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I live in Norway, and installed a similar setup to yours back in 1999, and replaced the heat pump a few years back. There is one thing you didn't mention, the option of having in-floor radiant heating system, which is basically hoses that is cast in the concrete floors of my house. That's not cheap either, but the system was delivered with a 100 year warranty, so it's also a long term investment. We love this, as our floors are nice and warm during the winter period, and our kids and now grandkids love it too, because our floors are never cold. The downside is of course that you can't really use that system for cooling in the summer, but where I live, there's no real need for that. Also, since the heat comes from the floor, we can keep a somewhat lower indoor temperature without feeling cold. One downside is that it reacts slowly to change, because you need to heat up the concrete before you heat up the room, but with a good control system, that's not really a problem. The heat pump has an outdoor temperature sensor, which means that it can react long before the room temperature changes, so that mitigates that downside to a huge degree. The heat pump also delivers hot water like yours, but in sufficient amounts to meet the need we have, with four adults living in the house. Whether it is financially profitable or not is debatable, but if you ask me if I would do it again, the answer is yes, totally, the sheer comfort of it is amazing, and the heat pump lasts for at least 20 years.

Matt, I grew up way up north, at the north end of Hudson Bay, right on the Arctic Circle. I learned to make igloos at a young age. In my teens, my dad sat me down and said, "I have to tell you about the igloo." Of course, being a teenager, I revolted. I said, "Dad, I know about the igloo, you taught me how to build them." But, undeterred, he told me about the igloo. He said when you build your igloo, build it in shallow snow so, by the time you cut your blocks, you will be on bare ground. That bare ground may be frozen but it is still warmer than the outside air and you can borrow a little bit of heat from that frozen ground to help heat your igloo. Where I grew up we have something we call aujuittuq, ground that never thaws, permafrost. If you build your igloo on lake ice, make sure there is water under the ice. That will serve the same purpose. The igloo is built on the same principle as a downdraft kiln; the doorway is way down low so you have to get down and crawl in and out because heat rises and you live in the dome which is higher up where it is warmer. The coldest day I remember in Nunavut, Canada, was -52C (-61 Fahrenheit). If I had an igloo that day, I could get the temperature up to 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4. You don't want to make it any warmer otherwise your walls will start to melt and turn to ice. And ice is so much denser than snow and has much less insulation value. You don't want ice, you want snow. And when it is -52 outside and +4 inside, there is a difference of 56 degrees between the outside world and the inside of your igloo. And when you are wearing caribou skins, that is plenty warm enough to be comfortable. My dad never went to school and didn't speak English but he understood geothermal heating. It is a principle that has been used by Inuit from Siberia to Greenland for thousands of years. A very interesting topic. I enjoy your posts. I built a superinsulated house in Rankin Inlet in the early 1980,s with triple-glazed windows. I also installed a heat exchange system and it served us very well for many years.

We are 30 year geothermal users in Michigan with a home comparable in size to Matt's. When we tell people our electric bill ranges from 250 to 350 a month they freak out. When we tell them we have no gas and no propane they say: Wait what? We also have the desuperheater making hot water with electric water heater backup. I work at home and have several computers running as well as a 150 ft tower full of antennae supplying Internet to the neighborhood, all included in that number. Our heat pump is also WaterFurnace but we could not justify the cost of the higher series units and run a two speed 3000 series. Its basically silent even when running on high with only light blower noise mostly noticeable on high if you are within a few ft of the unit. Highly recommended! Our home is not built to Matt's standard but does have 6" walls and is very well insulated for a 30 year old home.

For anyone wondering about how Geothermal systems work when scaled up for commercial properties, they work great for buildings with balanced yearly heating and cooling loads, such as office buildings located in the Midwest, USA. I'm an MEP Engineer and for commercial projects, with the accelerated depreciation option, and Inflation Reduction Act tax write offs (that include all costs for Geo, including engineering fees), we've found that if you will be owning a property for any length of time, it is actually cheaper right now to install Geo on large buildings than is it to install conventional systems. We recently finished overseeing the installing of our GHX system design on the Michigan Capital Building in Lansing, MI.

This man got his whole house build sponsored and I can’t even afford looking at a house.

The 'desuperheater' concept is a fantastic way to save energy and cost when applied to kitchens. Commercial kitchens need a lot of (usually conditioned) airflow which generates heat through a normal DX air conditioning unit. Most of that heat can be used to generate the hot water for food prep and dishwashing. Normally a kitchen has a few gas water heaters, but more and more I am calling for energy recovery preheat with a gas tankless to manage final temperature. New tech is great!

