You may be seeing more companies advertising Geothermal Heating and Cooling systems and be asking yourself what is Geothermal Energy and why should I be interested in it? A Geothermal heating and cooling system is something that has been below the radar for many years due the impact it could have on the fossil fuel industry; but if you're interested in saving money and doing something good for the environment, a Geothermal Heating and Cooling system is worth doing some research on.
What is Geothermal Energy?
Geothermal Energy is energy stored in the ground that we walk on every day. The ground absorbs the sun's energy everyday and stores it only a few feet below the surface. This energy can be extracted using a series of water pipe lines and then used to heat and cool your home all year round. Geothermal energy on large scale operations is very expensive to tap into through drilling and the ideal geographic areas are limited to supply large cities but systems to heat and cool individual homes have become more practical today than ever before. Due to the limitations Geothermal Energy has for large cities, it's extremely green energy benefits have been over shadowed by the usefulness of Wind Turbines and Solar panels but it's not to say your individual home can't get a lifetime of savings by choosing to install a system like this for your home.
Installing a Geothermal Heating and Cooling System
There are several different ways to install a Geothermal Heating and Cooling system, depending on several different factors. The first thing to consider is the amount of property you own and the second depends on if this system will be a retrofit for your home or something you are considering for a new construction. The most popular system installed in homes today is the Loop System. The Loop system consists of a series of trenches tug in your yard approximately six feet deep and 300 feet long. Obviously for a system like this that consists of anywhere between four to six lengths of pipe stretched 300 feet long requires you to own a piece of back yard free of any septic or well systems. Special underground piping is used to ensure the life of your geothermal system and it is connected to a pump system in your home to convert the water temperature to heat your home in the winter and remove the heat from your home in the summer.
Home Renovation Ideas for Geothermal Energy
If your home doesn't have the property required for a Geothermal Looping System, it doesn't mean you can't get all the benefits from all that geothermal energy can offer your home, it just means you need to consider different ways to tap into this green energy source. One other way is using Vertical loops. This can be done to homes with limited property during the construction of your new home. This method consists of drilling vertical holes in the ground ranging from 180 feet to 540 feet deep. Using the same water pumps that a horizontal looping system uses, you will extract the ground's heat in the winter time to heat your home and transfer your home's heat in the summer months back to the ground through water circulated with heat transfer pumps.
Does your home have an adequate water supply nearby in the form of a farm pond or lake that is at least 8 feet deep? A loop system can be submerged in the lake or pond with a single line trenched back to your home and circulated with water pumps to convert that energy into a green energy heating and cooling system.
Country homes that currently use a well system can take advantage with cost savings through geothermal heating and cooling by using an open loop system. This system requires a second well drilled near your current water supply. Water is drawn from your existing well to circulate through a heat transfer pump that converts the water's temperature into useful energy, then re-circulates the water back into the second well so your original well can draw it again to be continuously reused.
Pros and Cons of Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Pros
- The biggest pro of using Geothermal Energy is that it is renewable and as long as the water keeps circulating, the water will continue to draw and transfer energy.
- Geothermal energy reduces acid rain created by the burning of fossil fuels by 97%
- Geothermal energy will eliminate your heating and cooling expenses to only the expense of running a pump to circulate the water.
Cons
- Due to the expense of trenching water lines approximately six feet deep or drilling 500 feet deep with a vertical system, it could be a very high upfront expense of around ,000.
Geothermal Energy can save your home thousands of dollars in energy expenses and have absolutely no harmful effects on our environment in form of fumes and damage caused by the use of traditional fossil fuels and gases
| Price : $95.00
