Geothermal Heat Pump Systems 101

Doug Rye with Co-host Ron Sherman

You'll Learn These Key Points and Their Benefits:

Air Infiltration:  How air infiltration can greatly increase your utility bill and greatly decrease your comfort.  View Video Clip .. House Framing:  A simple framing technique that can save you $200 in wood studs and gives you free insulation without changing the stability of you home. Caulking:  Do you have the right caulk?  You will learn where to caulk to stop outside air infiltration which leads to higher utility bills.  You will discover places to caulk that most people have never even thought of. Insulation:  Discover one change in your home that can lower your heating and cooling bill by 20%!  You will learn how 1/16" of cellulose insulation can stop more air infiltration than 3" of fiberglass insulation. Windows and Doors:  Are you using the most energy efficient window and door?  Learn how French doors can be energy wasters and how to fix them and exactly what to look for in an energy efficient window. Geothermal - What is required to efficiently use geothermal energy,   geothermal energy and how it works , and geothermal benefits and requirements. How energy-efficient lights and energy-efficient recessed lights can save you money.  Recessed lighting can be one of the biggest energy wasters in your home, because most recessed lights cannot be insulated. How too much attic ventilation can actually INCREASE your utility bill.  Excessive attic ventilation can draw conditioned air out of your home. How to stop air from entering from the outside in both new and existing homes.  Did you know that on the average residential home, 35% of the total heating and cooling load is for outside air infiltration?  How to use geothermal energy – learn the benefits and risks of geothermal,  how a geothermal energy diagram looks, and how a geothermal unit gives you a percentage of your hot water FREE. A geothermal heating and cooling system is four times more efficient than a gas furnace and has twice the life expectancy of the average heating and cooling unit. How cellulose insulation or recycled newspaper is used for noise control, sound-insulation products, and home interior wall sound insulation.

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"Geothermal 101"

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It seems like about three million of you have asked me to explain how a geothermal system works. Well, maybe not three million, but it's a bunch of you and I'm honored that I have the opportunity to do it. Now you've probably already figured out that I'm not smart enough to be real technical, but I do have some common sense. So I will use a common-sense approach to explain how the most efficient heating and cooling system available today can help you.

OK, OK – here's how it works. All energy comes from the sun. Mr. Sunshine has provided a lot of BTUs for a lot of years and Mother Earth has absorbed and stored that energy. A closed-loop geothermal system simply removes those BTUs from Mother Earth in the winter and gives them back in the summer. At depths of five feet or more, the earth temperature remains close to 57 degrees, as evidenced by a cave's temperature.  This temperature varies only slightly across the United States.

There are two basic ways to install a geothermal unit. If digging a trench is difficult or if space is limited, geothermal contractors drill holes into the ground vertically to install small-diameter polyethylene pipe. If digging a horizontal trench is feasible, the pipe is installed in a horizontal trench.

A very small pump then circulates water from the earth to the geothermal unit and back to the ground in the closed-loop pipe. Actually, geothermal is not the best name for this unit. A better name is ground-coupled heat pump or water-to-air heat pump. As you learned in my last newsletter, a heat pump doesn't create heat, it just moves heat from one location to another using a compressor.

Example: A window air conditioner blows cool air inside and hot air outside. If you turn the air conditioner around, it will blow hot air inside and cool air outside.

As it circulates 57-degree water in the winter, the geothermal unit, using the compressor to remove heat from the water, provides 105-degree air into the house. As the water goes back to the ground loop, it immediately starts absorbing BTUs from the earth. In the summer, a reversing valve simply reverses the process and the compressor pumps BTUs into the ground loop.

The water returns to the earth and immediately starts cooling off again. It's all about heat transfer. Here's another example -- a blacksmith heats a horseshoe to red hot. To cool it, he doesn't wave the horseshoe into the air. Instead, he simply dips it in water. It cools off a lot faster and takes a lot less energy.

I have been responsible for the installation of thousands of geothermal units and I have had no disappointed customers. My wife and I have had geothermal heating and cooling for 18 years and we simply would not have any other system. Geothermal gives good hot air in the winter and really cold air in the summer and uses less energy than any other central heating and cooling system. So don't be a tightwad. Buy the best there is – you, your family, and your house deserve it.

In the meantime, if you have questions, just give me a call at my office at 501-653-7931 or e-mail me at info@philliprye.com. Either me or my son Phillip will be glad to help you.

Thanks for reading my Home Energy Saver newsletter and I know that applying these techniques will SAVE YOU MONEY.

God Bless,

Be sure to visit my website at http://ww.dougrye.com and order my video/DVD that is jam-packed with all the energy saving techniques that I teach. It will be one of the best investments you've ever made - Guaranteed.  Not to mention the FREE e-book downloads with your order.

"The Home Energy Saver" is published monthly by Phillip Rye and nationally recognized energy consultant Doug Rye.

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 "11 Tips for stripping wallpaper" =================================================

I broke my promise to myself and stripped wallpaper again. The only reason I did this is for $100,000 profit. My family and I did not have time to wait for professional help. We sold our investment property before finishing the work and needed the home ready for appraisal.

While stripping the wallpaper, I realized that many homemakers get wrong advice for this horrendous task. After years of experience on 28 houses, I offer my tried and best tips:

1. Use a clothes steamer or rent a professional steamer
2. Soak a large section of the wall
3. Run a "Paper Tiger" scoring tool across the damp section
4. Steam the section again
5. Spray the section with fabric softener and hot water
6. Score the section with the paper tiger again
7. Steam again
8. Remove any curling edges (sometimes large areas peel off)
9. Scrape with a six inch sheetrock blade
10. Repeat the above steps on the section until most scrapes off easily
11. Scrub with hot water, TSP, and a sponge with a scratchy surface

Don't live with ugly wallpaper any longer!

P. S. Please email me if you have any additional tips that would help others!

Professor Jeanette Fisher, author of Doghouse to Dollhouse for Dollars, Joy to the Home, and other books teaches Real Estate Investing and Design Psychology. For more articles, tips, reports, newsletters, and sales flyer template, see http://www.doghousetodollhousefordollars.com/pages/5/index.htm

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Energy Saving Tips

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If you are a first-time homeowner, building a new home, or just wanting to make changes to an older, existing home, here a some energy-saving tips for you to consider. There is no better time to do this than at the beginning of a construction project.

1. If you are clearing a lot for a new home or considering landscaping options, don't forget about the shade advantage trees add, as well as the evaporative cooling their lush canopies can offer.
2. Window coatings are energy saving, especially for west-facing view windows. For most residential applications, low-emissivity (low-e) coatings are sufficient. They can cut heat gain by up to 25 percent without changing the window's appearance.
3. When building a new home, try to keep glass area at 10 percent to 12 percent of the floor area of the house (example: 2,000 sq.ft. x 10% = 200 sq.ft. of glass).

More energy saving tips to come in the next Home Energy Saver newsletter.

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Tell Us What You Think!

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We would love to hear what you think of this issue of The Home Energy Saver Newsletter. And of course, if you have any suggestions for upcoming issues that you'd like to share with us, please send those, too!  Either me or my son Phillip will be happy to help you.

Just e-mail me at: mailto:info@philliprye.com

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