We also have a net zero home in South Florida, I did my geothermal a little differently, I drilled 14 vertical wells around 12ft deep, ( by hand, 4” dia with a half inch electric drill), using 3/4 lawn sprinkler tubing, so the single serial line goes up and down from around 3 ft down to 12 ft, the over to the next hole 14 times. Unfortunately the ground water temp down here is 72 degrees, the water table is only 1-2 ft underground. We then run thru a small solar powered chiller to get the water temp down to around 68 f, which then is circulated thru a heat exchanger in the attic in the hvac main channel in the attic. It works mostly on convection, with a little assist from a variable speed blower to get constant air flow thru all the hvac ducts. All the air returns down here are in the ceiling, as hot air rises, the warm air rises gets sucked in thru the returns, gets cooled by the heat exchanger, then falls out of all the hvac ceiling registers in every room, ( after passing thru filtration and a single pass uv germ system). So the house has continuous flow of clean cooled filtered air, ( several in home have allergy problems). All of our attic ducting is r30, so our worst temperature drop or rise thru the attic is only 1 degree, ( we have temp sensors at the beginning and end of every duct in the home). Just a different approach, result is this small passive system cuts the main hvac run time in half. Didn’t cost more than a few hundred dollars, and it actually works. Just thought I would share for those interested in a super simple and inexpensive solution.

You are 20 years late to be a guinea pig but you have made the right decision.

We did ground source geo when we built 12+ years ago, horizontal loop, desuperheater also. Our ERV is separate from the system and no whole house dehumidifier, but when humidity becomes an issue we run the cooling on geo and that takes care of it pretty fast. I forget the total cost off hand (guessing around 25k-30k), and compared to oil heat, which was the norm here, our payback was estimated at 8 years - but oil prices have only gone up and it wouldn't including any kind of cooling system. Maintenance so far has been.. changing/cleaning the filter. I'm extremely happy with our set up and wouldn't do anything else if given the opportunity.

My parents have an open loop geothermal heat pump. Pumps water out of the well and dumps it in the lake in the backyard. Unit is from 1992 and still works.

My brother installed a Trane ground source system 25 years ago and it’s been great for him. Never a problem having enough heat in Michigan winters.

Matt, we have owned a series 5 Waterfurnace for 20 years. The AC performance is OUTSTANDING. The winter heating is somewhat underwhelming so we supplement this season with a wood burner and a small LP gas room unit to heat our rural Iowan home during the cold months.

This video will definitely need a 10 year follow up on actual annual maintenance costs ie. all the extra required filters, equipment longevity, manufacturers still in business for essential repair parts, if they go subscription costs for IOT data and the big "IF" of did it actually pay off in ROI before equipment needing replacement due to mechanical/IOT obsolescence failure?

Geothermal is the clear winner from a technical standpoint but seems to be best (makes the most sense financially) for bigger scale projects. A developer doing an entire neighborhood or a grid wide application.

Great content Matt! Very important point about the goals and expectations because those vary so much from project to project!

I've never seen a video that was so clear articulate and explained everything

I am so happy to see that you put in an Aprilaire dehumidifier into your system. I have two of them installed. One in the HVAC and one of them in the crawl space below the house. It's set at 45% to help with any mold and it helps to keep the bugs out too!

The big problem is that the upfront cost only pays off if this is a forever home. Very few people are going to build a home in a subdivision and add cool tech like this since no one thinks that is going to be their last home. Geo thermal should just be part of the building code for new construction.

Great video. Really noted how drilling costs vary. We are going geo in our home under construction and had a system in the house we sold that was 12 yrs old and going strong with vertical wells. Our new build near Nashville has 2 300 ft wells and a single geo unit and drill costs were 15 k for both wells. Our HVAC contractor has seen issues with variable speed so we opted for 2 stage, as we had in prior home. Zero breakdown of the first system.

I always appreciate your videos! I'll definitely be looking into a geothermal pump for whenever I get my forever home

10 years ago, my parents build our family’s forever home with the same goals as you in mind. We went with commercial grade water furnaces, as it was the only things available in the size needed for a 6 person house at the time. We went with 7, 200ft vertical wells and the cost was higher than now. But, the energy savings and comfort has been well worth it. With almost 0 equipment maintenance cost we’ve been able to comfortably heat and cool our house even in the cold winters or hot summers. We’ve just installed the desuperheater option that we never did originally and it’s been fantastic for creating hot water and reducing our propane consumption. I hope your home provides the same level of comfort for you!

I got 3 different estimates for geothermal. All of them had very different ideas for equipment. 2 of them telling me I needed 6 tons atleast. All had a set of my plans. $45,900, and $45,689. I found out a local HVAC company had been installing geothermal for over 35years. He looked at my plans and said "You're only going to need 1ton for cooling. And 3 maybe 4ton for heating. But I need to run heat calcs". He came back with much simpler equipment and a 2stage bosch heat pump 3ton normally. Jumping to 4ton when - 20 for a week. I thought kool I'm going to be able to afford this.... His estimate was $45,200. I asked the HVAC guy from work if he could get the equipment that was listed on the last estimate. He said sure. I installed it myself. Including the infloor heat. 3400sqft $22,000. That includes the Panasonic cold climate ERV. I had also gotten estimates for conventional HVAC $28,000- $32,500. I used the same guy that all 3 estimates were using. For the horizontal loops, 4 coils. On one acre lot. $5,000. And he came back after I had everything hooked up. And flushed/filled the system with antifreeze. I installed the insulation and pex for the inslab downstairs. And had concrete poured over it. Upstairs I had the contractor install warmboard subfloor. And I installed the loops and manifolds. The inslab will very in temp +or- 5 or 6degs. The warmboard is +or- 1-2 deg. It's been up and running for 6 years. My house is all electric. The Bosch heat pump also has desuperheater. It keeps up with all my hot water. I use chilled water fan coils for cooling. I keep the entire 3400sqft as hot/cold as I want. 10,080 watts of solar. Up and running as soon as the roof went on. So I had it while I was building. Since the solar started, to today. Have had ZERO BILLS. Oh yah I live in Wisconsin. And I drive a forklift for a living.

