“The easiest way to think about this is like your backyard is a battery,” says Ryan Dougherty, president of the Geothermal Exchange Organization, a trade association that advocates for geothermal heat pumps. “You can draw off that thermal battery in the winter and you can heat your house with the energy that’s right there in your yard. And then in the summer, the processes is just reversed: You take heat out of your house and you put it back into the battery.”
The downside of a heat pump is that you can’t install one on your own, unless you’re really handy. Whether it uses air or geothermal energy, a heat pump is no more difficult to install than an air conditioner, but you still need a professional. But the upside is that heating and air conditioning companies (disclosure: my aunt owns one such company) have been installing these things for years, so it’s just a matter…
