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I have a 33 year old house, by downstairs AC is probably the original and up until now has worked flawlessly. I have an oil furnace that was installed just before I bought the house 13 years ago. Also works great. My plan was to scrap them both this summer and go with a new system. Well that was before the oil delivery people delivered $1300 worth of oil this spring. I have been so pissed off I have haven't paid them yet.

Now it looks like the AC is on it's last legs, if even that. I guess my options are Heat Pump, Gas Pack, Heat Pump with Gas back up. I have enough oil to last me another winter so I'm ticked about that. Anybody got any good ideas.

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2002 MCS, 2003 MCS Track Rat, 2003 Generic White Yukon, 2003 BMWk1200rs, 1973 CB350F, 02 996. 08 Cayenne Turbo
http://www.clinehallagency.com

I have a 53 year old house that has a gas pack with AC. I am not sure how old the system is. It was installed before I bought the house. The only problems I have had is that a cat got under the house and ripped some of the flex ducts and last year the 24v transformer died. I like the heat better than heat pumps I have experienced in the past because of a higher temp differential. One other advantage is it does not take much power to run the heat during a winter power outage.

Have you considered a geothermal heat pump?

BTW shouldn't that oil be worth about $1500 by now?

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George Bright Member # 141
One of the youngest of the old farts.
Yes I voted against you joining the club.

Cline, shoot Mitch an e-mail. i have a guy, but not sure he wants to go to G-Vegas.

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BenchWarmer Motorsports

another one of those damn LeMons heads

just another Chump

we are an Autocross Club Dammit............

Cline, the geo thermal route is not a good one, if your thinking green. tremendous water waster, if you don't return it to the ground. In hard water areas it calcifies with regularity. And while better than an air to air heat pump it doesn't deliver the heat like a gas pac. I've been there and don that with all types heating and air conditioning and the airconditioner/ gas pac has been the one I prefer. Just my humble opinion.
P.S. You should be able to sell the oil with little problem.

Eh? Most (if not all at this point) geothermal systems are closed loop and thus *use* no water. They simply circulate it through long deep pipe buried in the ground as the heat exchanger rather than air to air like a conventional heat pump. Since the below ground temperature is relatively constant and at a level that's pretty good for heat exchange, they are more efficient than air to air. It takes a while to recoup your investment since the install is pretty expensive, but I think it's down to around seven years or so. You also have the drawback of not being able to build on the area you use for your field, so keep that in mind.

As for what it does or doesn't deliver as far as heat, well, any heat pump is going to have some method of "backup" for when you simply need more heat capacity than the "pump" portion can deliver. That can be any method of your choosing from electric to gas and likely even oil, I'd imagine. I have a geothermal heat pump at my mtn house, but in my house here in Chapel Hill we have an air to air heat pump. The backup heat is actually a hot water boiler fired with propane (can't get natural gas here) that's also our hot water heater. Works great. It can get our house PLENTY warm if we want it to, believe me...


--Donnie

Will the oil supplier buy it back? I have been told that the mild temperatures here make the geothermal an ineffecient option.

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2002 MCS, 2003 MCS Track Rat, 2003 Generic White Yukon, 2003 BMWk1200rs, 1973 CB350F, 02 996. 08 Cayenne Turbo
http://www.clinehallagency.com

While that may be true here and in the mountains on the coast they still dump the water into the nearest ditch or canal. There are several methods of heat transfer, the best being a deep well with a closed system heat exchanger placed at the bottom. This allows better transfer in water to water. but as Donnie said its expensive, and if you still need a back up system what's the rational ? Put the gas pac in and be done with it.

While I certainly won't argue the nice feel of warm gas-heated air, with oil/gas prices climbing nearly daily, I would think twice before considering this as an option. I run 2 heat pumps in my house, and on the coldest days where we dip into the twenties or teens, my systems run off electric backup coils. At this point, I doubt this is much if at all more expensive than running gas - possibly even cheaper, with much lower up-front costs (at least to heat pump+gas/oil backup).

