[electric_mayhem]

I’m renovating an old building that doesn’t currently have any HVAC.

I tried like hell to get a geothermal heat pump set up for it.

This entailed researching companies that make good geothermal equipment and talking to all of their preferred vendors to get quotes.

Literally every shop I talked to, and they were over a dozen that are supposed to be installing these companies equipment told me they don’t install them because air source heat pumps are so much cheaper.

Even with tax credits and rebates (which may not exist by tax time next year when they would pay out), when I finally found a company that would do geothermal, they want 120K USD for a basic system.

if I want to be able to run different rooms in different modes (entirely possible given that it’s a 5500 square-foot building) we’re talking 180K total to work in a heat recovery option.

Meanwhile the same company will do Mitsubishi H2i air source heat pump set up for the entire building for 57K after credits and rebates.

The air source heat pump solution is less efficient and uses more electricity, but the clincher for me was that the cost of each as a complete system, ground source or air source plus the cost of solar raised to drive their respective loads…. Came out as a wash over their lifetimes. Except the air source plus solar solution costs 40K less upfront than even the cheapest and least functional ground source solution.

I would genuinely love it if it were otherwise, but I have months into this and ground source just doesn’t seem economically viable at this point

[grumbelbart]

That's just economy of scale, though. It's always more expensive to be the early adaptor. In Switzerland, 15% of all buildings are heated using geothermal heat pumps.

[thomasmg]

Yes. And in Switzerland, I believe most new houses have some other type of heat pump (drilling for geothermal is not allowed everywhere, or too expensive). This all still needs electricity; but many houses now install photovoltaics. (At least where I live.)

[kragen]

This is completely unrelated to the article, which is about geothermal power, not ground-source heat pumps.

[kragen]

This is completely unrelated to the article, which is about geothermal power, not ground-source heat pumps.