Any chance you have a bit of space for a 6' deep trench for a coiled loop to use in a ground source heat pump system?

Only vertical placement is practical on small urban lots.

And those I've noticed are for custom higher-end homes, such as this one in Bayview Glen, Thornhill (C$6m estimated market value) near our proposed build.

Ontario's subsidized hydro rates are surprisingly looking better than many other N.A. comps

Source: Quebec Hydro

For the moment, we are approved for a high-efficiency gas forced air.

Maybe time to consider the electrical heat pump alternative. Rather than attempting to suddenly become a heating expert, I will ask my trusted heating contractor and HVAC engineer about costs and efficiencies.

BTW, we scrapped natural gas stoves and dryers years ago. When Ontario had the lowest hydro rates in North America in the '80s, we did have electric heat. Clean and quiet!

Factoid: our first Toronto home, built in the 1870's, was lit by gas provided by the Consumer's Gas Company. (No I didn't build that one!)

Cheap Geothermal? As far as acquisition cost, that's nonsense.

Initial costs can be reduced by grants and low interest loans. In Toronto, for instance, see here and here.

If your lot doesn't have space for horizontal closed loop runs, I'd price out the vertical open loop option. Subsidies can be targeted to overcome enough costs to make it feasible. Otherwise, they'd be ineffective.

I would not heat solely with electric. Keep the natural gas for a backup source of heating. Governments and utility/regulators are becoming irrational these days and I wouldn’t want to bet my family’s life on their wims.

I would love to do geothermal, but not sure if it is practical on a small lot in Midtown Toronto (urban area), where the backyard is not that big. I think most systems people are thinking about now are air to water (or air to air) heat pumps.

Bad Idea giving up the gas line, you many never get it back. Last month a cold snap hit the south and there were many here living in zones 6 and 7 complaining about how their heat pumps couldn't keep up. We also learned last year in North Carolina a well placed bullet at a substation can take down power for days.

I don't know about Canada but the rest of the world has storms and lose power, or cold spell that took down Texas grid in 2021. I could go on with examples but I'll just suggest to use the past for all the examples you would need to justify keeping your gas line into the future. You can also go with a dual fuel system with an electric heat pump and with also gas.

I live in a major metropolitan area of over 1 million people, but that didn't prevent a major storm several years ago from causing a power outage that lasted a week. We have gas heating for our radiant heat floors and all it took was less than 200 watts to power up the electronics and pump and stay warm...something that can be easily handled by the smallest of generators or even a couple hundred dollars of portable solar panels feeding a portable power station storage battery. Bottomline: maintain your gas capacity in some way, such as the dual fuel system mentioned above.

The most efficient, comfortable system with the most effective zoning is a geothermal Liquid-To-Water heat pump coupled to a modern hydronic distribution system for water based heating, cooling and DHW in 1-integrated system.

Why? Because a given volume of water can absorb almost 3500 times a much heat as the same volume of air, when both undergo the same temperature change.

There’s virtually nothing that forced air can do that water can’t do more efficiently - including forced air.

Ask your mechanical engineer!

How many square feet is this home going to be? How many square feet is the front of the property including the driveway and sidewalk? I would be somewhat surprised if you couldn’t install some kind of ground loop there. I’ve seen it installed in a front yard the size of a virtual postage stamp, where you’d be hard pressed to grow 4-tomato plants!

I would not recommend installing ground loops in the back yard in case you or a subsequent owner would ever want to place an in-ground pool there.

Air-To-Water is another good option, as is natural gas backup.

These are premium systems, expect a price tag to match. First costs are the lowest especially when rolled into a mortgage and coupled with incentives and lower operating costs.

Toronto is a great market to find the professionals you’ll need. Architects and engineers might be hesitant if they haven’t done this before. Those that have will be very supportive.

BTW: The problem with “CHEAP GEOTHERMAL” is that you don’t know what you don’t know. And that can become VERY Expensive !

IMPO

SR

We have the opportunity to use all these new grants and loans to make the house more energy efficient, we are almost decided to go for Induction (instead of gas range), so we are thinking of completely cutting our gas service and move to a Heat Pump technology for space heating (water radiant floors and rads) and water heating (kind of same system hopefully...).

Heat pumps can work in a cold climate, but not anything like natural gas. If you have gas in a cold climate I think it would be a mistake to switch. If you're interested do the duel fuel set up so you can fall back to the gas part.

I get all this talk about reducing energy, getting freebies like grants and such to make improvements. But why is it that the masses only decide to do these things when they are give aways? They use them as an enticement.

