Geothermal Heat Pump Systems from Climate Master
...What's a Geothermal Heat Pump System, you say? I wondered, too, when I first learned of them. What is this thing that can save us so much in Heating and A/C energy and costs? It's a clever design, and with climate change looming, there couldn't be a better time to start learning more about it.
Anyone who's been inside a wine cellar knows that the temperature in it stays more or less fixed, no matter what the outside weather is doing. This is due to the essentially constant temperature of the ground. A constant-temperature mass as large as the ground around you has huge storage capacity--meaning it is a source for heat on cold days, and can absorb the heat on hot days.
A geothermal system makes use of this handy property of the ground. It works like this: During the winter, water pipes buried in the ground collect the ground's natural heat and carry it to a heat pump. The heat is concentrated in the pump, and then carried into your house in warm air. During the summer, heat from the house is collected at the pump and then carried through the water pipes down to the ground, where the heat is absorbed, leaving cool, comfortable air. Since it's all natural, it can also increase indoor air quality, (which is becoming a bigger and bigger issue for children and those with chemical sensitivity). I saw a demonstration of this in a California home recently, and it really works.
Climate Master's Tranquility 27 is one of the newest in a line of products and systems using geothermal heat. The energy savings is claimed to be up to 80%, as compared to regular HVAC systems.
In addition to all this, Climate Master's systems are Energy Star rated, and enable federal and some state tax credits and incentives. All these things make it a particularly good solution if you are in the process of building a new home. It's an amazing example of how you can work with the earth, not against it, in creating a comfortable home.