Really wanted it when I had my home built 16 years ago. The two main features that made me choose a normal air to air system were the cost and the risk associated with running a water line to where the HVAC system is in my home. The cost was pretty well covered by Matt. The power where I live is pretty inexpensive so the ROI was very long and I don't remember there being federal incentives at the time. In my home the HVAC system is located in the attic. A friend told me about the ground source system they had at his church that also has the HVAC in the attic, which sprung a leak. As you might guess, the damage caused by the water was substantial. So that's why I didn't choose it. Every time my heat pump turns on, it's right by my bedroom and makes a bunch of noise. Very often I wish I had a ground source unit, but it just wasn't in the cards for me. Given different conditions, I definitely would have selected it. The thermodynamics are just so much better.

We just reached the finish line of our Geothermal install for our house this year. Very pleased with the performance in the summer, slightly scared to see the electric bill in the winter... (Cold NY winters) Hopefully it won't be bad, and still less than the crazy cost of propane we were dealing with before. Love your videos!

About 15 years ago, I had to replace both AC and furnace. I compared pricing for standard AC and furnace vs. a geothermal system. After government incentives, I estimated it would take about 5 years to recoup the additional cost. I chose to go with a vertical ground loop both due to the cold climate in the area and how we used our property. The wells cost $10k. However, the results were fantastic. My house was more comfortable than ever before, and energy costs were reduced so much that I recouped the excess costs before 3 years. I've moved since then, but if I were building a new house, I would almost certainly go with geothermal.

I've got the same setup, de-superheater as well, loving it so far. Just so everyone has some numbers to go off of, I spent 40k on my setup (this included ducting since it was a new build) but got almost 15k in tax credits.

Great video. Norway here. We are also doing a geothermal heat pump for our new house and floor heating in all rooms. Not only is it a more efficient solution than air, but other features that you didn't mention is not having an ugly/noisy box on the outside of the house that also has to do "reverse cycles" to remove the ice buildup. Another nice feature with geothermal is that you can use it for passive cooling. Basically pumping the cooled brine through a radiator with a fan blowing on it.

Here in southern Manitoba I have two geothermal units. One in our 3000 square foot 100 year old farm home and another in my 42 X 66 foot shop. Each of them has a separate ground loop of one mile of pipe 7 feet down. The house air duct system had to be renovated to accept double the amount of air flow as the geothermal system can’t create the same temperature as say an electric furnace can. In the shop I already had in floor heating so there the geothermal unit just heats water directly in a 50 gallon tank. From there it is pumped through the floor as needed. Each unit cost me $32,000. Canadian money 🇨🇦 I dug the ground loop trenches and laid the pipe. We are on our fourth year and love it Thanks for sharing your video with us!

YES!! I was looking at that sonic setup. That would be very helpful. I am also thinking about having my geothermal system run around my home foundation. I would have them dig around 6' extra to lay down ground loops for the system.

I am in Ontario Canada about 100 miles north of Lake Ontario. My 4 ton Climate Master 2 stage ground source heat pump has run for 15 years with NO service calls, and paid for itself at about 8 years, as was estimated before purchase. It saves about 75 % of the electricity cost that the previous baseboard heaters used. It heats completely without using the back-up heaters down to minus 30 F. It uses a ground loop buried 5 feet down. I added a soft-start unit myself, which will extend the life of the compressor significantly. I have never been sorry I invested in a GSHP.

Hello. just wanted give you some information from my geothermal home from Finland. My house is build in 2009, it has 208 m2 in 2 storeys, house has 30cm of insulation, limited windows with triple glasses, heat exchanger and incoming air preheating. Geothermal system is made with field pattern, because the ground was good for that so the pipe is at least 2 meters and it is 500 meters long. pump is Nibe Brand and i have not changed a compressor yet, it has 27430 starts and 23070 hours in it. our yearly energy consumption is 12-14000 kwh and it includes everything also garage, so i would say that you are not going to be disappointed. i have calculated that without geothermal pump, our energy consumption would be over 33000 kwh year.

I really appreciate all your videos on geothermal heat pumps! I hope to install one on my home now

The variable speed is what is used in anything labelled "inverter" technology as well on heat pumps. It's been around a very long time in split systems, and is quite common. Quite a number of central systems also use the same variable speed technology on the compressor as well. It certainly is not anything new, and two stage is rare in heat pumps, mostlly two stage is used in gas furnace style heaters. It does help keep things more even and saves considerable energy cost.

Our apartment complex (50 apartments) has "shared ownership" system in place and we decided in our regular meetings to go with a geo heat pump. No HVAC only water so it does not cool only heat, but considering its an old soviet style "panelák" it's the best we could do. Ignoring the benefits you outlined, which we also got, we also are now in a different bracket with our electricity supplier and so overall we have cheaper electricity per kWh as well, which added some savings to it. Don't have exact numbers, but so far it works great.

