You know better than anyone that your house gets blazingly hot in summer. Maybe you’ve tried a ton of ways to cool your home, from window unit air conditioners to multiple fans spread throughout your home, but nothing quite did the trick.
Geothermal AC may be it for you, but with an in-depth installation process and the higher upfront cost, there are a few things to consider before going all-in. Let’s help you figure out if geothermal is right for you.
Geothermal heating and cooling may seem a bit like magic to homeowners—especially for homeowners who only recently found out that a geothermal HVAC system is a possibility for them and not something that’s out of reach. A geothermal heat pump has much greater energy efficiency than a standard air source heat pump, and it manages to pull off this trick through the simple concept of placing loops down in the ground rather than having the heat pump release and draw heat from the outside air.
What makes using the earth so much more efficient than the air? We’ll let you in on the secret in this post…
Although geothermal HVAC systems are becoming more common for homes, this technology is still new to many. Because of this, people often have misconceptions about how geothermal heating and cooling works and how useful it is.
We’re going to look at six of the major misunderstandings about geothermal heating and cooling.
Geothermal heat pumps (a.k.a. a “ground-source” heat pumps) are becoming more common for residential homes. People who once thought that installing geothermal heating and cooling was out of their reach are finding that these installations are more flexible and affordable than ever before. If a home already has a standard AC or heat pump, most of the indoor work for installation is already done—a geothermal heat pump will use the same ductwork the current AC or heat pump uses. Putting in the ground loops isn’t as difficult as it may seem either.
If you’re thinking about changing over to geothermal heating and geothermal cooling in Brighton, MI, you should know about some of the major benefits of this switch. It’s true that a geothermal installation is a larger investment than other HVAC systems, but the system can pay you back in many ways:
We work with geothermal in Davison, MI, and we’re big proponents of homeowners choosing to have a geothermal heat pump installed for their year-round home comfort. Geothermal heat pumps work on the same principle as standard air-source heat pumps, which is that they use the circulation of refrigerant to move heat from one place to another. In hot weather, the heat pump pushes heat out of the house. In cold weather, it reverses direction and pushes heat into the house.
The difference between air-source heat pumps and geothermal (or “ground-source”) heat pumps is the medium they use for heat transfer outside of the house. The air-source heat pump draws or releases heat into the air, and the geothermal system uses the ground at least six feet below the frost line.
Many homeowners are concerned about whether a geothermal heat pump will do the job they want from it during the winter. Do they need to have a back-up heater to help the system supply enough heat?
The word geothermal contains the suffix -thermal. If you remember your Ancient Greek root words, or you’ve encountered thermal underwear at some point or know about “thermal detonators” from Star Wars, then you know thermal means heat. Geothermal power has something to do with heat—heat from the earth. (Putting those Greek roots to work again!) So when we tell you about options for geothermal air conditioning for your house, you might wonder if we’ve gone a touch batty. How can a geothermal system work to cool down a home?
The answer: extremely well! Geothermal heat pumps are effective ways to provide comfort to a household all through the Michigan year. Like a standard heat pump, a geothermal heat pump brings heat into a building during cold weather and removes heat during warm weather. And it does these jobs at higher efficiency than a standard heat pump.
Do you have plans to make significant changes in your home’s HVAC system in the near future? Or are you moving to a new house and have to think about how you are going to provide heating and cooling for it? There are plenty of options to consider, but you might have brushed off the idea of geothermal heating and cooling because it sounds too expensive, cumbersome, ineffective, or all three.
But geothermal heat pumps are advanced today and offer immense benefits for households. They do cost more to install than conventional air-source heat pumps and central AC/furnace systems, but they can pay back their costs over time, and continue to deliver savings after that for years and years. Installing a geothermal heat pump isn’t as difficult as it sounds, either, if you have professionals like ours on the job.
