Don and Andrea Woods are pictured in front of their 2,100 square-foot home in Hidden Cove. They've been there four years, and note that their heating, cooling and water heating bills average $39.87 a month the year around. Their geothermal grid is buried under the lawn behind them.

Geothermal heat pumps

Finding energy savings right under your feet

The young couple stood in the supermarket aisle, each holding a box of laundry detergent. The wife held a tiny box, while her husband shouldered one nearly half the size of a bale of hay. They faced the same dilemma many of us often face in the supermarket and in many facets of our lives. "If we buy this one," the young man said, "We can save a lot of money, but we won't be able to buy anything to eat this week."

Finally, the young woman made the decision. "We won't buy the giant economy size," she said. "We'll buy the small expensive size we can afford."

Many Illinoisans are in a similar fix when they set out to buy a heating and air conditioning systems for their homes, and the electric cooperatives of Illinois hope they'll opt for the "giant economy size," because it really is more affordable.

Donald and Andrea Wood and Wilfred and Jeanne Dittmer chose the giant economy size, and are thrilled that they did. They decided to "go geothermal," in spite of the fact that the initial cost is a little steep. Both couples are members of Adams Electrical Co-Operative, Camp Point. Adams meters their heating, cooling and air conditioning costs separately, and offers a special rate, so the costs are easy to isolate.

Don, a district sales manager for Chevrolet, works out of his home office, and he is especially pleased with his system. "We lived in Columbus, Ohio, in the 1970s," he says, "and we had electric heat. We had heating bills that ran $300-$400 a month. Then we moved to a small house in Rolla, Missouri, and our house there was hard to heat, even though it was small. Here, we have 2,100 square-foot house, and the total heating, cooling and water heating bill comes to $39.87 a month, the year around.

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The Hidden Cove subdivision east of Quincy is served by Adams Electrical Co-Operative and was the first all-geothermal subdivision in Illinois. This sign marks the entrance to the development.

We've been here four years now."

Andrea is pleased, too. "I like the evenness of the heat," she says, "although it takes a little getting used to. And we don't have the intermittent high heat that gets the humidity wrong and causes so much static." "And," Don adds, "it's so quiet. One place we lived in had such a noisy unit that a neighbor complained about it. Here, the unit's in the house and it's so quiet that we can't even hear it. I think this is an important energy saving concept. We've had people stop us and ask us if we live in 'that ecological subdivision.' We still can't believe how great it is. People should know more about it."

Don and Andrea live in the Hidden Cove subdivision, the first all-geothermal subdivision in Illinois. It was started by Quincy contractor Matt Holtmeyer, who lives there, too.

Homes that are specifically built for geothermal are easy to heat and cool. But what about older homes, in which the owner is faced with the need to replace a furnace, air conditioner, or both? The Dittmers, who farm just east of Quincy, can tell you about that. Their 1,600 square-foot home, built nearly 20 years ago, was cooled by natural ventilation and a dehumidifier, and heated with a log furnace.

"The dehumidifier was costing us about a dollar a day to operate," Wilfred says, "and we weren't particularly uncomfortable. But we were concerned about how unsafe the wood furnace might be. We decided that if we were going to replace it, we might as well get a combination heating and cooling unit. It seemed like a good idea to get two for the price of one. And Adams Electric has a heating and air conditioning rate that made it look like a really good idea."

The Dittmers didn't just jump in. They talked to neighbors who had already "gone geothermal," and everyone they'd talked to was excited about the comfort. And especially the low cost and quick payback.

"It costs us just $31.32 a month, the year around," he says, "for heating, cooling and hot water. While that's not cheaper than using a dehumidifier and a wood furnace, it's more comfortable, convenient and safer."

