We have been looking at Geo-Thermal Exchange units to cool & heat our place. I doubt the cooling would handle 100% of the heat load with all our computer equipment, but a nice supplement. It should handle the heating nicely in the few months we need heating (now, for instance). Up Front costs are high, and I have other issues and obligations I want to wrap up before sinking $7k into the system, and about $5k into installation. The payback "on paper" was 5-6 years last year. Based on this year's pricing for electricity and natural gas it is about 1 year less. I have been looking for state or federal tax credit programs, but only "Geo-Thermal" units are approved for that. The less costly Geo-Thermal Exchange units are not considered to be the same thing, although in principle they exchange energy with Mother Earth. Our monthly average heating/cooling billing just jumped to $560 from $335! Still, working from the home and saving on building rent, etc., makes it hard to bitch about it.
Ciao! Gil > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Michael Madigan > Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2007 8:15 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: [NF] Energy from a hot rock > > > I've been hearing about geothermal since I did a > report on it in 4Th grade. It ain't ever going to > happen here. > > Solar and Wind work now and should be on everyone's > homes shortly. > > By the way, we've cut our house gas and electric bills > by $600 this year. We did it by only cooling and > heating the rooms we were in. We bought electric > space heaters and window air conditioners all with > digital thermostats. Our rooms were 74 degrees in the > summer and 68 in the winter. > > That represents an 18% drop in energy use. > > This year we're going to insulate our walls, which > have no insulation in them due to the age of the > house, and put a lot more insulation in our attic. > that should cut another 20% off our bill. > > [excessive quoting removed by server] _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
