Geo-thermal heating

S

SEALEE

Guest
Hi, my partner and i are in the planning stages of building our own home. With the price of oil increasing all the time we really want to look for a cheaper heating option & since our site is really in the countryside we cant opt for gas. We have heard about this geo-thermal heating but to be honest it sounds a little too good to be true. Can anyone tell me of any experiences they've had or heard about, good or bad?
 
hi,

if you run a search on the site for geothermal you'll find loads of threads on it some are very helpful
 
SEALEE said:
Hi, my partner and i are in the planning stages of building our own home. With the price of oil increasing all the time we really want to look for a cheaper heating option & since our site is really in the countryside we cant opt for gas. We have heard about this geo-thermal heating but to be honest it sounds a little too good to be true. Can anyone tell me of any experiences they've had or heard about, good or bad?
Click to expand...
Whats so good about it exactly. The thing is so expensive you are unlikely to recover your money in a reasonable amount of time (15 years?). Plus you are likely to use more heating by kidding yourself that it is cheap to run hence further driving out the already meagre payback period. Economics out. Furthermore the fairer sex will be unlikely be contented with the heat output from underfloor heating and probably demand some supplimentry form of heating (probably electric heater).

As far as being nice to the environment goes, you put in 1 unit of electricity and get out 4 units of heat. but when the electricity is generated you put in at least 3 units of fossil fuel and get out 1 unit of electricity. Why not just burn gas directly?... nice fluffy feeling out.

Why are the government giving grants for these things? Am I missing something?

Oh and another thing about SEI grants. You only get them if you buy from an approved dealer + installer. This is cartel promotion, hence the inevitable overpricing you are likely to recieve!
 
Whats so good about it exactly. The thing is so expensive you are unlikely to recover your money in a reasonable amount of time (15 years?). Plus you are likely to use more heating by kidding yourself that it is cheap to run hence further driving out the already meagre payback period. Economics out. Furthermore the fairer sex will be unlikely be contented with the heat output from underfloor heating and probably demand some supplimentry form of heating (probably electric heater).

As far as being nice to the environment goes, you put in 1 unit of electricity and get out 4 units of heat. but when the electricity is generated you put in at least 3 units of fossil fuel and get out 1 unit of electricity. Why not just burn gas directly?... nice fluffy feeling out.

Why are the government giving grants for these things? Am I missing something?

Oh and another thing about SEI grants. You only get them if you buy from an approved dealer + installer. This is cartel promotion, hence the inevitable overpricing you are likely to recieve!Yesterday 03:58 PM
So expensive?? from what I have heard, an average house costs about 10 - 12 k to have this installed, compared to 3 or 4k for a traditional oil or gas fired system. The grant is 4k , or 6 if you are boring a well, so thats makes the cost to you over and above an oil system of about 5k. With many people spending over 1000 euro a year on oil, im no sure why you think it would take 15 yrs to make your money back.

The elctricity used by the pumps etc is quite small, about the same as would be used by the burner and pump in a standard il or gas installation. So how can you think it is not more environmentally friendly?

And as for the 'cartel promotion'..any installer can join the list by proving they are tax compliant and that they are not a shoody cowboy and have installed a system like this in the past. check the conditions on sei.ie
 
badabing said:
Whats so good about it exactly. The thing is so expensive you are unlikely to recover your money in a reasonable amount of time (15 years?). Plus you are likely to use more heating by kidding yourself that it is cheap to run hence further driving out the already meagre payback period. Economics out. Furthermore the fairer sex will be unlikely be contented with the heat output from underfloor heating and probably demand some supplimentry form of heating (probably electric heater).

As far as being nice to the environment goes, you put in 1 unit of electricity and get out 4 units of heat. but when the electricity is generated you put in at least 3 units of fossil fuel and get out 1 unit of electricity. Why not just burn gas directly?... nice fluffy feeling out.

Why are the government giving grants for these things? Am I missing something?

Oh and another thing about SEI grants. You only get them if you buy from an approved dealer + installer. This is cartel promotion, hence the inevitable overpricing you are likely to recieve!
Click to expand...

oops, try that again!!

