central - east central Minnesota - | Tim in WI - 4/17/2010 05:49 I would think the way to make it work would be to use the wood heat as a primary heat source and the geo as a backup. The wood fire has to be kept going anyway, may as well use as much of it as possible and run the geo when necessary. My opinion-forget the woodburner. If you have extra wood, sell it or give it away. Take the money you would spend on an outdoor burner and put it toward a geothermal system. I would agree with Tim . . . If you have 2 systems, keep them seperate. Geo would need to run to release the heat, so why not just use the heat directly from the wood furnace? Then the geo would not need to run and there would be a saveing from the compressor not useing electric. If you don't have the wood furnance, as Tim suggest, a properly sized geo furnance and loop field will be a better investment and return then buying both. (there's still a hufty tax credit - 30% for qualifing geo systems). My daughters and SIL's new home never had the back up electric plemun heater kick on this past winter. The loop system should continue to become more effecent as time goes on (ground settles tighter around the loops). So I feel they could have saved the money and left the plemun heat out. If you want to tie the two systems together, I'd consider doing it in the plemun . . . .
Edited by iseedit 4/17/2010 10:21
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Geothermal and outdoor wood furnace question
