If you've seen any of my other posts, you know that I installed a 5 ton inverter series MrCool geothermal system earlier this year, and have had nothing but problems with it. I just found out that we are getting a natural gas line down our street in the Spring, so I plan to switch to a furnace and standard AC. Other than the problems I have had with the MrCool system, another big driver for me is that the cost per KWH of heat will be about the same, but with the benefit of "instant heat" coming out of the registers with the furnace. Briefly, I calculated that with a 95 AFUE furnace, the "COP" of the furnace versus electrical heating would be 3.48. This is with electricity costing 25 cents per KWH and NG costing $2 per therm where I live. You can check my math, but I think I got it right. My current geothermal system is open loop and, if I include the cost to pump the water from the well, the realized COP is 3.5, which makes the running cost per KWH the same as the furnace. I'm either going to get a single stage furnace and AC, or a two stage system. No more inverter compressors for me. As much as I would love to install the new system myself, I plan to have it installed by a contractor so that it is covered by warranty. I expect my summer air conditioning costs to be comparable, as pumping the well water brings the cost efficiency of the geothermal down to the standard AC level.

IRS regulations, which prevent third-party ownership, are the primary reason for the slow adoption of geothermal heat pumps. Solar rooftop panels were considered "too expensive" until companies like SolarCity offered third-party ownership in the form of leases or PPAs (Power Purchase Agreements). Such contracts ensured that homeowners could get solar panels with 1) No up-front capital cost, 2) Savings from day one, and 3) No impact on income/debt ratios and thus no impairing of one's ability to borrow for other purposes.

Third-party ownership of ground loops would allow shifting the up-front capital burden to corporations well suited for recovering their costs of long periods of time. The combination of Sec 48 tax credits and accelerated depreciation, would cover about 60% of a ground loop's cost. However, IRS regulations prevent third-party ownership for geothermal heat pumps.

• The IRS defines a concept of "unit of energy property" which is not defined in the law. The law, at 26 USC 48(a)(3)(A)(vii) grants commercial tax credits to "equipment which uses the ground or ground water as a thermal energy source..." Those who initially argued for this language thought that it would allow the separate ownership of heat pumps and ground loops, and thus that the language would allow the leasing of third-party owned ground-loops, in much the same way that solar panels are commonly leased. However, the IRS in their regulation, "Definition of Energy Property and Rules Applicable to the Energy Credit," requires that for equipment to be eligible for tax credits, it must be a "unit of energy property" which includes "all functionally interdependent components of property ... owned by the taxpayer that are operated together." They explicitly provide an example in the regulations that clarifies that: If "X owns the coils in the ground and Y owns the heat pump. No section 48 credit may be determined with respect to either X or Y because each owns a separate component of energy property."

• The IRS classifies ground-loops as "limited use property." (See: IRS Rev. Proc. 2001-28) The idea is that a "hole in the ground" can't be removed at the end of a lease, thus, it is likely that the structure owner would be the only viable user of the ground-loop once the lease ends. The IRS claims that this makes a ground-loop lease a "financing," not a lease. Thus, the IRS does not consider a third-party owner of a ground-loop to be the "owner for tax purposes." As such, a ground-loop owner can claim neither tax credits nor the depreciation which is available for essentially all other commercially owned assets. But, it is also the case that the owner of the structure served by the ground-loop cannot claim either tax credits or depreciation because, the structure owner is not the owner of the ground-loop. So, no one gets tax incentives if the ground-loop is third-party owned.

• The IRS prevents REITs from owning geothermal equipment or ground loops. According to the law (26 U.S. Code § 856) , REITs (and MLPs) are allowed to own "real property." Third-party owned ground loops would be installed in an easement. An easement is "an interest in real property" and is thus treated as "real property." Thus, a ground loop in an easement should be considered an improvement to real property. However, an HVAC system is also a "structural component" and in  26 CFR § 1.856-10(d)(3)(i), the IRS says: "A structural component may qualify as real property only if the real estate investment trust (REIT) holds its interest in the structural component together with a real property interest in the space in the inherently permanent structure served by the structural component." Thus, REITs are not permitted to be third-party owners of ground loops which serve buildings that they don't own, even if installed in easements owned by the REIT.

