Ideal Homes and Caddo Electric Cooperative Today Announced Three New Geothermal Communities.

Starting this fall, every new home built in the Ideal communities at Somers Pointe, Somers Village or The Springs at Settlers Ridge comes with a ClimateMaster geothermal heat pump and incentives that offset thousands of dollars in installation costs. "We're making the world's best heating and cooling technology available to more Oklahoma homebuyers than anyone ever has before," said Vernon McKown, co-owner of Ideal Homes. "Ideal has always been on the cutting edge, bringing energy efficiency to mainstream building in Oklahoma with Energy Star, Guaranteed Heating and Cooling Usage and the Zero Energy Home. Now we are helping some of our homeowners realize enough savings on geothermal to recoup their initial investment in less than three years." Without this program, the largest part of the cost for geothermal is for the installation of the buried loops. Ideal's partnership with Caddo Electric replaces thousands of dollars in loop installation costs with a small monthly thermal energy fee. Homeowners benefit from geothermal comfort and savings without significant up-front costs or maintenance concerns. They also qualify for CADDO's lowest utility rate for an even faster return on investment.  Geothermal units cut significant operating costs. Geothermal heating and cooling offers the lowest operating costs of any system in the world. The technology uses a high-efficiency heat pump and sealed underground piping loops filled with water to exchange heat between the home and the earth. The EPA says geothermal systems are "the most energy-efficient, environmentally clean and cost-effective space conditioning systems available today." "We call our homes EnergyAdvantage because our smart construction saves homeowners hundreds of dollars a year on heating and cooling usage. Now we're leading the charge to bring geothermal into the market on a large scale and also educating our customers about the advantages of solar and offering solar options," McKown said. In residential solar generation systems, photocells capture sunlight as electricity, and the system converts it to usable power for the home, offsetting the amount of electricity the homeowner has to buy. A fully functioning solar system is on display in the Ideal model home at Village Verdé in Piedmont. In addition to the total Geothermal Communities, for the first time, Ideal's geothermal and solar options are available to every person building a new Ideal home. When they visit the company's Design Center, they can learn about how the combination of energy savings, potential tax credits and other incentives can help their families save more.