My horizontal loop was done with a directional boring machine. Only required one smaller hole to be dug for the loop manifold. Also allows for the loop to be run under your house/out buildings/driveway.

I just want to put this out there. I have had roof mounted PV cells since 2014. I just added Franklin Whole Home batteries this summer (July 2023), and a "free" Span panel came with them. I didn't really care about the Span panel, to be honest. I live in Texas; I need electricity that I can rely on, and the "Electronic Reliability Council of Texas" is nowhere close to reliable (reference Icepocalyse 2021 when the entire state shut down for a week because it got cold). I have found that I like the Span panel quite a bit. I found some things that drew MUCH more power than I thought, and found others that drew a lot less. The smallish (~2 gallon) dehumidifier pulls about 200w; the refrigerator and deep freezer COMBINED draw about 620. It's made it easier for me to turn things off that are drawing more than I need them to. I haven't recouped any costs (nor do I expect to, and anyway that wasn't the point), but my main goal was to have backup power, so the power I *was* dumping back into the grid is now going to charging my batteries. (And no, Span doesn't sponsor me; I'm just a normal regular person who has one and a lot of times it's hard to find unsolicited genuine reviews).

Matt, you are so right - setting goals is the only way you can develop the correct yardstick by which to measure any system. This has been a really interesting series and very helpful to me as we plan our mountain home in North Carolina. Thanks so much for putting such effort into your videos.

The thing that surprised me the most was the cost of the ERV and dehumidifier. I live in Quebec and ERV are mandatory for new residential constructions since the mid 90's. Both are pretty mature technologies and since you ran the fresh air to your HVAC system, the only ducts needs were for the returns. The whole house dehumidifier also only needed a loop to your HVAC system. The cost kind of feel excessive to me because of that. However, I'm not surprised the drilling for the geothermal system was pretty expensive given the labor and equipment required. I have a friend that had a geothermal system installed about 10 years ago. I should ask him if he's willing to share the cost and his experience.

Thanks for sharing, one thing we were looking for buying our house in Sweden was a ground source heat pump. We really like how good it works even though it's more than 20 years old. We don't have air ducts but water filled radiators in all the rooms as the house had an oil boiler before.

On top of all the potential savings down the line, you have the benefit of unique first-hand experience for YT content. Thanks for the vid and best of luck with the rest of the house build!

You have my curiosity piqued with the newer drilling technologies. The upfront cost of this may be higher, but it will be so worth it when the power lines are down and you are at a comfortable temp running off your solar & storage for a few days.

I was told the 30% tax credit just allowed you to pay tax on 30% less of the cost or in your case $23,400 less earnings. So, if you had a tax rate of 20%, you would get back only $4,680 dollars of it. I hope that was clear. Everyone commenting on their nice expensive systems makes we wish again that I had known about higher paying jobs when I was young. It seemed indoor construction was the way to go when I was 19. Wages went up for a few years and was ahead of the average college graduate. Then, as time went on, the wages went back down and everyone with cleaner, easier physical jobs, jobs with benefits, etc. started making more AND had many more benefits. I destroyed many things on my body trying to make a top hand. Now, I am just a tired, old, decrepit man who can only dream of having a nice place. lol

Thanks for your videos. We went solar 2 years ago and geothermal heating and cooling is next on my list! Our home is over 40 years old and the furnace and ac units will need replaced in the next 5 years so I am hoping to be strategic about this with the need coming and the technology improving.

As someone who wants to become an architect who combines efficiency and a higher standard of living that can be made available to anyone im very interested with this kind of tech and how it can be combined with vernacular architecture. Looking forward to seeing how your experience pans out in the real world so that i can perhaps make use of what works in my own projects. Keep up the good work!

I didn’t experience the same prices as Matt with the well which also doubles for domestic water costing a little over $10k. Mine is an 440’ open loop though which probably costs less. The rest of the system (radiant floors) would have cost about the same if I used an air source system. In the coldest months of Maine I’m expending about 1200 kWh for the month in a 3000 sqft home. So happy with the results.

This is definitely the type of system I wanted to do on my existing home, but due to some limitations on how geo needs to be installed, I could not do a ground loop despite ample yard space, because it may interfere with the septic drain field & conversely I cannot do a closed loop well because the bridge to access my home would not be able to support the huge drilling rig. :( Hopefully when I get around to my build in a year or two we can do all the niceties like you have achieved. Beautiful work on the build overall. I am definitely take a page from the book of Matt to make sure materials & such are used when I can get to said build. For now I'll just enjoy my solar array, Span panel & Powerwalls. :) Thanks for sharing your experience.

In addition of the saving geothermal heating has one big advantage: it is very quiet. The heatpump makes some noise but it is in the tech room. Everywhere else you get totally silence.

i plan on going custom build for my forever home, and ive wanted to go with geothermal since i saw your video explaining it. Ill definately be following any updates you put out on your experience

I loved my Geo. We had the loop in our private lake. Saved quite a bit of money for the installation.

