Geothermal Heating

Franko43

Hi All

Starting to build a new house in 8 weeks and was wondering did anyone have a geothermal system installed. I'm not sure whether to select it or biomass. Any ideas? Good or bad feedback all appreciated

peat

It really depends on your heating requirements, both are high capital outlay but both should be eligible for some sort of grant assistance.
Sorry, only just noticed your location, don't know about grants there.

ailuro2

Geothermal houses are common in Canada- so maybe googling some Canadian websites would offer you more insight- this was advertised as a big plus in the Canadian property guides we saw when on holiday this year, so remember a good, easy system will add value to your home too.:D

Ken68

Did read on this board a few weeks ago, Frank, that vertical bores need to go down 85 metres, and in a flat array you would need quite a bit of land, like a very large lawn or paddock, or as seen on Grand Designs Channel 4 a car park.

eco123

You can get information on GSHP's from a company called "Ice Energy", do a google & it should come up.

Hope this helps you.

punamulta

air source heat pumps ( reverse cycle aircon ] have improved greatly recently with cop ratios of up to kw 1:5 and their prices have come down too. they are all the rage in Scandinavia because of their low installation costs, and quicker pay-back time. you would need units with auto-defrost on the outside compressor due to our damp air here. Mitsubishi and Panasonic do reasonably priced units.

almacmil

Do you mean true geothermal or ground source heat pump (GSHP)?

I've got a GSHP from Kensa Engineering. It's a DIY installation and runs our underfloor heating. No problems with it and the Kensa folk were very helpful. most systems are about efficient as a good gas boiler (IIRC).

I have family who have a much bigger system that does DHW too - I think they used a Northern Ireland company?

Franko43

I think I mean the system that is the piping inserted about 2 metres under the ground and covered a good 1/4 acre area beside the house. I think thats what you mean by true Geothermal. How does your family find it? I live in Northern Ireland. I'd be interested to hear their views almacmil

almacmil

Your PM has prompted me to return to the thread!

"True" Geothermal is like they have in Iceland, where the hot/volcanic rocks are used to create hot water - ground source heat pump is the one that uses the heat of the sun stored in the ground absorbed by a water/anti-freeze mixture by running pipes in the ground as you describe. The heat pump takes out that heat and uses it to heat the water (like a fridge in reverse - with a fridge the inside is cold but the back is hot - a heat pump uses that to heat water. My heat pump in the winter was bringing in water at 0 degrees and extracting heat from that. The outgoing temp was -6 degrees!).

Both myself and my sister have no problems at all. Cleaner than oil, cheaper than propane and installation a hell of a lot less than the £20k or more that Fulcrum Connections (working for Transco) were going to charge for natural gas! We stuck a solar panel up too, to assist our domestic hot water production.