Green Living
pixieprincss
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
If You Could Get Any EF HVAC System...
in Green Living
What would you get? We have to replace ours to the tune of $5-$6k. The plan is to go with an energy star rated system that is a more efficient version of the clunker we have now. But, since we pretty much have to start from scratch, I'm open to ideas.
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Re: If You Could Get Any EF HVAC System...
I believe ours is a Trane Energy Star system. We just put it in this fall, our home is 15 yo, 2600 sq feet. I would go by recommendation from friends/family for a reliable company, and they will explain the differences in efficiency and the ratings. I can't remember our exact rating now, but remember it is a $1500 tax credit over a certain level.
I think we spent $6,500, and got the tax credit.
Our bills have been cut at least in half.
I know someone that got a geothermal heat pump system put in. Its quite an impressive system and its really cheap to run, tho it will take at least 5 yrs to recoup the cost of the system
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I did an analysis for my thermo class in college on geothermal heat pumps and decided then I'd love to have one some day. For a retrofit it takes longer to recoup your cost, but for our area if you install it on a new build you will recoup your costs in just a couple of years.
We'll probably be replacing in a couple of months with a new heat pump though, I haven't research brands/models yet though. I like having ours except when it starts leaking freon or the electrical inline heaters break so it blows a minute or so of cold air when it first kicks on.
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This probably isn't in the original posters budget but I'll through it out there...
We put in a ground source heat pump (aka. geothermal) last year. Our house had a +30 year old fuel oil furnace before and a broken air conditioner. We live in the country so we have no access to natural gas (which is the most efficient fuel type) so propane was our only fuel option. Our quotes for a completely new propane split system were $7-10K. Instead we went with a $21K geothermal system (4 tons, vertical wells...the most expensive loop design) with a tax credit of $6500. We are saving so much now!
Estimated payback for difference between propane system and geothermal system: 4years
Estimated payback for entire $21K: 8 years
Don't install a geothermal system in a house you don't plan to live in for a while. Your location makes a big difference in your payback length. We're in a pretty poor location, WI, where we have many more cold months than we do warm months and wide extremes.
Two years ago previous owner paid $6K for ONE winter of fuel oil.
We bought the house did a bunch of energy saving improvements and paid $2300K for that winter.
This year with our new geo system we're going to pay somewhere between $700-900. (Keep in mind we have a big leaky house with lots of windows.)
We really, really love it but there are some draw backs for retrofitting.
I don't visit this board very often but if anyone has any questions PM me or reply here. I'm a mechanical engineer that designs sustainable HVAC systems for a living in large, complex commercial projects. And I'm a LEED AP. I did a ton of research on manufacturers and the real cost of geo systems (I did multiple energy models of my house to calculate this).
Hope that helps.
Assuming you live where it gets cold, have a heat exchanger installed in the system with the furnace. It moves the heat from the exhaust air to the intake air - so you exhaust cooler air and heat warmer air. The Habitat house I worked on had one, and I thought it was a great idea.
Geothermal is awesome, but it is a bit upfront cost and works better in some locations than others (both big geographically, and just required lot size wise).
The vast majority of homes don't have exhaust air so adding in a heat exchanger isn't even possible. In some areas new construction now requires it but that is because most new homes are built extremely tight and/or there are outside air requiements now in place. The average home exhausts all of it's air through bathroom and kitchen fans while make-up air is brought in through exterior doors being opened and infiltration. Do homes in your area all have separate exhaust systems? I don't know anyone personally that has one in their house.
Agreed, geothermal is not for everyone. But lot size isn't as much of an issue as you may think. Many city homes put vertical wells under their driveways (and have them repaved) or front yards. Each bore only needs to be 15' away from each other and the average home needs 2-4 wells. Bores can be drilled in front yards between people's front door and sidewalk even if the area isn't 15' wide because the ground under the sidewalk can still be used as the heat sink.
We have a couple acres of land and a pond but ended up putting in vertical wells because we needed access for the drilling rig. They are on a 15% grade in our front & side yard. Installing the vertical wells is the vast majority of the cost. Horizontal are much cheaper and pond loops are the cheapest. A horizontal loop would have only cost us $10-12K! We couldn't use the pond because it wasn't deep enough.