Geothermals Top 10 Takeaways


If your knowledge of geothermal heating and cooling is next to nil, you ought to know this, at least – especially if you’re planning on redoing your present Lancaster home’s HVAC system or still undecided about what to put into the new home you’re having constructed:
  1. Geothermal HVAC systems are some of the most environmentally friendly available. Their relatively straightforward technology makes use of subterranean temperatures to supply your Lancaster home with winter heat and summer cooling. Thus, your home and the earth are always in sync, bonded together in a unique – and uniquely sympathetic – home-earth symbiosis. Sound a little too pompous? All it means is that, with geothermal heating and cooling, your home isn’t inverting the natural order of things. Instead, it’s becoming a “nicer” part of the environment.
  2. Geothermal HVAC systems meet the standards of “renewable energy technology.” Yes, they run off of electricity. But they don’t require much of it for all the benefit you get. Just one unit of electricity can convey as much as five units of natural heating or cooling from the earth to your home.
  3. Geothermal HVAC systems are far more efficient than solar (photovoltaic) or wind power setups. The truth is, solar and wind technologies, whatever the allure of their “renewability,” eat four times more kilowatt-hours of electricity per dollar spent than geothermal systems.
  4. Geothermal HVAC systems won’t take over your yard. Don’t have much yard space in the first place? No surprise there: most home lots in Lancaster and elsewhere anymore occupy a fairly meager]55] piece of real-estate. {{The good news is, the polyethylene piping needed for the geothermal earth loops doesn’t have to be buried horizontally. It can be dug in vertically and run as deep as 100 to 400 feet. Almost no above-ground surface is called for at any rate, whether vertical, horizontal, open (well water), or pond loops are installed. Result? You can keep your little patch of paradise a whole lot greener.
  5. Geothermal HVAC systems are remarkably quiet. Every component of a geothermal system is designed and engineered to operate significantly quieter than traditional gas furnaces, heat pumps, or air conditioners. Best of all, there’s no outside unit, so you and your neighbors areen’t subjected to the annoyance of fans, belts, and compressors whirring, whining, and rattling away at all hours!
  6. Geothermal HVAC systems are dependable heating and cooling solutions, designed to last for generations. Present-day geothermal technology, manufacturing guidelines, and installation procedures insure ground loops of outstanding longevity and heat-exchange equipment that will keep on working flawlessly for decades. It helps, of course, that the heat-exchange equipment is housed indoors. At least, when it does in due course have to be repaired or replaced, it’s not likely that you’ll be swapping out the ground, well, or pond loops along with it. So replacement costs can be relatively insubstantial.
  7. Geothermal HVAC systems don’t demand much maintenance at all. The earth loops, as previously described, are designed to endure for generations, and when properly buried, will do so without any need for intervention. Fans, compressors, and pumps, shielded indoors from weather extremes, need only a sporadic inspection as well as periodic filter changes and an annual coil cleaning.
  8. Geothermal HVAC systems are as adept at cooling as they are at heating. The old idea that geothermal HVAC systems don’t cool as well as they heat has been essentially buried by steady refinements in the manufacture of geothermal technology.
  9. Geothermal HVAC systems can be set up to multitask. Okay, so you’ve decided on heating your home’s water geothermally. But can a geothermal system provide ambient heat for your home too? And what if you have a swimming pool? Relax. Today’s systems can do it all and do it at the same time, with no favoring of one task over another.
  10. Geothermal HVAC systems are becoming more and more affordable – even in the absence of federal and local tax incentives. Congress has yet to reinstate federal tax credits for geothermal heating and cooling that ended December 31, 2016. Still, a number of factors – material and technological advances, new installation practices, and increased competition in the marketplace, for the most part – are helping to better correlate geothermal solutions with the cost of more established heating and cooling methods.
 
Contact the geothermal wizards at Gochnauer at Home today. They’ll clearly outline the rewards of geothermal heating and cooling so you can make the best decision for your Lancaster home.
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