Going horizontal and incorporating into your landscaping are the best ways to keep the price low but using a pond as part of the system allows a much smaller area to be used and that can include equipment in the pond to accelerate evaporative cooling if needed.

Thanks, this is very helpful for me as I am doing a very similar setup in the subarctic, with a goal towards net zero.

The electric co-op I used in the 1980s in Oklahoma was pushing ground source heat pumps for its customers and even helping with the cost.

I'd be interested in the video about sonic drilling

That is so expensive compared to here in Finland. A geothermal heat pump install typically costs between 10k and 20k Euro, which includes the drilling of the well, the pump, and the installation.

Great topic choice. Ground source is fantastic in northern areas. Understanding the ins and outs of heat pumps is a very important topic.

What a lot of people fail to understand is that making efficient technologies the standard with which we build would have a global impact on our energy grid. That chart of savings concerns too many people. The “life” of the home for many people also includes the next couple of owners. These technologies are incredible and as with most things, making them mainstream drives competition and brings down costs as production can be upscaled and install technique improves. Imagine 15 years in the future… in many of our lifetimes… when every house you see is saving that money, using that much less energy, producing that much more of their own energy. What does the load on the current infrastructure look like? These videos are great and I love them. I just wish people could see past the “cool” factor and look at what this kind of thinking could do for us as a whole.

I had a geothermal system in my last home, and loved it. I was paying nearly half on my electric bill compared to everyone else in my area. I recently moved into a home that immediately needed a new HVAC system put in. I greatly wanted to get another geothermal, but the costs have definitely skyrocketed, and they would have had to tear through my concrete driveway to get the piping to my house, which would have added to the cost, so I ended up going with an 18 SEER 5-stage heat pump. While it's a nice system, it's no geothermal, and I can definitely see it in my electric bill. Also, keep in mind, you can get a tax credit on high SEER air-source heat pumps too, but it's capped, unlike geothermal.

@UndecidedMF Hey there , greetings from Norway. Been watching your videos for a while. Just wanted to mention few things as I my self work in the Ventilation industry. (long post) First thing is I see that the Ventilation unit (ERV) that was used is of the "cross heat exchange" , this type of units have been outdated in the scandinavian countries for at least 10yrs, and have been replaced with a "rotary heat exchange".. It's basically an aluminium wheel with cores, kinda like radiator on a car. What this does is that it can recover around 80-85% of the heat for basically free. On top of that it transfers moist too, so you're getting 2 in 1 with it. we typically see humidity been kept around 40-50% with this units alone in the winter time with temperatures below freezing point, so heat is quite high indoors. The other disadvantage of the unit that you have is that in the winter when it's cold outside it creates ice in the heat exchanger, as hot air come in from indoors and freezing cold air from outdoors. Therefor the ventilation unit has to do a "de-icing" process which means a lot of energy lost. Many units had a "pre-heater" to prevent the freezing in the first place. But again that's a lot of energy lost as you would be heating the outdoor air. This does not happen with the new units, as the "rotary heat exchanger" rotates (as the name says) so it never freezes, and you get 80-85% heat recovery as well as humidity transfer for a healthy and fresh home environment. On top of that you can heat the air after the heat exchanger to desired temperature. And since you have a heat pump with hot water , you could have had a water heat coil and use that for heating. Now for pricing , Norway is by far not considered a "cheap" country , but for a new built house with 4-5 sleeping bedrooms + living room + few bathrooms/WC + washing room +kitchen you would be looking around 9-11000$ with all the equipment and custom duct work with insulation of much higher efficiency than of that used at your place. So the 21000$ that you payed is 100% on the "crazy expensive" side even for Norwegian standards. And on top of that you have gotten a way older system and way less efficient than the current ones, and since efficiency was on your top goals, I thing you got "played" here as you didn't get the best product for the money, and absolutely overpayed. This was my two cents , hope to see more videos of your house and the data that you gather.

This was really helpful in understanding how to compare geothermal to air source heat pump systems. Thank you!

One thing I saw on the Chateau Diaries was that they had to abandon their older geothermal heat pump in Normandy because after many years (if I got this right) it warmed the ground around the system to the point where it no longer functioned. I’d love to know more about whether this can be an issue.

The desuperheater reminds me of a different device that I haven't heard you talk about before. Its basically an ERV but for showers. The drain of a shower is made as a large and long copper pipe with copper tubing running around the outside of it. As hot water runs down the drain it sticks to the edge and can heat the fluid running through the coil on the outside, that can either be used to heat up the cold water going to the shower head (because there is always at least some cold water going there) or could be connected to the cold side of a heat pump water heater. That way whatever heat isn't transfered to you by the water in the shower has a chance to make its way back to you to try again.

Hey Matt, thank you so much for the awesome videos, would definitely like to hear more about sonic drilling technology, thank you again.

I LOVE my ground-source geo. Dates to 2010, and yes the drilling cost was heart-stopping. I calculated the break-even point as being 10 years (my system is entirely electric.) Just passed 13 years in. My electric bill averages $100 per month.

I'd love to see videos on alternative drilling methods. I replaced my air-source heat pump with geothermal in 2009 using a vertical well and have zero regrets.

