
provide two to three times as many cooling BTUs per watt of
power consumed. That equals a savings of 50% to 66% in
cooling cost and a dramatically reduced electrical load for
the utility.
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