There's a pretty significant upfront cost in getting them drilled, and many homes need the vertical drilling if they don't have sufficient yard space for a horizontal system. It gets harder if you have your own septic drain field too, as that will complete for yard space.

The cost difference is pretty massive- 3-10x for a vertical system. If you live in a city or a suburb with tiny lots, that's your only option though.

Nat gas and central AC are way cheaper.

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IncreasePosts an hour ago | parent [-]

Air source heat pumps are insanely more efficient and just plain better these days too. It used to be that if the air was below 40F you couldn't heat your house with a heat pump. Now, you can heat your house even when it's -10F

	▲	SR2Z 26 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		If you can tolerate the price, I am _confident_ that you will pretty much always have better results using the Earth as your thermal exhaust, because you don't have to dig very far to find a large region that's pretty much always at 50 F.