Drug dealers do the same thing to hook someone on crack. Maybe that's an extreme example?

Well we're doing it to save the planet? Ok. then you should inform yourself. The gas (freon, refrigerant what ever you wish to call it) is the fluid within the heat pump that gives you the cool in summer or the heat in winter. That fluid (refrigerant) is over 2000 times worse for the atmosphere than burning natural gas.

But the heat pump is a completely sealed system, doesn't use refrigerant? True. But they don't stay that way forever. They develop refrigerant leaks. On average this can happen within 1-3 years from when it was installed. Best case is usually in the 8-10 year range. The talk about saving the planet isn't that good when you start looking at facts.

Then why don't they come up with a refrigerant that is better for the planet? They are, but that is going to cost you even more. The freebies (you know once they dupe you into this give away) there's no turning back. So in 2025 currently they begin to phase out the fluid (refrigerant) that is used today.

The new refrigerants coming in 2024 some time will be mandated (forced) in 2025. There won't be any dry shipped condensers this time around. They're so good (these refrigerants) that they won't hit the targets of the Kigali amendment in 2035/2036 so the phase out and phase down will begin anew.

Well that's ok... we're getting a freebie now. Never forget that the road to hell was paved with good intentions.

The better question would be why don't they just come up with a refrigerant now that checks all the boxes. The reason behind that is money. There are complications as well but the technology exists to make a natural refrigerant the go to. The rub is there isn't enough money in that for the manufacturer's of the world to keep selling equipment. (the other part is that it's flammable so there's design problems to work out.)

BUT... if you had a solution that was better for solid reasons, the cons were worked out. I like to call this committing to a solution that will work as opposed to a solution that is going to lead you to more problems.

The starting point to how, why, what, where? (There will be a 2023 update to this in a bit, nothing has really changed other than the required dates have been moved back a bit to 2025. There's still work that needs to be done changes to building codes to allow the use of mildly flammable refrigerants.

Well we'll use the new refrigerants now? you can't they aren't yet available nor is the equipment. Maybe they begin to trickle out in 2024 or we have vapor ware in 2025? Won't that be fun? You know can't sell R410a equipment because it's banned can't get new equipment because it's not available? Before 2020 I would have said that would never happen. ha, ha.

This below is the start point, there are 3 more vids (freon wars) that get into the finer details. (not including the update coming here shortly.) Fun times.

I service the Katy, Texas area.

Again, says ground source geothermal is not a choice without exploring the costs and incentives is throwing away an option. Do all the homework by contacting the contractors in your area who have an interest in earning your business. They're going to be more knowledgeable about incentives. You may want to explore solar roof tiles and battery storage also. Tesla isn't the only source.

It is an interesting time to bring up the electric/NG issue in the US. I imagine you heard about the media and talking heads going crazy about a statement by a regulator a few weeks ago. I know you are in Canada but presumably here about US news a good amount and you know that most here are from the US.

Obviously you want to insulate the house very well. That provides you the best no matter what you do.

I suspect that comparing US infrastructure concerns with Canadian ones might not make sense. Certainly, not comparing to the reliability of Texas grid during cold snaps. But, NG is likely still more reliable.

We had a rare cold snap recently and I did make sure that I had good batteries for our NG fireplace. There were rolling blackouts but never in my area. Never used aux but the temp in the house did dip a bit using 2 tons for 3800 sqft.

A couple of considerations that we had in a near all-electric house (NG fireplace and cooking). NG has a monthly connection cost - it is higher than our usage cost - by 5 times. The NG company wanted to charge us for hookup and pipes that they don't usually charge because we didn't have a furnace. It was more than a furnace would be but they backed down or forgot or thought we would have a furnace.

Imagine how cold the average US resident thinks Toronto is? It is basically Milwaukee or just a tick colder than Chicago. It is no Minneapolis.

Build it tight, heat with heat pumps and have a NG fireplace for emergencies depending on cost issues and infrastructure concerns. And hydronic won't dehumidify so you may not want to do that.

As far as future regulations - NG is going to get hard at some point. in the US, it will cause a civil war but Canada will hopefully just do appropriate transitions.

Comparing the environmental impacts of two alternative HVAC systems would need to consider the impacts from the manufacturing origins and transportation of the components and systems as well as the impacts during their operating lifetimes. In the context of systems installed in Toronto, you'd need to consider that Ontario's electric power grid is supplied by diverse energy sources-- the majority of which contribute little, if any greenhouse gases. As of December 2022, 70% of electric power generation was from nuclear, hydro and wind. With cold-climate heat pumps available that have a COP of 1.8 at -15C, and low cost electricity, a heat pump in Toronto isn't a bad choice for the user or the environment.