(The) Way to go Matt! Currently finalizing my GSHP set up, so a big fan. I’ve chosen to go with wet system with underfloor heating on both floors, sort of to create a thermal battery out of the concrete as a bonus to the efficiency. Curious to see your running costs, especially with the help of the solar system. So keep us posted pls.

I had looked into converting my oil/forced air + traditional air conditioning system to geothermal with a horizontal ground loop. As Matt suggested my breakeven came out to about 7 years. Probably pulling the trigger on it this year.

great explanation! I would say expensive but worth as you solved so many things with that and you can just chill and relax

Thank you for making this video. I’m really impressed with the solution you picked out - and I’m hoping to copy the key concepts one day. I may do the ground loop instead of the deep geothermal well because I have more space. I really like that you are able to use the extra heat from the geothermal system as hot water. That is so smart. Thanks again for all the effort you put in here and sharing it with the community. One big problem is finding contractors that understand this technology and can implement what you’ve described.

I got a 2 well open loop system installed in 2018 and have so far enjoyed it. My main gripe is that the local water table has a fair amount of fine iron sediment requiring the wells to need flushing couple times a year. That said the whole thing cost me $18,500 (13,700 for heatpump and ductwork and 4800 for the wells). The tax credit I got was for 4800 which brought the price down below even the cheapest garbage tier conventional system I had been quoted. 😊

Thank you so much for making this video. I love GeoThermal, or ground source heat pumps, as they are called in most other places. Well, if you are living in Iceland then you have GeoThermal. I'll be installing GeoThermal Water to Water for hydronic floor heating. Your video makes it so easy to understand. They have been used in Europe for a long time, so you won't have to be a guinea pig. Ground Source Heat Pumps have been used in residential settings since 1948. Love your channel!

Last visit to the plumbing store, I heard of person that was upset on the change to the price he was getting back on his excess solar electricity from the utility company, that he bought extra electric water heaters and water heater blanket to make uses of his own excess solar energy.😊💡

I love the concept of heat pumps and long term savings/efficiency benefits. The sticker shock is a big deal though, hopefully the costs go down enough to be adopted more widely. Right now it’s too expensive for lower or middle class families. I’d be interested in the application for large apartments. Does the efficiency scale to that size? In a situation where utilities are part of someone’s fixed rent, it could be a big saver for renters in the long run.

Couple of comments on this excellent and informative video...First, you mentioned that the well installation was $18,550 for a 400' well. That is a great price. Wells cost more in our part of the Texas Hill Country. With the recent prolonged multi-year drought, well drillers are charging up to six figures for a 400-800 foot well here. We built our forever home outside Austin in 1992 and considered a geothermal heating and cooling system because we already needed a well for the water supply. But the technology for homes was too new at that time and our temperatures demand more heating and cooling power than could be provided by heat pumps. Even if the heat pump could cover 75% or more of the need, we could not escape the cost of having a standard AC and heater for the other 25% of the time. We opted for a wood burning stove for heating and super efficiency variable AC for cooling. Added 25KW of solar and three Powerwalls in 2020 and are 95% self-powered. We purchase some power at times to fill the Powerwalls for storm events. We put our money on power infrastructure to protect against rolling blackouts and storm incident outages. Very happy with that. Another thing to factor-in is the rising cost of power. So payoff time for solar will shorten as energy prices rise. Last point is that you stated that the well would not need any maintenance during your lifetime. You look fairly young, so that is a very optimistic gamble. Our well pump has had to be replaced twice in 30 years. The 10 year pump warranty covered the first replacement, but not the second and we had to pay the well service company twice for labor to extract the pump and replace it. $1000 each time. So you can anticipate at least one of those fun and unexpected expenses. Otherwise, loved the information. I watched your Powerwall and solar videos in 2020 prior to installing our system. Was very helpful.

Sure do love these videos, thanks so much!!

Matt, great video, as always, and you have a mechanical room I am truly jealous of. That said, when you do your break even analysis, you need to also consider the opportunity cost of the money you spend on the geothermal system. Hard to tell how much without doing the analysis but this will push back your breakeven date. It would be interesting to set up a cash flow analysis to really look at it.

Matt, thank you for this great video. I am wanting to build my wife and I’s own house and planned to do a post frame building. Slab on grade and was going to do radiant heat but didn’t know how I would supply the cool air for the summer time. I also plan to make this home as efficient and tight as possible. I would need an erv and dehumidifier. I don’t know you could run geothermal for a slab on grade but now I do. My parents have had geothermal for years and they love it. This might be the route to go.

Very interesting and a good way to go if you have the money and are into all the tech. However. As an alternative, I just spent a couple of weeks in the New Mexico Desert, in a home called an Earthship. It is totally passive and completely off grid, in all ways. 100% independent. They have a well for water and a cistern to store rain and water. All power is solar, but only about 600 watts. A conservative home built like a hobbit house but not that small. 3 of the four sides of the house are covered or built in to a hill. And packed in adobe and used tires filled with the desert clay and adobied in. The “open side of the house faces south and is all glass. In the summer there is a simple scrim shade shading the glass. In winter it is taken down. Loads are minimal. A hi-efficiency 12V fridge, all led lighting a 2000W inverter, 12V pumps. And that’s about it. They have been living there for 10 yrs now and love it. I did too. They have a beautiful setting in the desert with crystal clear air and unlimited views of the nearby 15,000 ft mountains. The cost was quite minimal for all. As myself, they formerly lived on a sailboat (to say the least, quite off grid). And cruised much of the world. Like the house the boat was simple and an adventurous life, full of rich experiences. My wife and I did this also for over 25 yrs on our boat. It’s amazing what you can do when you think out of the box!

