e_vanhee: Projects

These energy smart homeowners not only took time to
optimize their homes spectacular views. They also took
time to research the best heating and cooling solution to
optimize their homes comfort. The design called for
radiant floor heating of the main levels and large
garage/ workshop with additional forced air delivered to
the upper levels of the home and heat for domestic hot
water. Against the available alternatives of fuel-oil or
propane the homeowners chose to stop burning their
money and to install a safe, clean and energy efficient
Geothermal system.
A Geothermal system has two main components, the
heat-pump and a heat-reservoir. The Geothermal
heat-pump, uses similar technology to that of a home

refrigerator to exchange heat energy between the home’s interior
and the heat-reservoir. In this installation there are two
WaterFurnace Geothermal heat-pumps, partitioned simply from
active living space behind a door. There is no combustion, so
they’re clean with no chance of carbon monoxide emission and
only the pumps quiet whisper marks their operation.

by the ground loop. On average the ground
around a home absorbs about 47% of the
suns energy that reaches it, far exceeding the
needs of the home. In addition over a yearly
cycle the system balances, extracting heat
energy from the ground during the winter and
returning heat energy, out of the home, in the
summer.
This Geothermal system delivers the fossil
fuel independence, reliability and comfort
required. And the low operating costs keep
these energy smart homeowners talking and
smiling about their choice.

The heat-reservoir for this home is the ground around it. Buried
horizontal about 5 feet beneath the surface of ½ acre of land, is the
heat exchange ground loop. Header pipes run below ground from the
home to connect the heat-pump to this ground loop.
The economics of this Geothermal system are that for every 4 units of
energy delivered by the heat-pump, 3 units are free energy obtained

Geothermal systems are
on average 48% more
efficient than the
highest efficiency gas
furnace on a source fuel
basis and over 75%
more efficient than oil
furnaces.

Todays Geothermal
systems out perform the
best gas technology by
an average of 36% in
heating mode and 43%
in cooling mode....more
EPA findings

For every 100,000
typically sized residential
geothermal systems
installed, more than
37.5 trillion BTU's of
space heating and water
heating energy can be
saved. This corresponds
to an emissions
reduction of about
2.18million metric tons
of carbon equivalents,
and a cost saving to
customers of about
$750 million over a 20
year period....more EPA
findings