March 5, 2013
When considering geothermal heating and cooling systems, the up-front cost can be a major hurdle. Understanding your geothermal installation costs is the first step in deciding if a geothermal heat pump is right for your home. Keep in mind that the average geothermal system will require a larger up-front cost than conventional systems, but lasts much longer and will reduce your heating and cooling costs. Plus, a generous federal tax credit – 30 percent of the cost of purchasing and installing the system – is available for qualifying geothermal systems.
There are two components of a geothermal heating and cooling heat pump: inside and outside the home. The costs of the interior component of your geothermal system will include the heat pump air handler/evaporator unit and any modifications to your existing heat system, such as ducting changes. Installations on new buildings are easily integrated. The heat pump needed will depend on the size of your home because more square footage requires a larger pump for adequate heating and cooling. This can be determined by a home energy audit.
The exterior portion of your geothermal heating system, the "loop," will make up the majority of the cost of installation. Loops are vertical (drilled into the ground) or horizontal (laid down in excavated trenches below the surface). And then, some geothermal systems use warmth from a nearby body of water as the medium of heat exchange. Which type of ground loop system you need generally depends on the amount of land available, type of soil and bedrock, and the climate. Vertical loops tend to be more expensive because they must be drilled instead of excavated. The size of your loop, or the length of pipe involved, depends on the amount of heating and cooling required. Larger houses require more loop length to adequately heat and cool. The rate for installation is calculated by the foot, so an accurate determination of your heating and cooling needs will govern the total cost.
The size of your home and your local geography and geology will be the biggest factors in your geothermal installation costs. To get an accurate quote for your home, please contact us at Russell’s Heating & Cooling. We have been serving the Hampton Roads area since 1977 and are the area’s source for geothermal heating and cooling.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Chesapeake, Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Hampton, Newport News, Yorktown, and Williamsburg, Virginia and surrounding areas about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about geothermal installations and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
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