Heating with an Outdoor Woodburner vs Geothermal

12 years ago

I'm hoping this is the right forum to put this question in. Debated whether it should be in the new home forum or energy efficient forum.. but we'll give'r a try here!

My husband and I are about to begin building a new home. We live on a 500 family farm, with about 30-50 of those acres being wooded. We have a lot of large equipment at our disposal, so we are building the house ourselves with minimal outsourcing.

We are trying to plan the heating/cooling portion of our home and have narrowed down the heating to an outdoor woodburner or geothermal.

The case for the Woodburner:

- Have enough down trees to never have to cut a tree down for firewood. We already have next year's supply stocked after cleaning pastures!

- Husband has all of the equipment for firewood: chainsaws, log splitter, dump truck & skid loader for hauling, etc.

- Husband LOVES playing with his equipment and cleaning up the woods.

Cons:

- Costs about $10,000 for the woodburner alone (put this in the cons bc cost is always a con!).

- Woodburner would heat the water, so there would be the dilemma of having to heat the water in the summer months when the entire house is not being heated.

- We are in our late 20s now, but as we age husband's enthusiasm for labor might diminish.. but then again, if he stays anything like his work-a-holic family, then probably not! =)

The case for Geothermal:

- We have the large equipment (backhoes, skid loaders, etc) to dig for geothermal.

- Essentially labor free after initial installation.

- I don't have much more!

Cons:

- You would have to heat with another source to bring the temperature up from 55 degrees to a comfortable temp.

- Not sure about cost if we do the labor ourselves..

So, there you have it! Can anyone else help to clear up our inhibitions?

Thanks a lot!

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Comments (9)

ionized_gw
12 years ago
It seems like you want cooling at the start of your essay, however you present no way to cool if you go with wood for heat. Do you need cooling or not?

Where do you live? It makes a huge difference between being in a predominantly heating or cooling environment or something more balanced.

By "woodburner" do you mean a wood boiler or wood furnace? If the former, you use wood fuel to heat water.

Who is going to stoke the wood heater to keep the house from freezing when you are out of town? Who is going to keep the home fires burning if you even take a day trip? Who is going to prepare the wood when you get too old to even carry it from the wood pile to the furnace?
fsq4cw
12 years ago
The fact that you have the land and the equipment to do a horizontal ground loop for geothermal yourselves is a HUGE factor in its favor.

Do you have a pond or lake near your new home?

SR
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In your narrowing down process why did you disqualify Masonry Heaters as an option for your home? IF cost is a factor for you and you are able to perform manual labor, then I would think that those would be positives in favor of Masonry Heaters. Here's how I see it - wood versus geothermal is a trade-off between "free fuel" and no labor where you have to pay more NOW in order to get future no labor heat for your home. Or to put it another way - you save big money by going with wood but you have to continually collect and prepare wood for burning. Depending on the particulars of your finances, you could use your own labor to build yourself a Masonry Heater and then later, when collecting wood becomes a real chore, invest the money in a geothermal system. You didn't mention how you were going to distribute the geothermal heat in your home. If you're going to use hydronic heating then you can lay the pex during constuction and leave it dormant until a future hookup is ready.
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A word of warning on heating with coal - it is a lot of work. Not as much as buring wood, but work none-the-less. and if it's outside, then outside you go in order to keep it running. About 10 years ago I spent part of a winter in a house heated by coal. The furnace had to be loaded and the coal ash removed EVERY day. The coal ash needs to be put somewhere; some coal ash isn't very nice stuff. If it goes out, then getting it re-lit requires some fire starting skills. I think that a geo system would appeal to more people than a coal system. If electricity prices are low in your area, geo seems like a more attractive option.
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It boggles my mind that people think 10 years is a long time. After installation, you pay each month (including financing) about what you were already paying anyway (probably less). You do it for 10 years, (especially with all the new government incentives, rebates, and low-interest financing now available) and after 10 years you're paying a ridiculously paltry amount for heat. Of course it makes sense. Think of the payback over 20 years once that loan is paid off! Even if you only end up paying even 1/2 of the normal cost over that period (including the cost of your system and electric), you're still saving substantially. I know not everyone lives in a home for that long, but seeing low energy bills does increase home values. I've seen homes sold almost immediately with their main advertising point being their geothermal system even in our horrible present climate while others still linger on the market. Not only that, but why not decrease your monthly bills slightly (before the loan is paid off)? Slightly lower bills, a higher sales price which will pay off the rest of that loan - still makes sense. We had someone come out to our house and they specifically calculated everything from current estimated heating costs, heating/cooling with geo, then savings/payback period. This was a full service option, including thermostats, etc. Finding that should not be difficult. One argument I saw above made no sense. If it really is worth insulating your home to use a normal system, it is a no-brainer to insulate your home using geo. Whether you decide to use geo or not, you can't say, "Well, normal is better, because we insulated, too." That makes no sense. Insulate either way. Then compare. The financial analysis does not make much sense, either. Yes, it would be wonderful if we could just stop paying the oil company, live without heat, and invest that money! Realistically, while you could want to put away the whole $25,000, you really are still using it for heat either way over those 14 years as projected. Geo, with the loan, electric, etc, will cost about the same each month as heat before the loan is paid off, so you can't just pretend that money could be invested elsewhere. Use it upfront with geo, use it over several years with oil, it makes no difference. That money is being spent on heat. Should it be spent on something worthwhile, or just, at the end of 10 years, have you still spending the same amount on more heat with oil? Geo will typically initially cost you a little less (including the loan and electricity) per month than you would be paying otherwise, then suddenly drop dramatically to only the cost of using the system as soon as that loan is paid off. That's money you would have spent anyway each month with your normal system (even though some of it went to financing, it is still less that what you would have paid for oil). Then suddenly, once the loan is gone, you actually DO have perhaps $1,000 a year in money saved that you can invest if you wish over 10 years. If, with financing costs, it does cost more per month than your normal heating system, that's one thing; but if not, the argument that it is wasting money is not valid. You're spending it anyway. Might as well spend it on something that will, in the future, save you tons of money. (Not just a little, a lot.)
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Lyns06
Original Author
12 years ago
Thanks for the replies!

