We live in an area where the icy winter temperature is known to drop below zero
When my fiance and I built our custom house, we spent a ton of money on the heating and cooling system. Mike and I are tremendously energy conscious and searched for a method which would diminish our carbon footprint. We consulted with a local HVAC company and explained our priorities, then he suggested we think about getting a geothermal heat pump. Mike and I researched geothermal heating and cooling and we were glad to find out that this type of temperature control is considered the most environmentally friendly by the EPA. It uses the readily available energy found underground and just moves heat from one place to another. During the winter, the geothermal heat pump gets from the relatively stable underground temperature to supply heat into the home. In the summertime, the heat pump literally reverses the operation, pulling heat out of the home. This process is so amazingly energy efficient, it produces more than three units of energy for every single component it requires to operate. Even considering the great expense of installing the underground loop method and heat pump, Mike and I expected to recover our investment in very little time. We had read that this type of system can maintain perfect year round temperature for close to just a dollar a day. It was unfortunate that we failed to realize just how a geothermal heat pump struggles to handle extremely cold weather. We live in an area where the icy winter temperature is known to drop below zero. No matter how high we turn up the thermostat, or how valiantly the heat pump struggles, our beautiful custom home is a little bit cold. We’ve had to buy over 5 small portable heaters to put around the house just to supplement the heat pump.