Quote:
Originally Posted by FlyingScot
Very interesting--do you know what the payback period is for an all new geothermal system, including all the incentives? As msw notes, solar is about 6 years, I'm wondering how geothermal compares.
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It depends what you are comparing too. See this link on costs to operate different systems.
https://www.efficiencymaine.com/at-h...st-comparison/
Install guesstimates
Oil Burner $15K
Geothermal $40K
MiniSplit $15K
So going from say an existing Oil Burner (which is "free") to Geothermal
Oil Burner $2588 per heating season.
Geothermal $1643 per Heating season.
You save $945 a heating system.
So it would take ~40 years.
Going from existing Oil Burner to a Mini Split
Mini Split $1795 per heating season
Oil Burner $2588 per heating season.
You save $793 per year.
So it would take 19 years.
But you also get cooling !!!
Let's say you had a MiniSplit and wanted to go Geothermal
Mini Split $1795 per heating season
Geothermal $1643 per Heating season.
You save $152 per year
It would take 265 years to break even
In my case I don't have an existing system (or your old system is shot)
So we need to compare the difference in price divided by the savings
Difference between Geothermal and MiniSplit is still $25K and the savings is still $152 per year (for heating). Let's double that because that was just for heating and we want cooling out of both systems.
It will still take 83 years.
You can argue all you want on my estimates. But Geothermal is super expensive and the difference in savings is really small comparing to a mini split.
You pretty much have to ignore ROI for Geothermal and just decide if the aesthetics are worth it over a mini split. Because Mini Split wins bye a mile no matter how you slice it, money wise.
You are also better off putting that $25K increase in Geothermal over a Mini Split into a Solar system (which will run either system for free)
And you only need to make the Solar System 8% larger (~$2000) to cover for the less efficient Mini Split.
I didn't include the incentives but most of the incentives apply equally to MiniSplits as well because they are nearly as efficient as Geothermal.