My turn - Geothermal/ground source heat pump installation

Viper GTS

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
38,107
433
136
Long story short I bought a house. Avoided it as long as I could, but here we are. We found a cheap house with a six car garage but like many old houses in the northeast it had no central air and oil based hydronic heat.

We went cheap so that we could do stuff like this.

4 ton WaterFurnace 7 Series ground source heat pump with desuperheater
1x 600' borehole with 2x loops (2400 total feet of 1.25" pipe)
Navien 240 Combi boiler for domestic hot water in excess of what the desuperheater can do + backup heat in case of loop failure or inadequacy
Water softener (not pictured) to protect all the shiny new toys
Remove all baseboards, old water heater, boiler, oil tank + oil, etc

https://imgur.com/a/ZIfGOIw

AwIGlNG.jpg


eCP6iWu.jpg


Still not 100% done but it's mostly in and functioning. So far on the worst 80+ degree days I've seen (hey it's late September/early October usage, what do you expect?) my cooling costs were sub $1 which is fun. Total conservative estimated annual heating, cooling, and domestic hot water costs predicted by Waterfurnace to be $726. This number is conservative because they could only model to 1" pipe vs the 1.25 we used. Many installers use 0.75 so the theory is I have a very generous loop, my installer claims I won't see loop temps below 40°F or so in the dead of winter. Additionally their math is based on electricity costs of $0.16/kwh, mine will be more like $0.131 year round if not less (due to solar offset of peak usage). This of course remains to be seen.

Many more pictures in the link (~100). More to come with videos likely later.

Remaining for this phase of project:

Repair all baseboards/etc where hydronic system came out
Box in return ducting
Get everything paint ready
Knee wall in attic
Remove all posts from basement

Next spring:

Natural gas generator so all this shit will work when the power is out
Replace the garage (likely with another geo system, 70 degree year round garage FTW)

Viper GTS
 
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Viper GTS

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
38,107
433
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I are confused. How does this system generate heat?

It's a ground source heat pump, it works exactly like an air source heat pump but using the ground instead of air as a source/sink. In cooling mode heat is transferred from the air in my house to the ground. In heating mode heat is transferred from the ground to the air in my house.

Viper GTS
 

Greenman

Lifer
Oct 15, 1999
20,432
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It's a ground source heat pump, it works exactly like an air source heat pump but using the ground instead of air as a source/sink. In cooling mode heat is transferred from the air in my house to the ground. In heating mode heat is transferred from the ground to the air in my house.

Viper GTS
Got it.
 

Viper GTS

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
38,107
433
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Did you also switch to natural gas?

Natural gas was already in the house but was only in use for domestic hot water. When we are done we'll have heat pump heating/cooling/domestic hot water, gas backup heat/supplemental domestic hot water, gas dryer, and dual-fuel range.

Viper GTS
 

snoopy7548

Diamond Member
Jan 1, 2005
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That's awesome. How much did it all cost? I bet you got a lot of tax rebates/credits.

And the garage is awesome too! You should turn half of it into a classic arcade with pinball machines and all that good stuff.
 

Viper GTS

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
38,107
433
136
About $55k for loop, waterfurnace, and duct installation. Navien, water softener, opening up the basement, and repairing all the areas the baseboards came out of added/will add a lot more.

The install qualifies for the 30% federal tax credit plus some other smaller local ones. Should be roughly 1/3 back on the base geo specific stuff.

This would all have been MUCH cheaper if I already had duct work in place but it was a small price to pay for the ridiculous garage to house ratio. Current idea for the rebuild is to build it as a four bay open garage + a two bay sized CNC shop. Ceiling height will be increased to the maximum allowed to double stack fun cars. Daily driver stuff will get pavement parking. Sadly an arcade is not likely to evict any of those use cases.

Viper GTS
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
110,636
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Oh I remember you posting the listing for this house before closing. I didn't know you were serious about the double-stacked car garage, lol.
 

skyking

Lifer
Nov 21, 2001
22,061
4,851
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I dug my brother's horizontal geothermal system for him, 30' x 60'x 6' deep with 1800' of 3/4" loops. Very nice to see a borehole system. :beercheers:
 
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