Geothermal Or Leave The Money Invested? An Honest Oklahoma Answer

I am Dave Hartzell. I have been in HVAC for 47 years, I started at 18, and I have run Hartzell’s Heat & Air out of Kingfisher for 15+ years. This is the hardest question anybody asks me about geothermal. It comes out like this: I have the money. I could put it in the ground, or I could leave it invested. Which one wins?

What I Am Not Going To Do On This Page

I am not going to print a rate of return. Not for geothermal, not for your account. I hold a Master HVAC license and I am IGSHPA accredited for the ground loop side. I am not licensed to tell you what money does, and any contractor handing you a clean percentage is guessing at your utility rate, your house, your habits and your taxes.

I am also not going to tell you what the market does. Not my lane, and nobody honest promises it. What I can do is lay the tradeoff out square and tell you which side is solid and which is soft.

The One Real Asymmetry

Money you stop handing the utility is money you never have to earn. It shows up as a smaller draft out of your checking account, so there is no gain to report and nothing to pay tax on. A dollar you do not spend beats a dollar you have to earn and pay tax on.

A return on invested money runs the other direction. Nobody promises it, and the tax treatment depends on the account it sits in and on rules I have no business describing. Your CPA does. One side is smaller and steadier. The other is unbounded in both directions.

Now Let Me Take Some Air Out Of My Own Side

• Geothermal cuts roughly 50% of your HVAC energy use, not your whole power bill. Your lights, water heater and well pump are untouched.
• Rates move and so do you. Savings depend on what your utility charges next year and how you run the house.
• It is equipment. The loop is the durable part. The heat pump has a compressor in it, and machines get serviced and eventually replaced.
• It is illiquid. You cannot sell four feet of ground loop in a bad month. Once the drill leaves, that money is committed.

That last one is the cost nobody prices. Money in an account can become a new roof by Friday. Money in a loop field cannot.

The Part That Worries People Most: I Might Sell This House

Confident numbers fall apart here, so I read the actual sources instead of the brochures.

The Appraisal Institute’s residential green addendum has a geothermal checkbox. It puts no dollar value next to it. Every dollar field on that form is a blank somebody fills in, and the form says plainly it is not a warranty as to cost savings.

Fannie Mae goes further. Its Selling Guide tells appraisers to note energy efficient items, then forbids valuing them dollar for dollar off installation cost, or off the discounted present value of expected savings. They have to find evidence of how buyers actually reacted.

That is a higher bar than it sounds. To put a geothermal adjustment in the report, an appraiser has to find sales of comparable homes that had the system and show what buyers paid for it. Where those sales do not exist, there is no adjustment he can defend.

You have seen the claim that geothermal adds a big lump of resale value, repeated on a dozen contractor sites with a confident dollar range bolted on. I could not source it. When I traced one large installer’s citation, the link went to a federal article about buyers paying a premium for solar panels, which is not the same equipment.

The one peer reviewed study I found on ground source heat pumps specifically is Finnish, and it did find a real price premium on houses that had one. Finnish home prices, winters and power rates are not Oklahoma’s. I will not convert that into an Oklahoma dollar figure, and neither did the author.

So the straight answer: what geothermal is worth to the next buyer is not an established number. The Appraisal Institute does not publish one, Fannie Mae will not let an appraiser back into one off your invoice, and I will not invent one.

The Rebate Money Is Not A Guess

OMPA pays up to $800 per cooling ton. That is a cap, not a guarantee, it requires a desuperheater, and it runs through municipal utilities. Kingfisher, Okeene and Watonga are municipal towns.

Alfalfa Electric Cooperative publishes $1,050 per ton for ground source and $150 per ton for air source, in Garfield and Major counties. That gap is the co-op telling you what it thinks of the technology.

I will not subtract those from a price on a web page and show you a tidy net. Your utility, tonnage and eligibility decide that, and I would rather work it out in your kitchen.

Before You Wait On The Federal Credit

The federal residential clean energy credit, Section 25D, has expired. The IRS states it is not available for property placed in service after December 31, 2025. There is a trap too: the IRS says the expenditure counts when the installation is completed, so paying early does not preserve it if the install finishes later. Do not build a plan on a credit that is gone. Take your situation to a tax professional.

Where The Money Actually Goes

The ground loop is the piece a furnace does not have, around $3,000 per ton as a cost basis at roughly 200 bore feet per ton. Drillers bill bore feet, not pipe feet, and pipe goes down and comes back up. I do not own a rig. I bring in a driller I trust and we work it as a team.

Financing Changes The Question Entirely

If a job is financed, and geothermal can be, you are not choosing between cash and investments at all. Your money stays put and the comparison becomes a payment against what you stop paying the utility.

How I Would Actually Decide It

1. How long will you be in this house? A short horizon leans on resale, the part nobody can pin down.
2. Is this money you might need? If it is your reserve, keep it liquid.
3. What are you burning now? The biggest change shows up for people on propane or old resistance heat.
4. Ask somebody who is not selling you anything. Your CPA should see the same estimate I hand you.

Get A Real Estimate Before You Model Anything

Estimates on a new system are free. I would rather hand you a real number for your advisor than have you decide against internet averages.

I run geothermal statewide in Oklahoma. There is one shop, here in Kingfisher, and I travel from it. Daily service calls stay closer to home. Geothermal I will drive for.

4.8 stars, 300+ Google reviews. Call 405-375-4822.

Questions People Actually Ask Me

Is geothermal a better investment than putting the money in the market?

I will not answer that yes or no, because it is not an HVAC question. The utility money you stop spending is smaller, steadier and not taxed. An investment return is uncertain, taxed when you realize it, and can be sold on a Tuesday. Geothermal cannot.

What is the rate of return on a geothermal system in Oklahoma?

I do not publish one, on purpose. A real number depends on your utility rate, your house, your current fuel, your tonnage and your rebate eligibility, and every percentage on a contractor website quietly assumes all five. Let me do a free estimate.

Will I get my money back out of geothermal when I sell my house?

Nobody can give you an honest dollar figure on that, including me. Fannie Mae forbids an appraiser from valuing an efficiency improvement dollar for dollar off what it cost, or off expected savings. He has to show what buyers actually paid, and there is no published geothermal number to lean on.

Does the federal tax credit still cover geothermal in 2026?

No. The residential clean energy credit under Section 25D is not available for property placed in service after December 31, 2025, and the IRS has said paying early does not preserve it if installation finishes later. Utility rebates are separate. Talk to a tax professional.

How much does it cost to have you look at a geothermal system in Kingfisher Oklahoma?

A geothermal diagnostic is $348 flat, weekday or after hours. That is a full performance check with a written report and a quote before I leave. An estimate on a brand new system is free, which is a different visit.

If I finance geothermal, am I still giving up my investment return?

Not in the same way. If the job is financed, your money stays invested and the comparison becomes a monthly payment against the utility money you stop spending. I will not publish payment figures or terms. Call 405-375-4822 and I will walk you through it.

More reading: is geothermal worth it in Oklahoma and geothermal versus propane.