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The benefit of a geothermal heat pump system is it uses up to 60% less energy than any conventional heating or cooling system.

The EPA indicates that a geothermal heat pump can reduce your energy costs by up to 44% compared to an air source heat pump system and up to 72% when compared to an electric resistance heating system.


How does a Geothermal system work?

Geothermal energy is an Green sustainable resource that is right under your feet all the time.

Our earth contains a huge reservoir of low temperature thermal energy which is typically 10 times what is really required to heat any home over any heating season.

This completely renewable resource is constantly re-supplied by the sun and the surrounding earth...

Basically, the geothermal heat pump moves heat from the low temperature thermal reservoir into your home in the winter months and it reverses its operation in the summer and transfers that heat from your home back into to the earth.

What's amazing is that it is greater than four times more efficient to move the heat in this manner than to create the heat from a gas furnace. Most Geo thermal Systems transfer heat to an from the earth using an “earth loop”. The earth loop is normally comprised of any durable thin wall high-density polyethylene pipe which are buried in the earth. Most often the pipes are installed in a vertical hole much like a shallow well hole.

The heat transfer is done using water with an environmentally friendly anti-freeze solution and is pumped inside the pipe and the earth and back. Some systems use well water much in the same way, the water is pumped through the system and the heat is transferred to the well water and pumped back into the ground a few hundred feet away from where it was sourced.

Obviously not many people can take advantage of this type of system but there are many schools and utilities using these systems in Idaho. Other systems use either geo thermal hot water which, if you did not know this, is very common here in the Treasure Valley, mainly in the city of Boise.

Many buildings in downtown and the surrounding areas use geo thermal hot water supplied from the city or their own geo thermal wells. Neat Huh? It is really just a shame that we all cannot take advantage of this valuable resource.