Geothermal

One of the ginormous drawbacks about this planned move into town over the next few years, and as we age, is having the house be grid-tied; apparently, it’s the law. And, to make matters worse, after 15 years of living without having to pay an electricity bill, we will now have to, at a minimum, pay $15 just to be attached. Every month. It’s insulting. 

I know. We are so spoiled! Living up at Darwin’s View. Full-on sun for our solar panels. A pellet boiler to heat when the wood stove and the heat from the greenhouse isn’t quite sufficient to keep us warm. (On a day in winter, when the sun is shining and the wind is in the negative numbers, we have been at a consistent 75 degrees without having to turn up the pellet boiler’s thermostat). Decadence!

So. The current plan is to have solar panels on the roof of Allegro Confusione. Which means Carl is talking about a catwalk so as to be able to access them in winter. The very idea of having snow-covered solar panels makes both of us a little crazy because, at Darwin’s View, we don’t have the luxury of leaving our ground– (not roof–) mounted solar panels covered with snow and ice. That’s how we get our power.

To complement the solar panels, we had a great engineering company draw up plans for a geothermal system. Geothermal systems—a.k.a. ground-source heat pumps—are the most energy-efficient way of heating and cooling a house. At first, I was leery because the very thought of drilling two to three pipes into the ground brought to mind the destruction of oil sand pits; far be it from me to judge, being so complicit myself. 

But people rave about geothermal’s benefits. Yes, it is expensive up front, but the cost was worth it to us. Anything not to have to pay one of those blood-sucking power companies more than their required delivery fee of $15. 

Unfortunately, just as we are beginning to turn our attention from deconstruction to construction, we discovered that we had not done our homework. Yes, geothermal is great, but it will also use triple the amount of electricity as can be created by the solar panels that we have room for. Another way to put that: the entire acre lot would have to be covered with solar panels.

This, if we are being so pig-headed as to insist on not paying the electric company the required delivery fee of $15. Which we are being.

While the amazing engineers who calculated the very conservative estimate around the geothermal system recalculate to see if we can somehow make it all work, we called the local pellet boiler company, from which we got our pellet boiler and from whom we buy pellets every year and a half or so. ($900 for 4 tons delivered.) In the course of the ensuing conversation around pellet boilers versus geothermal, the sales guy mentioned that the new fire station going up in Peterborough has a geothermal system going in. Cool.

And then he mentioned that his company is putting in a boiler that will attach to a loop that will preheat the water as it goes into the building, thereby requiring the geothermal system not to have to work so hard. Less electricity use. It pumps through a holding tank of water. 200 gallons? He wasn’t sure.

A tank of water naturally brought to our minds the Endless Pool I hope to find on sale. (Apparently, a lot of people bought Endless Pools during 2020—remember back then—but never installed them, and now they sit. Waiting for me...) In any case, however you define an Endless Pool, it is definitely a tank of water that would need to be heated at a great cost by electricity or propane. Do you see where I’m going? Carl got there ahead of me and asked Jim, "Would it be possible to use the Endless Pool as the tank?" At which point Jim said, "Huh. You could actually connect the pool to the boiler by a tube and then use the pool as the heat distribution from the geothermal pumps to the radiant-heat floors in the house, and badabing!"

Thus, we stand braced and excited, ever on the extreme bleeding edge of the cutting edge of possibilities.