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Geothermal systems:
which use the relatively stable and moderate temperature of the ground as an energy source, a new method to satisfy the green-minded builders as an efficient and clean alternative to conventional heating and cooling systems.
Geothermal heat pumps (GHPs) accounted for about 50,000 residential and (mostly) commercial installations nationwide in 2006. That’s less than 1% of the overall heating and cooling equipment market, according to a recent report issued by the Freedonia Group, a Cleveland-based research firm. GHPs work typically by exchanging or transferring heat via liquid-filled tubing loops that run between the house and the ground or a nearby body of water. That same report, though, forecasts 6.5% annual growth for the technology through 2011, setting a new bar of 70,000 installations that year. By 2016, the report predicts nearly 100,000 geothermal heat pumps will be put in place per year.
“The growth is exponential,” says Eric Dickie, president of Delta Geothermal, a distributor and installer in Lake Country, British Columbia. “For every geothermal heat pump system we sell, it generates two more sales.”
And why not? Geothermal (also called geoexchange, earth-coupled, or ground-source) offers some pretty attractive benefits, from far superior heating and cooling efficiencies compared to even the highest-rated furnaces and air conditioners, to the use of a free, nontoxic resource of ground temperature.
“Simply, you’re moving energy from one place to another versus spending money and resources to create it,” explains Cary Smith, president of Sound Geothermal Corp., a ground-source system designer in Sandy, Utah.
In addition, a geothermal heat pump is a heating and cooling machine-in-one, eliminating the outdoor air conditioning or air-to-air heat pump compressor from the spec sheet. Fitted with a standard blower and filter, it leverages the same distribution network of ducts and supply/return registers as any other air-forced system.
GHPs also mitigate seasonal fluctuations in performance (unlike air-source heat pumps), run on about half the amount of electricity of a conventional system, deliver effective humidity control, and can be specified within the same unit footprint to heat the home’s water supply, in-floor radiant heating system, and swimming pools.
And while builders will need an excavation or drilling crew and likely a certified installer to trench and hook up the underground loop of circulation tubes that feed the system, any HVAC contractor worth his sheet metal can connect the rest of the equipment. The systems are generally applicable in almost any climate, thanks to the consistent temperature of the ground of around 70 degrees F, at about 8 feet below the surface, whether you’re in Scottsdale or Scarsdale.
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