Geothermal Heating and Cooling

January 17th, 2016

As I sit here watching the thick snowflakes gently covering our property, I feel grateful. Now, don't get me wrong, I am NOT a Winter person at all. I could leave at the start of winter and return for Spring every year and NEVER miss it. However I am grateful to the heavy snow because it provides thick insulation, keeping the heat underground.

We moved to our old farm house in Spring 2008. I was expecting our second child, my husband was driving to Kanata to satisfy his former clientele while growing his business out here. As we prepared for the arrival of our second child, we noticed the lack of insulation in our home, specifically in our nursery. The previous owners had closed the door to that room to keep the cold out and used wool socks to fill the gaps under the many exterior doors of this home. The house was heated with oil and we worried that the cost of heating this home might be more than we bargained for.

We researched alternative forms of energy and applied for a grant to improve the energy efficiency of our home. We had the nursery insulated, we enclosed the front porch and, hired a company to install a geothermal heating and cooling system in our home. R&B Heating was recommended by the locals but, when we contacted them, they were fully booked and we were desperate to get it done before the baby arrived. In the end, we hired The Stove Store. We were in for a rocky road.

Our garden was dug up with trenches for the many pipes involved in the geothermal system. The geothermal system uses the underground heat to warm up the ethanol in its pipes which is carried to the house. The heat is then transferred to our forced air system, keeping our home nice and cozy. Initially, our Hydro bills went through the roof. Stella was born by then and getting massive Hydro bills was very stressful. We had engineers come to the house to inspect the system. The pipes needed to be "burped" as air was trapped in them. This had forced the system to use the tertiary source of energy, electricity. Now it all made sense! Once the system was working properly, we were able to save so much money on our heating bills.

Last year, there wasn't much snow on the ground and January was bitterly cold. This affected the efficiency of our geothermal system as it relies on the underground heat. That experience has made us very grateful for the snow this year.

The great thing about our system is that it works in reverse in the Summer. You know when you are paying like crazy to operate your air conditioning? The geothermal redirects the heat through the same pipes, back into the earth where the heat is absorbed. Then the cooled fluid returns to your home and is processed in order to fuel your air conditioning. I think the geothermal system was one of the best purchases we have ever made for this property. It costs less and helps the environment.

Anne Walsh
www.artnsoul.org