New building heating?

We are currently in the middle of planning our new building and now selecting the heating system. We have read that it is now possible to heat with geothermal energy, but we have no experience at all. How does that work exactly and would you recommend it to us?

Hello Eve,

one should distinguish between whether drilling is necessary for geothermal heating systems or if surface collectors are used.

We had also considered drilling, but quickly abandoned the idea when in the neighboring town such a drilling went wrong. The drilling caused faults in the subsoil, which in turn led to damage to several houses (cracks).

With unproblematic subsoil, I would still consider heating with this technology again.

Basically, you should not buy your heating system on a whim, but make the selection based on the heating load calculation of the building.

Regards,

Dirk

Geothermal energy works via a heat pump. The functionality is the opposite of a refrigerator --> the heat pump extracts heat from the environment (borehole or surface) and transports it into the house (very simply put).

We have read that nowadays it is also possible to heat with geothermal energy, but we have no experience at all. How exactly does it work and would you recommend it to us?

As nordanney wrote ... Actually, you can find the answer to your question with the search engine of your choice. Links are not allowed here, so you have to google it yourself :P

Drilling: requires a permit, expensive, not always possible, ...

Surface collectors: As a rule of thumb, you need the same area in your garden as your house occupies. There, a long pipe is laid in a loop at a shallow depth (just frost-proof), in which a heat carrier circulates. You cannot build on top of it or plant deep-rooted trees. However, it is rather cheap and basically trivial (you can possibly lay it yourself, a small excavator is enough).

Both methods work in normal soil or in groundwater-bearing layers. Differences in detail ...

Would I recommend it? It depends on the soil conditions. Personally, I would rather not do it. Preferably an air-to-water heat pump and a well-insulated house. Or gas condensing boilers, which unfortunately require other measures (if you build in Germany), possibly making an air-to-water heat pump more economical then. It depends.

HTH

Do all these pumps run smoothly during a cold week with an average of -20 degrees and provide enough energy for heating and domestic hot water? It is often found that they "only" operate properly down to -5 degrees...

Air heat pumps operate quite inefficiently in that range. They can all provide heat, but air heat pumps then need the heating element, meaning you have to pay expensive additional heating.

However, it cannot be said universally - it always depends on design, model, and configuration.

Ground-source heat pumps have no problem with temperatures at all because they operate independently of the outside temperature - in the "warm" ground, which over time also freezes. I believe that months-long frost periods could also cause problems even then (pure theory) ;)