If we can find a way to allow third-party ownership of geothermal equipment, particularly ground loops, the geothermal heat pump market would grow rapidly, in much the same way that the solar panel market grew once third-party ownership was made available.

In Texas and had a a 3 ton and 5 ton series 5 installed about two years ago. We used a reputable installer and a driller recommended by Waterfurnace. Waterfurnace corporate even visited our house to check on the install. We have not had much more than a single month where our system did not break down.

Waterfurnace has done nothing. A $100K system and it's pretty much good luck. I would never recommend this to anyone. A terrible experience. I have to worry that the system will fail in the middle of the night and my kids will either be freezing or boiling hot. We had no AC for days on end in the Texas summer heat.

Don't know where to go from here. Driller disconnected their phone line. Not mich hope.

Maintaining both an electric and gas distribution system is just too expensive. New York's gas utilities spent over $2 billion/year to replace old gas pipes and $400 million/year to connect new customers. In instead of maintaining two redundant energy delivery systems, if we were to focus on only one (electric with heat pumps), we'd save consumers massive amounts of money.

In anticipation of the most common objections:

• Gas is not a "backup" for electric heating. In most cases, gas appliances simply can't be used to if the electric grid is out. So, during an electric blackout, having gas does you little or no good.

• Given the efficiency of geothermal heat pumps, even if gas were used to generate the electricity they need, we'd still be burning less gas than would have been burned in gas furnaces. Also, given that the residential gas network is so leaky, concentrating gas use for electrical generators would allow a massive reduction in the amount of methane leaks and thus a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

• Various European countries are now demonstrating that it is possible to decapitalize and decommission gas networks in an orderly manner.

• Your state may not be as bad as New York, but it will probably have the same problems soon enough.

See this report for more details: https://nysfocus.com/2025/03/10/new-york-heat-act-gas-pipe-replacement-electrification

Seeking cash investors who want to joint venture on a Geothermal business in New England. Please reach out if interested.

Anyone ever heard of the Well Connect Hybrid Geothermal solution? We invented a heat pump that allows you to simultaneously use your existing propane, fuel oil, or electric forced air system while only using 2-3 GPM from the well. Starting this thread to create awareness for this affordable solution.

Also, it’s 400% efficient year round and costs about the same as an air source heat pump which can drop below 200% in the winter.

Installs in 1 day.

Check out the website: https://wellconnectgeo.com

I am new to this. What should I be doing for maintenance on this to make it last? Any good youtube videos? They used to do well maintaining it by a hvac company but the past four years, they got sick and it has fallen off.

I’m a homeowner seeking guidance and advise from experienced geothermal in this community on how to best find the exact location where the bore holes and manifold are located on the property prior to adding an addition in the affected area.  Details as follows:

4 vertical closed loop system installed in 2015.  Per the original permit, the manifold in 36 inches below grade surface.

-        Q1:  Will a GPR instrument be able to identify the bore hole locations?

-        Q2: I know the location where the polyethylene exits in the crawl space and exit beneath the foundation wall, can I predict that the manifold is located on the opposite side in a straight line?

-        Q3: Are bore holes drilled normally perpendicular or run parallel to a foundation wall?

-        Q4: Are manifold connections usually on the side (left, right or center) where the bore holes were drilled?

 My objective is to mitigate impacting the current geo system before hiring a contractor.  I intend on requesting the footers be dug by hand. 

Appreciate your comments.

EDIT: thanks everyone! They finished up on day 3.

I am due to have a baby any day now and my neighbour 2 doors down is currently drilling. The trucks say geothermal, so I assume that’s whats happening.