I have done a substantial amount of research on the topic of geothermal since I posted this, so I realize that I wasn't fully aware of its potential when I started inquiring.

Anyhow, yes, we would want cooling as well. I didn't realize that geothermal would be useful for that, too (I told you I didn't fully do my research!! =). We were figuring on getting a central AC along with the woodburner, which would of course, add substantially to the cost.

And, yes, we would have used an outdoor woodburner to heat the water, so I suppose the correct term is wood boiler.

We live in Northeast Ohio, where we heat 7-8-ish months a year and would cool for probably 3-ish.

I appreciate your pointing out how difficult it is to maintain a wood burner. Where we live now, on the family dairy, there is always someone (family) who is on the property (cows don't take vacations) so I've gotten accustomed to having a hired hand or family take care of the fires when we aren't available. This won't be the case with our new location, so I appreciate your pointing that out.

As for doing the horizontal loop, we certainly have the equipment, so hopefully that will help fray some of the cost!

Unfortunately we don't have any bodies of water nearby, but I see how it would be nice to use it as a place for the loops.

Could you tell me, would you have to have a back-up system for geothermal? Can you use radiant heating with it? We are wanting to run it under the tile in our bathroom. Any more advice or considerations?

I appreciate your wisdom and thoughts!
crazy_in_mason
12 years ago
It looks like you have been misinformed about geothermal. Geothermal can heat your house above 55 degrees to any temperature you want. In some areas you need additional heating when it is really cold out and the geothermal can not keep up. In northeast Ohio the geothermal should not need it.
fsq4cw
12 years ago
Geothermal should always be backed up, usually with electric resistance heat of some sort and yes you can do radiant in-floor heating with geothermal using a triple function geothermal heat pump. Full capacity hot water production for indoor radiant in-floor or radiators and snow melt outdoors or pool heating, forced air for heating & cooling, and domestic hot water for kitchen and bathrooms.

SR
fsq4cw
12 years ago
I should have mentioned the purpose of the backup is incase the house has greater heat loss than the system can provide in extreme cold conditions and as a method of emergency backup in case the compressor fails or is locked out.

SR
joyce_6333
12 years ago
I'm not an expert, just someone enjoying our geothermal heating/cooling. We had a HOT summer last year, and it kept our house very comfortable. DH set it about 68, and it held it perfectly. Now we are having a very mild winter here in WI, and we have never used the backup heat yet. We do have radiant heat in the basement. We recently were away for 3 days, dropped the thermostat to 50 degrees, but the house never dropped below 58. Our house in insulated very well, which should be done with any heating/cooling system. I'm not sure this is a DIY project; the equipment looks very technical to me.
Lyns06
Original Author
12 years ago
Thanks, Joyce, for the review. It's nice to hear from someone who actually uses geothermal rather than just telling me how it should perform in theory.

And, the only DIY part we'd do for this kind of project is digging the hole for the horizontal loops. The rest we'd leave to the professionals. However, if we can save on excavating costs, that wouldn't hurt!

Thanks again, Joyce!
Danielle Campbell
3 years ago
It’s been 8 years and now I’m in the same debate. What did you end up going with??

Heating with an Outdoor Woodburner vs Geothermal

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Heating with an Outdoor Woodburner vs Geothermal

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