Geothermal heating and cooling moves heat between your building and the ground instead of burning fuel to make heat. A few feet below the surface, the ground in the Northeast stays near 50°F all year, warmer than winter air and cooler than summer air.

A closed loop of high-density polyethylene pipe is buried in the ground either vertically or horizontally and filled with a water and antifreeze solution. In winter, the fluid absorbs low-grade heat from the earth, and the geothermal heat pump concentrates that heat and delivers it to the building. In summer, the cycle reverses: the system pulls heat out of the building and rejects it into the ground, and that rejected heat is recovered to make domestic hot water at almost no added cost. For homeowners, the whole system is controlled from a thermostat(s).

Yes, and the numbers are most compelling against oil and propane, which are the most expensive fuels.

Energy Catalyst designs to a seasonal coefficient of performance of 4.5 in heating, an EER of 25 in cooling. A COP of 4.5 means the system delivers 4.5 units of heat for every unit of electricity it consumes. A high-efficiency gas furnace delivers about 0.95 units per unit of fuel, an oil boiler about 0.85, so a geothermal system is literally 5 times more efficient than a traditional furnace. In cooling, an EER of 25 is roughly double a new conventional central air conditioner.

The federal Section 25D residential credit was terminated by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act for expenditures made after December 31, 2025, so a homeowner who buys a system outright in 2026 gets no federal credit. This credit can be recaptured through financing a residential project through our Energy Services Agreement: Energy Catalyst owns the system, captures the federal credit, and prices your monthly payment accordingly. 

Two state incentives can still bring the cost down substantially. NYS Clean Heat rebates for geothermal can be as high as $20,000-$40,000 and the New York State Geothermal Energy System Credit IT-267 is 25% of cost up to $10,000. Taxpayers who meet certain income requirements may elect to receive any unused credit amount as a refund. The income requirements for that are $180,000 for married taxpayers filing jointly and $90,000 for single taxpayers. Confirm treatment with your tax advisor.

For a single-family home, on-site work is usually under a week. Drilling and loop installation takes about 3 days, and the interior equipment, distribution tie-in, and commissioning take between 2-5 days depending on the complexity of the project.

The full project timeline from signed agreement to a running system is typically 6-10 weeks. Most of that is design and paperwork rather than labor: a load calculation and loop design, the building permit, and utility rebate pre-approval, etc. Drilling lead times can be longer in the spring and fall than in the winter.

In most cases, yes. Retrofits are the majority of what we install.

Our geothermal heat pumps are built in both forced-air and hydronic configurations, so it can work with what you already have. If you have ductwork from a furnace, we check duct sizing and static pressure and reuse it whenever possible. If you have baseboard or radiators, the hydronic hot water feeds them directly and a limited duct system can be added for summer cooling and supplemental heat as needed. 

Every retrofit starts with a room-by-room Manual J load calculation rather than a match to the size of your old equipment, which is almost always oversized. We then size the ground loop to the real load. The main site requirement is access for a drill rig. Vertical bores need very little surface area, which is why retrofits work on ordinary suburban lots and on tight urban sites.

Very little. There is no combustion, no flue, no fuel deliveries, and no outdoor condensing unit sitting in the weather.

For the homeowner, routine maintenance is changing the air filter every three months on forced-air systems, and keeping the mechanical room clear. We recommend one annual inspection to check loop pressure, verify controls, and confirm performance.

The ground loop itself is not a maintenance item. It is fused HDPE pipe with heat-fused joints, buried and sealed, with an expected service life beyond 50 years. The heat pump arrives factory-charged with a hermetic refrigerant circuit, so there are no field-brazed joints to leak, and the heat pump has no exposure to outdoor temperature swings, which is a large part of why ground-source equipment lasts 20 to 25 years.

Under our Energy Services Agreement, maintenance is not your responsibility at all. Energy Catalyst owns the system for the 15-year term and covers all service, parts, and repairs, and the agreement commits us to a minimum guaranteed system capacity every month of the term.

One system replaces your furnace or boiler, your air conditioner, and your water heater.

• Lower operating cost. Heating at a seasonal COP of 4.5 and cooling at an EER of 25 cuts energy use against oil, propane, and electric resistance heat, and adds central air conditioning to homes that did not have it.

• No fuel price exposure. No oil or propane deliveries, no winter price spikes, no fuel surcharges.

• Predictable cost with no large upfront payment. Our Energy Services Agreement puts a fixed monthly payment in place of the capital cost, with all maintenance and repairs included and a guaranteed minimum capacity.

• The federal tax credit still gets used. With Energy Catalyst as owner, the Section 48 credit that homeowners lost access to in 2026 is captured and reflected in your pricing. Not applicable in cash purchases.

• State incentives you keep. NYS Clean Heat rebates and the 25% New York State geothermal credit remain available on qualifying projects.

• Safety and comfort. No combustion means no carbon monoxide risk and no chimney. Ground-source systems run longer and quieter at lower capacity, which evens out temperature swings.

• Emissions and compliance. Buildings are the largest source of emissions in New York State. Geothermal removes on-site fossil fuel use entirely, which matters for commercial owners facing carbon limits and for anyone planning around the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.