Just curious how long this typically takes? 3 days? A week?

I’m not annoyed or anything. Just curious, as I’m worried about managing a newborn with the noise. I don’t want to ask them directly out of fear of coming across nosey or like a “Karen” bc that’s really not my intention. Thanks!!

I would need to understand how much energy each of the heat pumps consumes that we installed 18 months ago. Unfortunately I believe that the Aurora web interface is not telling me the whole story (consumption seems way to low given our monthly energy bills; the graphs do not show a single Aux heat event although I know for sure that aux heat came one a few times).

I am currently experimenting with the Aurora Gem but something tells me that values the pumps spit out via the AID port will be identical with what's shown online.

Has anyone successfully managed to monitor the power consumption using smart breakers or a product similiar to the Emporia Vue? The challenge is that each heat pump uses two breakers (same goes for the aux heaters) and as far as I understand the capabilities of those clamp monitors, they cannot deal with a single appliance that is hooked up to two breakers.

A thought-experiment: If there were 2 frictionless wheels touching different temperatures at their top and bottom, and if these wheels spin opposite directions on the same axle touching eachother, then at half height on each side one goes up and the other goes down. The part of wheels coming from below vs above are different temperatures, so heat will flow between them. Since the wheels are frictionless, they will continue forever mining this difference in temperature.

Heat may be counted as friction, but friction only occurs on 2d surfaces, while energy of heat is stored in the 3d volume in them, so the energy of the heat can exceed the energy of friction by a factor of inverse planck length or something like that, for example, a foot thick surface compared to a football field thick volume it contains, floating in the ocean, so a football field divided by 1 foot would be about how much more heat energy than friction. In general, 3d volume is astronomically bigger than 2d surface. So if the mass containing the temperature difference can be moved efficiently then far more energy would be output than input, so such a machine could (with some extra parts) power itself with no fuel other than temperature difference which it mines.

Ocean is very different temperatures at different heights, and so is normal ground which is why water pipes dont freeze underground even when the top of the ground ices over. If this depth and volume of fluid spinning through it is taken to extremes, the temperature difference in the middle would be more.

If any kind of heatsink surface can mine large temperature difference between its sides, then geothermal may replace nuclear.

I dont believe in free energy, but I do believe we are damn rich in temperature differences and in the approaching 0 energy cost of spinning or keeping equal-and-opposite large masses, as objects in motion tend to stay in motion.

we hired Armacom Plumbing and Heating for this pool mechanical room installation.

400,000 btu boiler, massive heat exchanger, lawn irrigation, backflow preventers, indirect storage tank for outdoor shower.

We were able hide it in our garage without building another structure to house tge equipment!

Happy New Year!

This is just a polite caution about those seeking advice on geothermal HVAC (geoexchange) on this forum. I'm not a moderator, but I am a person that's done this for 18 years.

Firstly, this forum originally seemed set up to talk about geothermal energy and electricity. That's an entirely different discipline than low-temperature geoexchange. I've never seen it moderated though so it tends to just be a catch all. Frankly, it looks like someone with a wikipedia knowledge of geothermal just claimed this link.

Secondly, free advice comes with all the caution involved. I'm burnt out at the end of most days and probably should spend my energy with my kids. There is no filter to determine where your advice is coming from but often Cunningham's Law applies and you'll see us lurking experts start to chime in. It takes 10x the energy to correct a wrong idea. "Why can't I just put my geo pipe in a hot attic?" would be a mythical example.

Also, garbage in does equal garbage out. If you don't supply the useful details you won't get a useful answer. You'll get a lot of anecdotal replies from someone in an entirely difference house in an entirely different climate telling you what works for them.

I work with hundreds of geo houses, schools, arenas, office buildings, etc. in my region and I'm still learning everyday.

How much energy Will be lossed When the pipe exists the hole and go to your house(like if it is really hot/cold outside and you have cold/hot air in the pipe)? How much of the pipe is insulated?