Contractors See Increasing Demand For Geothermal Home Systems

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Geothermal heating and cooling systems work just as caves do: The temperature underground is more moderate than the air above. If it's 85 degrees outside, it's cool in the cave. If it's 25 degrees outside, the cave is still 50 to 60 degrees.

In a home, office or church heated and cooled by a geothermal system, a pump brings 55-degree ground water up into a heat pump. The heat pump extracts heat from the water and sends cooler water back down into the earth. In the summer, the process is reversed: The pump pulls hot air from the house and sends it down into the earth.

Because geothermal heat pumps are more efficient than air-to-air heat pumps, and because the ground water is closer to the desired indoor temperature than the air outside, geothermal heat pumps use less electricity and work better in cold climates than the original heat pumps did.

Living cave-like, geothermally could cut 2/3 off energy bill