Matt I applaud you for building a home with a NetZero Goal (must have deep pockets), also, for going with geothermal in new england. When a client asked me does geo thermal make sense in new england my answer is “are you looking at these to save money or looking for a technology to brag about without considering the financials”. I have yet to successfully make a financial case that a client found appealing for geo thermal in new england.

I installed a ground source heat pump in 2004 for several reasons. 1) I had to do something. My 1929 house had the original coal-fired gravity furnace which had been converted to natural gas. It was very inefficient (the pilot flame was 4"tall) and there was no cooling for the building. 2) My income made paying large sums up-front feasible and we were aiming longterm to keep costs down when we retired. 3) I understood the theory, as Matt explained, and had faith in it. 4) My plan was to add roof top solar PV sufficient to largely power the heat pump, so paying less monthly for power and heat was inevitable. Now many years later I am glad I spent the big bucks when I did.

with a positive pressure rating in the house, your also not needing to dust the house or deal with flies. My biggest issue is that you have so much new tech going at once, when you have a problem it might be a headache to solve the cause. I would consider adding my own sensors to everything to watch for changes in operating temperature and voltages and pressures. So if there is compounding problem you will be able to see it coming before it breaks something. I do wonder would those dehumidifiers work along the equator? Maybe add a few together and use it as your mains water source lol

Even without rebates and savings on bills, when you consider the whole point of a home is to create a comfortable stress free living space, $100,000 for these systems is a good price.

This video answered my questions how Bathroom and Kitchen vents will work in a tight, Net zero home. What about double door entrance. I appreciate shoes off living. But very few homes have a proper boot. Many homes have, shoes off policy with no bench or chairs at the entrance! While watching your videos and planning our own house, Told my wife we need another door at the front entrance, a door between the boot room or traditional entry and the main home.

I haven't done any research, but I thought of doing something like this just on principal. It's cool to see that it is actively being commercialized.

Matt, I moved into a large but very well insulated home with good door seals and good dual pane windows in 2005 in the Missouri Ozark’s. We have extremes in both heat/high humidity in the summers and below zero temps in the winter but our rural electric costs are quite reasonable. My winter electric bills for a 4400 sq ft home (2200 in upstairs living space and 2200 in a finished basement) are: summer electric bills the first 7 years in the home ran about $100-$120 a month. My heat pump wasn’t very efficient and didn’t help much in the winter. We used propane to back it up when temps were below freezing which was frequently in the winter. My electric bills in the winter ran between $140 to $180 a month depending on how cold it was. On top of that I would use two tanks of propane to supplement the heat needs which cost another $900 per winter when propane costs were only $1 to $1.30 per gallon if I did a summer pre buy to save money. This averaged out to about $200 per month for the mid fall to mid spring period. In 2012 my old SEER 7 heat pump quit on me in early fall so it needed to be replaced. A more efficient SEER (seasonal energy efficiency rating) 15 heat pump was going to cost $8000 including installation. That cost should be taken off the cost of my upgrade but I haven’t factored it in. If I did it would make the case for an upgrade even more powerful. I had been looking at geo thermal as an upgrade as I live on a small farm and I have a yard with plenty of room for a horizontal ground loop system. I went with a Water Furnace unit which produces all the hot water I need as a by product of creating my heat or cooling needs. It’s an 80 gallon tank which would easily supply all our needs even if the home occupancy were tripled. My summer electric bill went from $140 per month to $55 and my winter bill went from $180 to $60. The best savings went from using $900 worth of propane each winter to using almost none. My only current need for propane is to rarely supply gas to my 20KW Generac emergency generator and a BBQ. I’m still on the same fill of propane I had in 2012 as my current demand is minuscule compared to before going with the geothermal system. My system cost $28k installed and $20k after tax rebates from the feds. My state offers no rebates nor does my electricity coop. My savings since 2012 were enough to totally pay for my geo system in 7 years. The past 4 years the savings have been profit. The system has been highly reliable. The water heater had to be replaced 1 year after installation but there was no cost involved as the 10 year warranty covered everything. Even with very reasonable electricity the decision to go with geothermal in my area was a win win for me. For someone in a higher cost for electricity area (most people) those folks would benefit from it even more. I made the decision to do this expensive change at age 68 when most family and friends thought I would never live long enough to realize any savings. The cost for electricity here has gone up from a very cheap 5 cents per KWH by 50% to 7.5 cents per KWH and propane has gone up by 50% also so factoring those savings into the equation makes my effective payoff period and savings much better. 3 years ago I applied my geo thermal energy savings into getting a 9.25 KW solar system. My electric bills are almost zero now and my net contribution to heating up the environment with my home energy demands is zero. I may not live long enough to see the out of pocket expenses for the solar paid for as I was 75 when I got it and am 78 now but it too is on track to be paid back in a total of 7 years. I think the only home owners who wouldn’t financially benefit from the decisions I made are people who don’t plan to stay long in their home and even those folks should realize some return on the investment in immediate reduction of electric bills and some added resale value of a home with very low heating and cooling costs for the remainder of the life expectancy of their system. 50 years for the geothermal and 35-40 years for the solar. Folks who are nay sayers should consider these two thoughts: 1. Your electric rates will almost certainly always go up ..often by more than the inflation rate and 2. You can put yourself in control of these costs or leave them up to your utility companies.

