Geothermal as a 'green technology' home heating replacement almost never comes up in my real estate practice. It likely doesn't come up in your world as a realtor or mortgage broker either, or at least it doesn't come up very often. But there's always something new to learn, and the following situation came across my desk the other day.
A client of mine that owns a few houses is becoming more concerned about climate change and the environment. One of the properties he owns is an older home, and he thought he could do his environmental bit by retrofitting the home to replace the conventional natural gas heating with geothermal heating.
He did a lot of research and spent a lot of money getting to the point where it looked like he was ready to start the retrofit. He hired a qualified geothermal consultant to design the geothermal system and consulted with other professionals to install the system. This geothermal project required two boreholes 500 feet deep to reach that depth where the Earth's temperature is constant and sufficient to make geothermal heating effective. Time to talk to the drillers who would do those two boreholes.
Oops, should've spoken to them first. Between existing utility rights-of-way, gas lines, buried electrical cables, and a relatively small lot, the drillers said that they couldn't drill the two holes where they needed to be. End of project and goodbye to all the money already spent.
Lesson learned: When doing geothermal consider talking to the drillers first!
Cheers,
Barry