A geothermal system uses earth-stored energy in partnership with safe, clean electricity, to offer a hard-to-beat way to heat and cool your home. The heart of the system is essentially a heat pump with a difference: but what a difference! The average air-to-air heat pump is essentially a reversible system that removes heat from your home in the summer and expels it to the outside air. It does the opposite in the winter. You decide what it does simply by flicking a switch on your indoor thermostat.

If the air-to-air heat pump has a disadvantage, it's that it starts losing its efficiency at about 10 degrees F., so you have to rely on a backup heat source to make up the difference.

"It costs us just $31.32 a month, the year around, for Heating, cooling and hot water."

A geothermal system doesn't have that disadvantage. It draws its heat or coolness from a liquid-filled grid of high-density polyethylene piping buried 5-6 feet underground. Once you get about 5 feet below the surface of the earth, the temperature in Illinois is a fairly consistent 55 degrees F., the year around.

Instead of having to deal with 90-degree air in the summer, the unit is dealing with a 55-degree medium, and it handles that very efficiently. When you need heat, the geothermal system is, again, working with a 55-degree medium. That's much better than the sub-zero weather air-to-air units have to cope with. All in all, about 70 percent of the "fuel" your unit needs comes from the solar energy absorbed by the earth and stored there.

Not surprisingly, geothermal technology came from northern Europe. It is only natural that the system would develop in that area, with its harsh climate and high energy costs. The idea dates back to the 1940s, but offered no advantage to Americans in a time when the cost of heating and cooling a home was almost insignificant.

The energy crunch of the 1970s changed all that, and Americans started getting serious about economical comfort conditioning. There was another factor, too. Early experiments with polyvinyl chloride (PVC) piping proved unsatisfactory, and until better piping could be developed, the system had no real future. In the 1980s, durable piping with good heat-transfer properties came on the market, and the system took off, after being given a healthy boost by Dr. James Bose, director of the School of Technology at Oklahoma State University. Bose is the leading expert on geothermal heat pump technology in the United States.

According to Bose, a Swiss engineer by the name of Zolley first had the idea in about 1900. "What we did was take an idea that was back on the library shelf and apply

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Wilfred Dittmer of Quincy had a geothermal system installed in his 17-year-old home because he wanted to replace his unsafe wood-burning furnace. He decided to have the air conditioner added as a bonus. The system works well, he says, and it heats, cools and provides hot water for $31.32 a month, the year around. His house has 1,600 square feet of living space. Here, he keeps tabs on his daily energy usage.

some modern technology and equipment. I got one of my textbooks from 1957 and looked under heat pump. I went to the library and did some more research in 1976. I was teaching a course on solar energy at the time."

Many closed-loop systems are trenched horizontally in the yard around the home, and this is where a lot of the expense of a geothermal system goes. A pond or well will work, too. If you don't have room for a horizontal loop, you can have a well—or wells—drilled. If you need to have your yard trenched, it's usually no big problem. The trenches are usually about 6 inches wide, and a simple reseeding will take care of the disturbed lawn. The pipes have no adverse affect on plants above them. In fact, the Woods don't know exactly where their grid field is. A grid built today should last from 40-75 years in virtually any soil type.

A big plus is that the heart of the unit is installed inside the house, in a garage, storage closet or crawl space, where it's protected from the elements. That prolongs the life of the unit, which is quiet enough that it won't be a bother.

Geothermal systems have yet another advantage in that they can provide you with savings of up to 50 percent on your annual water heating bill by preheating tank water. These units are standard equipment on some systems and optional on others. Be sure to check into the possibility. Since water heating costs about a dollar a day, the savings can be welcome.

While geothermal units seem too good to be true, they do have one disadvantage: They're expensive to install because of the trenching or well drilling needed.

But don't let that deter you. A geothermal unit will save you so much money on your heating, cooling and water-heating costs that they'll pay for themselves much sooner than any other kind of system that's likely to be available to rural electric consumers.

If there was ever a time to choose "the giant economy size," it's when you choose geothermal for your heating, cooling and water heating needs. You'll be glad you did!

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