Wednesday, December 9, 2009: 11:30 a.m.
In this down economy, new house construction is almost non-existent in some areas. There is a “Perfect Storm” in the geothermal industry because a) today, people want to “go green” and will pay to do so and be proud of it, b) people dread the future high costs of fossil fuels and what it will cost them, and c) the new Federal geothermal commercial and residential tax credits are the final component of the “perfect storm” because the 30% residential tax credit is a very significant amount of money for homeowners to save when they go geo. All of these factors motivate homeowners to decide to retrofit a geothermal heat pump system right now. After all, their fossil fuel costs are steadily rising, and who knows what those costs will be next month.
This presentation will illustrate the many types of non-geothermal heating and cooling systems that can be retrofitted with a geothermal heat pump system. Examples of innovative retrofit geo systems will be presented for both closed-loop and open-loop geothermal heat pump systems. When geo can’t be economically retrofitted to meet 100% of the heating load due to building limitations, auxiliary heat will be required, and this situation can be perfect for a geo retrofit system as will be shown using some example geo systems.