Matt, I have been watching for years and highly value your efforts. That said, for those of us who will never have the funding to even own a traditional home, let alone something like you are building, it is fantasy/science fiction. I am truly happy for you and your family. 😊

I build vertical geothermal system for my house (1800 ft2) here in the Nordic Europe. Cost me 8k€ to drill the well (including the paperwork) + another 8k€ for the heatpump that runs the underfloor heating and hot water system. I didn't integrate it with the duct system. Overall this system is absolulty awsome. Silent and I have not payed more than 150€/month to run the whole house (at 22C) even through the coldest winter months (-10C...-20C) here. I also insulated the hell out of the house though (30cm EPS under the floor slab, 60cm wool on the attic etc.)

The first time I heard about heat pumps was in 1997 when in high school and befriended someone whose parents were long time environmental activists and whose uncle was a physics professor at at technical university. They had a heat pump system in their house, designed and built by his uncle in early 1980s. It was really very efficient, using plain old radiators in rooms and a heating water circulation system. Although the fact it was DIY from top to bottom meant that it was a lot less dependable than the commercial solutions that became available later. Although help was always near at hand :-P

Great exploration of some new tech. I've been thinking about an ERV myself as a 'backfit' because I'm concerned about indoor air quality. Since you mention hot-water heating, you might look into a shower heat recovery heat exchanger. A GFX (Gravity Film Effect Heat-exchanger) can recover energy from showers by using drain water to preheat incoming water. Not suitable for baths, or washing machines, but with a large family, I found I never ran out of hotwater despite several teenagers taking showers often lol. Of course, YMMV.

Can you share the source for the numbers comparing geothermal and air source heat pumps? The gap between them seems larger than I expected given the data I've seen on the topic which outlines the efficiency difference between the two systems. Also, given your own $1,000 difference number, there's an 18.6 year wait to make up the gap in cost ($54,600-$36,000=$18,600). I'm confused. Maybe I'm missing something.

You forgot to mention that you can deduct a lot of this as a business expense simply by making youtube videos about the tech, which definitely puts you well into the green on these projects. Well played sir.

Well it's nice to see the younger generation catching up to us old wise folks... I have had a geo-thermal closed loop heat pump for 25 years. Due to building methods back then the building was not as air tight as I have built homes recently. It really is the best way to go. I actually disabled the backup electric heater due to the cost of running it. Bur now a days since my fire required remodel my tightened up house even with the electric backup on keeps temp much better. I have long since recouped my cost of the 2 375 deep wells and premium on the system. Your going to love yours. Only thing is, it never blasts out that hot air cause it will maintain a mord constant temp, especially with zoning if you set that up. Hopefully they balanced you system well so you don't get cold rooms in the winter and hot ones in the summer.

Argument of geothermal breaking even because of federal tax credit is kinda unstable.

I can't even afford a home to begin with, but if I did then a set-up like yours sounds perfect - high upfront costs but lots of added benefits like air filtering and the efficiency of the desuperheater for quick hot water.

Great video. Another channel I love which talks a lot about heat pumps is "Technology Connections". Although, I can't recall that channel talking about geothermal heat pumps so this was a great addition to my knowledge of the technology.

It's cool to see Matt doing this fun stuff and setting a good example, but the biggest lesson is usually just how out of reach these things are for most people

As long as you have sufficient Real Estate for enough solar, seems like that an a normal heat pump would be much more cost effective and long term reliable. Even better, with enough solar, old school resistive heat strips. When energy becomes free, the script flips.

We have installed a single air to air heat pump. It is the only heat source and runs completely fine at -30 degrees Celsius. It costed 1500eur (current price is 1000eur) and it paid itself off within 3 years reducing total energy consumption by 40% compared to direct electricity heating from before. We spent 18MWh before per year to 11MWh after for electricity (total energy as no other energy source). Our neighbors have a shared thermal heating system and they spend probably 6MWh per year on electricity. But upfront cost is significant and best shared by multiple owners.

Excellent video as always ….. I’m intrigued by the unmeasurable saving to the environment and peace of mind you get by doing it the way you have …. Where I live energy costs have doubled or near enough in the last 4 years or so …… payback looks better and shorter in those terms… you’ve prepaid at a fixed cost …works for me

I wish that creators of this kind of heat pump ground temperatures would make note that the 50 degree ground temp is local to them. Around where I live which is south Tennessee it is closer to 56 degree and the efficiency during the winter is going to be higher since the amount of heat is also higher.