So expensive?? from what I have heard, an average house costs about 10 - 12 k to have this installed, compared to 3 or 4k for a traditional oil or gas fired system. The grant is 4k , or 6 if you are boring a well, so thats makes the cost to you over and above an oil system of about 5k. With many people spending over 1000 euro a year on oil, im no sure why you think it would take 15 yrs to make your money back.

The elctricity used by the pumps etc is quite small, about the same as would be used by the burner and pump in a standard il or gas installation. So how can you think it is not more environmentally friendly?

And as for the 'cartel promotion'..any installer can join the list by proving they are tax compliant and that they are not a shoody cowboy and have installed a system like this in the past. check the conditions on sei.ie
 
The elctricity used by the pumps etc is quite small, about the same as would be used by the burner and pump in a standard il or gas installation. So how can you think it is not more environmentally friendly?

This is patently untrue, Gas systems (not that I like them, I do speak from a renewable background) do not use a comparable amount of electricity or anything like it
 
As regards the cartel thing...have a little think about it.....Any way the government interferes with the free market acts a perversion...I have first hand evidence of this maybe not on the capital cost..but wait for the installation cost
 
Badabing, no sure wha kind of experience you are talking about, but is it a case of one bad experience or are you speaking more generally?

My take on this is that we are not talking about a 'free market' here...oil and gas heating iseems to me to be a classic case of an externality where the price we are paying for oil and gas does not reflect the true cost. The govt has intervened here to correct this (as governments do all the time in the case of externalities) by offering a grant to try to convince us to move to a heating system which produces less harmfull side effects.

As for the 'cartel', i would imagine that any installer who has an eye to the future and has a tax clearance cert will be on that list very quickly.and the more installers on it the more competition we should see. Its only up and running a few weeks at this stage...give it time and see how many are on it in a year. Personally i woul rather such a list where you have to prove you are tax compliant rather than spending tax payers money to cowboys who wont stand over their work and who dont pay any tax.
 
Colleib
You are ignoring my argument which I will state again;
As long as our electricity comes from fossil fuels we do just as much environmental damage by running a heat pump which effectively uses the same amount of oil/gas as burning directly (gas fired power plants are 30% efficient, coeficient of performance for heat pumps = 3 or 4 maybe higher in ideal installations, therefore we are back at square one). With huge gas supplies coming online in Ireland in the near future I'd imagine our power plants will be chugging away on the stuff for some time to come.

My cartel argument is as follows; The government interferes in the free market all the time often doing more damage than good e.g. increasing first time buyer thresholds thereby pushing prices higher. My guess is that the fees charged by installers will be quite high. I've heard anyone on the list charges 2k for a wood pellet boiler installation...that seems high to me. Ok maybe not a true cartel, but I doubt the full benefit of the grant will be seen by the consumer.
 
On another note I dislike the grant system in general. Why does'nt the government just create tax incentives instead ie. abolish VAT on sustainable systems and fuels. In the case of wood pellets the government penalises you by charging VAT. I wonder what the VAT rate on home heating oil is?
 
Badabing, Fair enuff, i bow to your superior knowledge on the efficiency issue. Nuclear power plant in Leitrim anyone?
 
Just got the answer to my own question

Gov tax on wood pellets = 13.5%
Gov tax on home heating oil = 2% reducing to zero in 2007
 
And some more arguments against geothermal;
Badly insulated houses will put a large electrical load on the heat pump making it work harder to give sufficient heat, producing substantial electricity bills.
Supplimentry electric heating required for hot water....In the US electrical utilities give rebates for installation of these things. Why?....to keep you hooked on electricity
 
Badabing is right: the Irish gouvernment never received any donations from the alternative energy industry. So why should they support it? And since most seaside land is build up already-why stopping the sea level rising? After all it would free plenty of building land at the new seaside for which there would be plenty of tax free supports for the friends/builders of this nation....
Giving a child a box of matches for free might look like a promotion of the match industry. But it's more likely a sales trick of the fire insurance. When the message spreads that these things are no good/ too expensive-the so called geothermal heating or the pellet boiler- who would benefit? Sure the old comrades/ supporters/donators. Nothing comes from nothing and nothing comes for free.
 
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