@dkite

The wife and I had to replace the 20 year-old heat pumps that came with our house in Texas.

Ground source was going to cost at least $20K for seven 250-300′ wells, plus $3.50 a foot in polyethylene tubing, plus the destruction of our lawn. Oh, and then we had to buy the heat-pump equivalents for another $10K-plus. The guy who came out and looked at our home and our bill laid it all out for us and the choice was simple.

We paid $10K for 14 SEER replacement conventional heat pumps, instead of $30K on ground-source. Ground-source would have paid back the difference in 30 years, based on our electrical rate — and assuming no hose problems requiring maintenence in that time.

If we build a house and have sufficient land, then we’ll put in ground-source for sure. As a retrofit, it just didn’t make sense for a home we didn’t expect to own that long.