Next new home question: Heating

[GreenPartyVoter]

Poll question: Next new home question: Heating

Still planning on doing the solar hot water, but now we are looking at how to heat the place. We're also talking over how much it would cost to add extra ceiling insulation to a 2000 sq ft living/working space modular ranch in Maine (we have a home business that would also be housed there,) and how much difference it would make in terms of heating and cooling.

[Extend a Hand]

1. I put in geothermal forced air gas

in a 100 year old house last year. The approx 2000 sq ft house had a 1960's era gas furnace and some ducting but no central air. It cost 20,000 for the new ducting and 3 150' deep wells since my lot is way to small for ground loops and the highest end variable furnace. We got a tax credit of 6000 for a total cost of 14,000. That was 1,000 higher than the quote on an air-exchange heat pump system.

[northoftheborder]

2. geothermal heating

I really don't have knowledge of the cost of geothermal heating (the installation, drilling, etc.) however I do know that Habitat for Humanity put it in one of it's houses in a town near here, so it couldn't have been too out of line in cost. I plan to look into it when I build my house. Location, sub-soil, etc. would play into cost.

[Tesha]

3. Geothermal is clearly the "best" solution, but may not be the most cost-effective solution.

If you can't do fully-solar heating, then from a long term ecological
point of view, geothermal is clearly the best solution. This will be
especially true if your electricity comes from renewable resources
(wind, wave, solar, OTEC, hydro, etc.) or nuclear.

Geothermal is also the absolutely best solution for whole-house
air conditioning in the summer time.

However, geothermal is still quite expensive and its expense depends
a lot on the hydrological/geological conditions at your site.

We just installed brand new heating and air conditioning in this past
year and strongly considered geothermal, but ended up bailing out
to the same ultra-efficient hot air by natural gas heating that we
previously had and conventional (but very high efficiency) air
conditioning (two speed condensing unit, variable speed indoor
blower).

For us, the payback period for geothermal was just too long, even
assuming rising natural gas and electricity prices.

Tesha

[Stinky The Clown]

4. Radiant heat in the floors

[Kolesar]

5. A super-insulated house could get by with a small 30,000 BTU/hour furnace

Or smaller? I would expect that your ceiling insulation should be R-40 or better. Cellulose or rigid foam is preferred over rolls of fiberglas or loose fiberglas. Loose fiberglas is a poor product.

Focus on designing around infiltration.

If your house is built with studs on 24 inch centers, you could buy windows that fit between the stud cavities. The house will not need header or cripple studs. The reduced parts count means that less heat is conducted through the framing materials. It also means economical construction!

In your state, wood pellets for a pellet stove "ought" to be cost effective. I recall that the price of pellets spiked just a few winters ago, though.

[madokie]

6. On wood pellets

we've been using wood pellets for heat since the winter of 91. The price of a ton of pellets, which we'll use two tons a winter, in '91 was $145.00, this last winter they were at $215.00 a ton. One time did the price go crazy around here and that didn't last but a couple weeks then.

[Kolesar]

7. That's so cool

it's red hot!