First time poster, so please be patient. I built a new house and moved in August 2015. Had a geothermal system installed by a local reputable HVAC contractor. They sold me on a Bosch CE061 2-stage unit with a 6 ton horizontal loop. Our house is 2,650 s.f. with 660 s.f. of finished basement near Cleveland Ohio. The system was to be sized to accommodate a future 450 s.f. bonus room above the garage (when I have time to finish it). The first winter our electricity bills were what I thought were very high considering I installed a very energy efficient heating system. January was $441, Feb $290, March $320 and April $462. We came from a house with forced air furnace and 2,600 s.f. (no basement, no bonus room). We kept the house at 70 degrees and left it at the same temp all the time because the HVAC contractor said this was the best for a geo. In May the bill was $331 and continued through the summer to be between $200 and $250 keeping the house at 70 degrees. I went into the system thinking about $200 per month based on what we were paying for our previous house both electric and gas. This winter, which has been unseasonably w arm around here the bills have been from Nov $200, $240, $255 and $306 in Feb. I have had the HVAC contractor out MANY times complaining about the bills, about the noise of the system, about how it runs constantly when it is cold, how our house is cold in the winter and warm in the summer even and many other items. They keep telling me the system is fine, which I am not believing at this time. I talked with quite a few people before deciding to go with the geo system and they all said you will love it. I don't. Is my system running correctly? Do the bills sound reasonable? Are my issues consistent with a geo system? I want to love my geo system. Please HELP. System parts: Model: Bosch CE061-1VTC-FLT-AB Geo-Flo circulation pump? Grundfos UPC-GEO Aprilaire Humidifier 600 Photos of system information both just fan on and when stage 2 is running (when it drops below 35 degrees it skips stage 1). Thank you for your time and allowing me to ramble.
Allen: We are looking at a job in Milan in the AM. I can come look in the afternoon. 440.223.0840. You buy power from First bandit Energy and they love to mess with their customers, especially around York Township. The thermostat is your interface with the comfort system and the electric bandits, you need to be able to see more. Mark
Allan, If my local installers had installed your system they would have used a 4 or 5 ton system since they told me the correct thumb rule for todays leak free & well insulated homes is 1 Ton per 900 square feet of living space. I used the 1 Ton per 600 square feet of living space to select my unit, so I would have chosen 5 Tons for your house, but it would have been undersized for heating in the winter. A 6 Ton unit should keep your house cold in the summer with no problem. If it isn't there is something wrong with the unit performance. The Winter is when you need a large system, which you have. My 4 Ton system keeps the house as cold as I want in the summer, but struggles in the winter. I was told I had too much Heat Pump for my house but I disagree. I have propane log back up in my fireplace to help during the cold weather with high winds which causes additional in-leakage into my home. I have some additional insulation to install in the attic, and I need to enclose the front of the house with a porch ceiling to keep the wind from finding it's way into the attic. Hopefully the Forum Folks here will fix you up.
docjenser, The geo only heats the house. It is supposedly sized to provide heat to a bonus room above the garage once I finish it. Currently it is just an unconditioned attic. Usage stats are below. Thanks for your help. 11/6/14-12/5/14=1,351 12/6/14-1/7/15=3,458 1/8/15-2/4/15=2,182 2/5/15-3/6/15=2,338 3/7/15-4/6/15=3,406 4/7/15-5/5/15=2,514 5/6/15-6/3/15=384 6/4/15-7/2/15=1,313 7/3/15-8/4/15=1,655 8/5/15-9/1/15=1,161 9/2/15-10/1/15=1,636 10/2/15-11/2/15=1,457 11/3/15-12/3/15=1,832 12/4/15-1/4/16=1,917 1/5/16-2/1/16=2,284 2/2/16-3/3/16=2,560
We want to brain meld the T-stat. The pump screen is just TV. The part of the t-stat that sits on the upper right forward corner of the cabinet is electro-mechanically sensitive. It needs to move and or get shielded. When happy with that we will review the logic. Mark
Allen, I think what doc was asking is if your whole house is electric or do you have natural gas feeding your dryer, stove, water heater, etc.... I am running a 5 ton system which I feel is oversized in my all electric home and my bills might touch $300 in a very cold month in the middle of winter (71* set point), but my summer bills have been as low as $125 keeping the house at 70* (summer). I moved into my new construction house in May 2014 and my first summer/winter/spring sucked! But, since then our bills have dropped by a minimum of 25% from corresponding months in the first year. I am guessing ground settling (horizontal ground loop) and tweaking the system have greatly helped both in comfort and cost! My biggest issue is being able to leave it alone! If I mess with it when it is cold outside, I get it all out of balance and then it takes a day or two for it to right the ship again! Summers here in the Akron, OH area are much more forgiving!
I misunderstood. yes, my house is all electric. eaerhard, what size house are you heating and cooling, similar to mine?
Mine is only 2600 sq ft total but 2/3 of the house has 19 ft ceilings. I think it is probably oversized by 1/2-1 ton but it keeps the house warm w/o burning through the electric strip heat much. It probably ends up costing about the same due to being oversized but at least I get to break up that cost over 12 months rather than being hit big over the winter. And, if it is oversized, I will be in good shape if I decide to finish part of my basement and heat it!
Check out your numbers, your KWH in Jan or Feb average only 1000 KWH more than Sep or Oct, when you usually don't heat your house. So the geo system is only using (roughly) 1000 KWH peak winter month, very much in line with an efficient system for a 3000 sqf house.
Doc, I think I am going to have to agree with that as well. My lowest bill of the year was September when I don't know how much the system really even ran and my worst winter bill was about 1200 kw above that. I want to say my September bill was somewhere between 950-1000 kw used range. I have an aerator in my septic that always runs and also have a very active sump pump that also seems to be busy this year!
