There are other ways to do these things too.
One of the ladies that my wife worked with for years had a recently
built house that used passive heat sources. It was super insulated and
faced south. The windows were almost all in the south wall and those
were large. It had clerestory windows that faced into a balcony on the
2nd floor and dark coloured ceramic tile on all of the floors in the
main living area and upper hallway. The sun through the windows warmed
the floors which gave off heat in the night. Many years, she had not
turned on the heat at Christmas time and her annual electric bills were
minimal. This house was built probably 20 to 25 years ago so technology
has not doubt advanced since then.
If you have enough land, you can do geothermal with trenches and
horizontal piping. My aunt and uncle in NW Ontario (Dryden) had that
system for years and it worked well.
If you live on a rural acreage with a pond, you can run the piping in
the pond.
If you don't have much land, it is more problematic. We looked into it
for our house in Winnipeg and we don't have enough land unless we had
them drill deep and use fewer holes. That becomes more expensive as
drilling deeper would require drilling into rock. It wouldn't be
worthwhile for us. We got a new efficient furnace and our costs were
halved from what we were paying for natural gas with our furnace from
the 80's.
Randy
On 06/01/2022 9:16 AM, dan penoff.com via Mercedes wrote:
We seriously considered geothermal for the massif we owned in Indiana. This
would have been 2010, but for a 4,000 SF two story house the total would have
been around $14,000, less Federal and State incentives bringing our out the
door cost of around $10,000-$11,000 as I recall. Average monthly bill
regardless of season was estimated at under $100.
Also, in Indiana the state gave you a cut on your property taxes for installing
geothermal. It wasn’t a substantial amount, but hey, like Geddy Lee says, “10
bucks is 10 bucks.”
-D
On Jan 6, 2022, at 6:41 AM, Andrew Strasfogel via Mercedes
<mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote:
What was the install cost for your geothermal system? This would work
great in the mid-Atlantic but has never really caught on. How much acreage
did you need?
On Thu, Jan 6, 2022 at 12:02 AM OK Don via Mercedes <mercedes@okiebenz.com>
wrote:
Dan, I've lived with heat pumps since 1979 - the earlier ones had resistive
backup heat that did come on below freezing. This new one doesn't have any
resistive elements. In our main house, we have geothermal, and
occasionally the resistive elements would fire up, but I've pulled the
cut-off on them so we just have the geothermal now and it's been just fine,
even below 0F last winter.
No, they don't blow hot air, and the warm air does blow more than a hot air
system would, but it's not a problem, at least for us. YMMV.
The new mini-split is in the 700 sq ft "guest house" where my wife is now
growing veggies all year round -and it replaced a couple of window units
(one was a heat pump) and some electric space heaters. The electric use is
about a third of what it was last year. When we installed the geothermal in
the big house, our total energy cost was cut in half.
We're very happy with both of them.
On Wed, Jan 5, 2022 at 8:59 PM dan penoff.com via Mercedes <
mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote:
Don, is the outlet air temperature decent? That's one thing that a lot of
people don't get used to if they've experienced gas or electric forced
air
- the outlet temps are generally quite a bit higher than what a heat pump
puts out.
I'm curious about this as I don't want to put something in the casita
that
won't perform.
Thanks!
-D
________________________________
From: Mercedes <mercedes-boun...@okiebenz.com> on behalf of OK Don via
Mercedes <mercedes@okiebenz.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 5, 2022 9:34 PM
To: Mercedes Discussion List <mercedes@okiebenz.com>
Cc: OK Don <okd...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [MBZ] Mercedes is selling vaporware
The Mitsubishi mini-split we had installed last year is rated for either
5
or 10F. It has been down to 15F so far, and it held the temp just fine.
The
temp is supposed to drop to 12F tonight - we'll see.It's also very quiet.
On Wed, Jan 5, 2022 at 7:46 PM Dwight Giles via Mercedes <
mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote:
yes we just had one rated 4F installed in our church rectory.
the one we put in our house 15 years ago is rated 30F for heat
On Wed, Jan 5, 2022, 6:00 PM dan penoff.com via Mercedes <
mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote:
Actually, there are heat pumps now rated for lower temperatures. My
insulation guys in Flagstaff offered me a mini-split that’s good down
to
4F
(-15C) for the casita. Granted, I can’t imagine the air temperature
coming
out of it would be that great, but it’s supposed to produce heat down
to
that ambient temperature.
I passed for now, but I may still do it so I can disable the old gas
wall
furnace that’s currently in there.
-D
Sent from my iPad
On Jan 5, 2022, at 3:08 PM, Randy Bennell via Mercedes <
mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote:
It really isn't a problem for Tesla owners to keep the car warm in
really cold weather. They just light it on fire and it burns hot for
days.
Heat pumps for houses don't work here in the winter temperatures.
They
are fine in spring and fall but come winter, you will be relying upon
electric heat built in to the heat pump system.
Randy
On 05/01/2022 2:39 PM, Allan Streib via Mercedes wrote:
Ask the folks in Teslas who were stranded on the interstate in
Virginia.
I think at least the newer EV cars do not use resistance heating,
which
would be a heavy drain on the batteries, but use a heat pump system
which
should be more efficient, at least as long as it's not *too* cold
outside.
I don't know how a half-charged EV vs. a car with a half-tank of
gas
would compare as far as keeping warm enough to prevent hypothermia
in a
"stranded in a blizzard" scenario.
Allan
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--
OK Don
"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to
pause and reflect." Mark Twain
“Basic research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I am doing.”
Wernher
Von Braun
2013 F150, 18 mpg
2017 Subaru Legacy, 30 mpg
1957 C182A, 12 mpg - but at 150 mph!
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--
OK Don
"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to
pause and reflect." Mark Twain
“Basic research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I am doing.”
Wernher
Von Braun
2013 F150, 18 mpg
2017 Subaru Legacy, 30 mpg
1957 C182A, 12 mpg - but at 150 mph!
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