They told me it would be the bee’s knees – the best thing since the sliced pan – and the investment that would probably change my life forever. I’m not sure now if they were telling the truth.
I still remember the first day I heard about the new snazzy state-of-the art geothermal heating system. “It’s a no brainer,” my neighbour and former good friend Ronan told me. “Using geothermal energy from natural waterpools and hot springs has been working for centuries in cooking and bathing,” he proclaimed, after I made the mistake of telling him we were building near the River Shannon in Ballyleague, Co Roscommon. Ronan is one of these techno-nerds who knows everything on this sort of system, or at least he thinks he does. “There is evidence that even the Native Americans used it for cooking 12,000 years ago,” he said with some assurance. I made my excuses and left this technical discussion as quickly as I could to seek refuge.
The year was 2005 and the choices to heat the new house were fairly simple, as I remember it at the time, “Ten rads and the oil boiler,” or the “snazzy new system.” My builder was predicting costs of around €12,000 for the older model and knew he would have very little to do with the new one if I went for it. “I can’t make heads or tails of that stuff in the well,” he said, and that was that.
Obviously, I went for professional advice before I made the decision. I googled it.
Digging the well was supposed to be the most expensive part of the new investment. Even though a SEAI state grant of around €6,000 was to be available for the new heat pump to go with the system, we had to fork out over €7,000 for sinking the well, and that’s where the trouble began.
Lough Ree
The truth is the water quality in our well was not great from start to finish. On the banks of Lough Ree, the site of the house was based on carboniferous limestone and we had loads of trouble even getting the well sunk because of the shale.
The first 10 years of the new system weren’t too bad. Electricity prices were low, oil prices were high, and we sneered a bit at the neighbours as the lorries of kerosene rolled in throughout the dark evenings of winter, often costing them over 700 bucks to fill their tank. There was nothing wrong with the heating produced in our home at any stage. My wife and I love lots of heat and when our second baby arrived and decided to give us some overnight entertainment while crying repeatedly for the first two years — I kid you not — we were glad to have the nice warmth in the floors under our feet at 4am in the morning.
The problem was the cost of the electricity to run the pump in the first place. It was never cheap, even in the early days, but when the Ukrainian conflict began in 2022, our electricity bills went berserk, just like everyone else’s. Even with the help of the government subsidy, our double-month bill was costing well over €900 and, try as we might to tweak the system, isolate the heat and turn off large portions of the house at different times, the bills still stayed high.
As a last resort, I drove to see another similar system in operation near Castleblaney recently. It was working well but also has high electricity bills. “You see, your problem was the well-to-water system,” Ronan said, when I met him at the recycling centre in Roscommon two weeks ago. “You should really have gone for the air-to-water system for better efficiency. Didn’t I tell you that?”
No. You didn’t, Ronan. And, depressed as I was about that, my mood improved when I met a nice lady from one of the sustainable energy crowds in Castleblaney who told me she had the exact same problem with the efficiency in her geothermal system. “I’ve turned it off,” she said. The experts tell me the new technology has changed and that the new air-to-water systems are just much more efficient and cheaper on the electricity.
“Sure, you could switch over to the new one if you really wanted,” said Ronan when he rang again yesterday. Suddenly the line went dead. I have had enough of hot air for one lifetime, thank you, Ronan.
Thanks for the lovely comments online about my nostalgic trip down memory lane and the stories of reading my first copy of the Irish Farmers Journal
at a traditional country pub called McPhillips of Foigha, Co Longford. I was 14 on return from weekly sales at Ballymahon mart. The shop was always packed as my Dad sought the “high loaf” and “the Journal” and perhaps a pound of rashers too. These were the heady days of “Mags Bag” and long before talk of online sales and DNA testing of calves at marts. How times have changed.
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Meet the Maker: Niamh McCarthy from Niamh Designs Embroidery