Geothermal Made Easier AND Cheaper? | Cool Down CEO Interview

It’s a good idea for folks with the right house features. I would guess that the carbon footprint of the upgrade is minimal compared to a traditional geothermal system too. I wish Cool Down success.

So, instead of all that, can't I just install a mini-split anywhere in my basement and put the heads upstairs? Plus a heat pump water heater that takes all the heat pumped downstairs and sticks it in water?

I’d like to know what they could do with a crawl space. Most houses I’ve lived in don’t have basements, and aren’t slabs either. The crawl space is like 3 feet high and seems to have potential for this

We're, we used to call that a whole house fan!!!😅😊

This is a limited option with limited benefits for limited use cases

Office towers and condo buildings have underground parking which I suppose could be used for this purpose.

What about using the unheated swimming pool to cool the house by circulating air pipes in the water, perhaps under a false floor in the pool.

i love this idea!!

That is retarded, cuz why would U ever buy ½ of what U need that only lasts about ½ the yr if that....when there's literally the oldschool way that offers both heating & cooling, so who would ever do this logically, so this isn't disruptive tech unless U live on the equator or UR always hot which isn't the masses

No basement, just a crawlspace. Doubt crawlspace floor runs at 50F in NOCAL. But good stuff.

Still listening. Any words on new basement builds, specialty cement blends for better thermal conductivity?

It looks like a nice system, but nothing that a diy'er couldn't do with a raspberry pi or arduino. It still runs the air handler. To bad we have a 'package unit', so it is not possible (our air handler is built into the compressor, so package units would not be great for this). Diyers could also do this well with HomeAssistant or similar.

During that 5 minute roll over period when the AC runs to dehumidify the initial basement air, could you save a watt or two by running the AC in dry mode?

How well does it work with a finished basement with people living there? Will the basement get cold in the winter?

Why can't they do something like this with heat pumps for heating? Some how put the heat pump or part of it in the basement so that it doesn't have to work so hard in the winter to warm up the air.

Will cooling down my upstairs area using cool down stairs air raise the temperature of my basement in the summer? I ask this questions because in the heat of the summer my basement needs to be heating or it's just too cold to be enjoyable. Generally, the basement is around 18 degrees Celsius in July. Typically we air condition (A/C) the upstairs to 24 degrees Celsius and then we heat the basement to about 21 degrees using our in floor natural gas fires hydronic heating system so it's usable. But, the A/C system still cools the basement, to a degree due to the colder A/C air descending down the staircase even when the in floor basement heating system is running. This summer time heating and cooling process is costly and just makes the energy conservation notion a big joke. However, if I can take the cool air from the basement and more it upstairs I could possible turn my basement in floor hydronic system off for the summer. Do you need a test home in Canada?

Bring in Edison Motors for a DI episode!
They are awesome!

Will this be effective in a walk out basement?

ok I'm intrigued, I'm and architectural designer, and I've been looking into hybrid water heaters. You could duct the cool air are being exhausted by the hybrid water heater's heat pump into the duct to help condition the space as well. I don't completely understand heat pump technology, but this has to be doable....

This is just what I’ve been looking for!! @cooldown is there a way to get this in WA?

Living in an un-insulated 1940 framed house with brick siding in western NC, and opening up the windows at night, using an 'entire house ventilation fan' to draw cooler night air through the home, then closing everything up at night allowed us to turn on our air-conditioner 60 days after our neighbors equivalent aged home. Note: the full brick exterior allowed for 'thermal lag' which also helped.

Looks useful for unfinished basements but what happens if you plan to finish it later? It seems almost useless for finished basements because you can just run fan only on HVAC for a while. Most smart thermostats let you run fan only mode on a schedule already. There are also whole home fan and exhausts for much cheaper. Dandelion seems a lot more useful. Heating is also a lot more energy intensive than cooling. So Cool Down not getting the largest part of geoTHERMAL is already a big step backwards.

If you just put a heat pump hot water heater in your basement it will do the same thing. It uses heat from the surroundings to heat up water.

Smart use of free energy (ground) 🌻 Zac & Jesse, EXCELLENT Interviewing!!

Smart use of free energy (ground) 🌻 Zac & Jesse, EXCELLENT Interviewing!!