[J_D]

Geo Thermal Heating and Cooling is certainly the way to go. We built a 2100 sq. ft. ranch style home in 2005 with a full basement and a 1585 sq. ft. detached shop and both are heated and cooled by Geo Thermal systems. Both or our systems are the Econar brand which you can find on the internet. The house has (5) 250' wells and is a forced air system and the shop coils are buried in a big hole similar to the size of my basement and about 9' down. The shop has radiant in-floor heat and forced air with a air handler for the central air conditioning. Our son-in-law was the electrician on our home/shop when we built it and he ran 400 amp. service into our home and then ran the electric through conduit back out to the shop. I found out just how important that was later when the electric company told me that had I not done it that way and put a separate meter on the shop, they would have had to charge me the commercial electric rate instead of the residential rate even though the shop is for my own personal use and no compensated work is done there.

Our heating/cooling bills have been extremely reasonable and keep in mind, we live in Central Iowa and heat and air condition both buildings. I think our highest electric bill has been $175.00 and keep in mind, we only have one meter so this covers both buildings. Also like Rob mentioned, we received a $3,850.00 rebate from our energy supplier (Mid-American Energy) for going Geo on the house. They would not rebate anything on the shop as it had to be living space. I tried to tell them that when Nancy kicked me out of the house, just where did they think I was going to live?

Here are some pic's:

[b] DRILLING THE WELLS FOR THE HOUSE





RADIANT IN-FLOOR HEAT IN THE DETACHED SHOP







FINISHED PROJECT