House is about 3,000 sq feet in three levels + basement.

Front yard is not that large (about 300 sq feet) where you could potentially do the wells. And the access might be complicated since there is some trees in the front. Backyard where this could be installed is about 1,000 sq feet but also kind of difficult access for drilling machines (potentially only horizontal on trenches, which might not be big enough).

Ok, so looking like geothermal (water to water) might be a better solution than air to water since it is more reliable through the Canadian winter, I will be trying to get some quotes on comparable systems and see... not sure if technology is here yet, incentives in Canada are not as good as US (you can write off some tax south of the border), here it just gets thrown with many other improvements that we are still looking at doing (windows, insulation...).

Also another solution might be future proofing it, leaving some conducts and space for big water deposit in mechanical room, but going for gas since it is the easiest and most reliable (maybe not cheapest now)

I found this company, this would be air to water solution with high KW resistance to be able to make it more reliable in winter (although you still rely on electricity)

https://www.arcticheatpumps.com

300 SF is a pretty small area for geothermal wells. Before making a choice, I suggest you read reports on field testing of cold-climate heat pumps. Here are links to two:

https://www.mncee.org/cold-climate-air-source-heat-pump-field-assessment

https://rmi.org/heat-pumps-a-practical-solution-for-cold-climates/

Bear in mind that the geothermal solution proposed is just a regular heat pump setup using ground temperature instead of air temperature for heat exchange. You still have a condenser and an evaporator, it just runs somewhat more efficiently. Whether this is enough to justify the net up front and ongoing cost requires the numbers to be carefully worked out (as does the regular gas vs electric consideration). Right now I doubt Toronto prices for gas and electric would make sense for an all electric, air-to-air heatpump setup.

According to a 2018 article published by the Canada Energy Regulator, air source heat pumps are an economical alternative to a gas furnace (up to 50% less energy used than a gas furnace.) In early 2018 there were an estimated 700,000 heat pumps in Canada, an estimated 550,000 of which were in Ontario and Quebec. Folks generally choose economical alternatives. And, with Canada's push to reduce carbon emissions, I don't think you'll find growing demand for natural gas except perhaps to sell to other nations.

@kevin9408

I wasn't replying to your post. My family is from Newfoundland so I may have more connection to, and interest in Canada than most Americans. Canada is working toward their goal to achieve a 40% reduction in carbon emissions by the year 2030 compared with 2005 levels. Cold-climate heat pumps are an important part of achieving that. They have good COPs down to -20C. To be sure, the carbon tax is making natural gas a more expensive heating source and the OP should consider planned tax increases when choosing the heating source which is best suited for their home. Properly sized cold-climate heat pumps won't be able to meet 100% of heating needs in the coldest winter temperatures, but they still make good sense for the majority of the Canadian population which benefits from proximity to cheap and clean hydro-electric and renewable energy sources.

ETA: The post by kevin9408 has been deleted. It's not clear whether he or houzz.com concluded that it added no value.

Here's some info. Geothermal heating proves glorious for these Ontario homeowners - The Globe and Mail And this organization can offer more. Ontario Geothermal Association: Growing The Heating & Cooling Industry - OGACANADA

Re: David Cary

“And hydronic won't dehumidify so you may not want to do that.”

That’s 100% not accurate.

One of many manufacturers of hydronic fan coils for Both heating and air-conditioning (cooling):

Multi-Aqua

Something else to consider is that Geothermal has no defrost cycles - that’s a huge energy savings in cold climates!

When properly designed and configured, an Air-To-Water HP can perform its defrost cycle without air-conditioning the interior envelope.

If you don’t backup a HP with gas or propane then you’re looking at installing a generator.

These systems come with a premium price tag and are for those that want it.

Nothing beats Geothermal Liquid-To-Water & modern hydronics distribution for active heating and cooling efficiency and comfort - Nothing!

Think Water!

IMPO

SR

" Nothing beats Geothermal Liquid-To-Water & modern hydronics distribution for active heating and cooling efficiency and comfort - Nothing! "

If this were true, why are such systems so rarely encountered?

What happens when there's a power failure?

All-electric house:

• No heat from heat pump
• No hot water from electric water heater
• No cooking on electric stove

House with gas and electricity

• Heat from gas furnace*
• Hot water from gas water heater
• Cooking on cooktop (but not oven) on gas stove

*the blower requires electricity but one can use a power station or 12-to-120 volt inverter and 12 volt battery, for example