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Dustin Fredrickson
-- I'm a nobody --

Bernie + Donnie are talking apples and oranges re: geothermal systems. The water-waster Bernie is referring to is the open loop/deep well type that continuously pumps well water through the coils for heat transfer, the one Donnie is talking about is closed loop, which IMHO is the only one to even consider if you're seriously thinking about it (and it sounds like you're not).

I did a bunch of research on these systems when planning the HVAC for our new house, and it just did not pan out financially. The time for return on investment was WAYYYYY too long, and I am lucky enough to have a site that has plenty of room for the closed loop piping and could do alot of the excavation work myself- it still did not work, not even close.

Maybe when these systems become much more commonplace, and conventional energy costs continue to rise like they have been- I'll be able to replace my new system when it wears out 10+ years from now with a nice Geothermal system that is cost-effective.



Oil suppliers will usually buy back unused heating oil, but they often have a time limit on it- seems like I've heard 60-90 days old is their max.



If you really end up getting stuck with it, post it up for sale on Craigslist as #2 heating oil/OFF Road diesel fuel (they're the same thing), you'll probably find someone to buy it from you for close to what you paid for it- maybe even more if prices continue to rise..........







Bret.

bret, thanks the oil was my biggest question.

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2002 MCS, 2003 MCS Track Rat, 2003 Generic White Yukon, 2003 BMWk1200rs, 1973 CB350F, 02 996. 08 Cayenne Turbo
http://www.clinehallagency.com

If it has been a few months, you should be able to sell it for a lot more than you paid for it I would think. Here's a chart of July 2008 Heating Oil futures which reflects the spot market right now as it closes in on expiration -- this is essentially the wholesale price per gallon prior to any federal and state taxes, storage and transportation expenses, retail profit, etc.

http://futuresource.quote.com/charts/charts.jsp?s=HO%20N8&o=&a=D&z=800x550&d=HIGH&b=bar&st=

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Current stable:
2019 BMW M2 Competition slicktop 6MT
2011 BMW M3 sedan slicktop 6MT
2007 BMW 328i wagon (slushbox for now)
1975 CanAm 125MX2

true, maybe.


The problem is most people who'd be willing to buy it don't have a good way of getting it out of Cline's tank and transporting it to their tank. About 6 months ago, I picked up some "free" heating oil from someone near downtown Raleigh- they had converted from oil heat to electric heat pump and wanted the remaining oil + tank gone. It was a ~250-300 gallon round tank with maybe 60-75 gallons in it, sitting on stands outside of her house. I ended up pumping it out with a rigged up system consisting of an old Bosch BMW electric fuel pump, a couple of filters and a 12v battery jump box. Took about 2 hours, but it was worth it- I guess.....free fuel for the farm tractor + backhoe!!




Bret.

Our old downstairs gas pack crapped out last winter on the coldest day of the year, of course. We got a new one with a much higher energy efficiency rating (SER). I saw a big drop in our heating bill. I'm hoping for the same this summer with the AC.
I'm thinking about replacing my upstairs heat pump with a more efficient one. I think it bears most of the cooling burden while the gas pack heats more in winter.
I liked the company that put it in too. They patched up the gas pack for a couple of years. The guy came the same morning that I called last winter. He had bad news, but put the new one in as soon as it came in. He did everything he said he would do at the price he quoted. Brann and Sons 753-2550

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Rubbin' is Racin'

Client of mine just installed geothermal in a building in downtown Durham. They're obviously in for the long haul and it went a long way towards their LEED cert.

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Not spectacular just decent.
I'm not sure what I'm driving.
Maybe an ITR in DS.
Or half-assed STX prepped 330.

^^^

That multi-building install downtown got some good press in the freebie newspaper that shows up on Saturdays. It was unclear if they are pumping water out and dumping it or putting a heat exchanger down in the bottom. Do you know David?

--Kevin H.

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2003 WRX (again!)