Serving the Communities of North Central Florida since 1998
Have you been calling recently for AC repair in Newberry, FL more than you think you should? Then there’s a strong chance that your air conditioner is ready to be replaced. You can arrange with us to have a new central air conditioner put in, or maybe a heat pump if you’d also like to switch out an aging electric furnace.
But… have you considered the possibility of installing a geothermal air conditioning system instead?
As the days start to warm up, some homeowners are going to be looking for new air conditioning systems to keep them cool throughout the summer. Centralized air conditioning isn’t the only way to keep your home cool, though. There are plenty of other options available to homeowners, one of which is geothermal. Read on to find out about geothermal systems, how they work, and the advantages of installing one in your home this summer.
Geothermal cooling and heating has been around for decades, but it’s only been over the last few years that it has become a more popular choice for residential properties. Our Touchstone Heating and Air, Inc., experts get a lot of questions about geothermal systems, and one of the more common ones regards the savings a geothermal system can offer. To understand how geothermal cooling in Lake City can help save you money, it’s important to first understand how the system works.
How Geothermal Systems Work
A geothermal system harnesses the Earth’s natural, steady temperature just below the frost line (between 55-61 degrees) to heat and cool. Using a ground loop and a heat pump, warmth is absorbed from the Earth during the winter months and transferred into your home via the ground loop; the heat pump then disperses the warm air into your home. In the summer months, the heat pump removes the heat and transfers it to the ground loop, where the heat is “sunk” into the ground. Geothermal systems do not use any fossil fuels and the heat pump uses a small amount of electricity to operate.
Ways Geothermal Systems Save Money
There are a few ways in which geothermal systems can save you money:
The one item to note about geothermal systems is that the upfront installation costs tend to be more expensive than those of standard air conditioning systems. But there are tax credits and grants that can help reduce the initial costs, and it takes only an average of 6 years to recoup the cost of installation via energy savings.
If you are considering geothermal cooling in Lake City, call the team of geothermal experts at Touchstone Heating and Air, Inc., today!
Geothermal home comfort systems are growing more popular every year thanks to their highly efficient, reliable performance and nearly unmatched longevity. A well-installed geothermal system can last for more the 50 years, and no matter the outdoor temperature, they return a steady level of heating or cooling that uses far less power than standard air-source heat pumps.
Some homeowners, however, are not even aware that geothermal systems can provide both heating and cooling, the way that standard heat pumps can. Because geothermal power is associated with heat (“thermal” is right in the name), people often don’t consider that they can offer comfort through cooling every bit as effective as their comfort through heat.
We’ll offer you a short explanation for how a geothermal system cools down a home during summer.
For more information about geothermal cooling in Jacksonville, FL, call Touchstone Heating and Air Inc., where we’ve kept homes in North Central Florida comfortable since 1998.
Geothermal home comfort systems are heat pumps: they move heat from one location and place it in another through the circulation of refrigerant. An indoor coil serves as either the evaporator (removing heat from the interior air) or condenser (releasing heat to the interior air), while a series of ground loops buried at least 6 feet deep in the earth handle the other half of the heat exchange process. Unlike air-source heat pumps, geothermal systems use water rather than Freon as the refrigerant they circulate.
When a geothermal heat pump is in heating mode, the ground loops move heat from the ground and release it inside. Because the temperature of the earth at that depth remains steady around 55°F regardless of the surface conditions, the heat pump has a reliable source of heat. But it can reverse this process and use the earth as a place to deposit heat as well, making use of the same steady temperature. When the system switches to cooling mode, heat is taken from a home and placed into the earth. Thanks to the reliably cool underground temperature, a heat pump will never have trouble cooling down a house on a hot summer day.
If there’s one drawback to geothermal heat pumps, it’s that they will not work for every property: a home needs sufficient space for the loops and the right kind of soil. However, you may be surprised to find out that most homes will permit geothermal heat pumps.
Call our heating and cooling specialists at Touchstone Heating and Air Inc. today and schedule an appointment to find out if geothermal cooling in Jacksonville, FL is a great year round comfort solution for your household.
