Today's question is from Joanne Appelhof. "We now have a geothermal heat pump. It is now 25 years old and needs to be replaced. We are wondering if we should go with natural gas or stay with a ground water geothermal heat pump?"
It sort of depends on the kind of geothermal heat pump system you have. If you have a ground loop, that's the most expensive part of the geothermal install. So, really I doubt you would be able to find a gas furnace that will be as efficient as your geothermal unit.
Even though a geothermal heat pump is more expensive than a gas furnace, it's not going to be as expensive now for you since you have the ground loop in as it would if you were putting in a new installation. Plus, you can still get a federal tax rebate up until 2020 or 2021, so you should get a geothermal heat pump. There may even be some local incentives so you can save even more.
Unless you're having some problems with your ground loop, which would be unusual, I would stay with geothermal.
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