When my parents built their new house, they spent an unbelievable amount of money on the heating and cooling system.
Mom and Dad the most energy conscious people I know, so they looked for a heating and cooling system which would minimize their carbon footprint.
They consulted with a local HVAC contractor and expressed their wishes, and he advised them to consider a geothermal heat pump. My parents researched geothermal HVAC and they learned that this type of temperature control is thought to be the most environmentally friendly by the EPA. It makes use of the readily available energy found underneath the ground, and it then simply moves heat from one place to another. During the cold winter months, the geothermal heat pump draws from the sufficiently stable underground temperature to supply heat into the home. In the summer time months, the heat pump literally reverses the process, pulling heat out of the home. This process is so incredibly energy efficient, it produces four times as many units of energy as it requires to operate. In spite of the hefty initial cost of installing the underground loop plan plus heat pump, my parents expected to reclaim their investment in a few years. They had read that this type of plan can maintain perfect year round temperature for approximately a dollar every 24 hours. Unfortunately, they did not realize that a geothermal heat pump struggles to handle drastically cold temperatures. My parents live in a state where it’s not unusual to see below-zero temperatures in the winter. No matter how high they set the thermostat, or how hard the heat pump works, their house is never really warm in the winter. My husband and I have actually purchased a bunch of space heaters for my parents to supplement their heat pump.