How come the water that is piped into your house is so cold (colder than it seems like it should be)?
The reason I ask is that it seems like our society could be much more energy efficient if the water we’re pumping into our houses wasn’t as cold as it is. Perhaps we could heat it all a few degrees on a massive scale using geothermal, before it gets to people’s houses?

Geothermal heat pumps are used here in Canada. We’re as cold or colder than there. The minute that you get far enough below ground, that the temperature is above freezing, you can get heat. In most places this is just 6 feet down.They are used here, not just to supplement house heating, but to do ALL the heating , Air conditioning and domestic hot water production. I’ll post a link here, to help you understand ground source heat pumps (geothermal energy)http://www.virtualpet.com/portals/okener…
and a unit I am familliar with ( I used to help install them)http://www.waterfurnace.com/

I really want to install geothermal heating in my recently purchased 2,000sqft home in Alaska, but couldn’t find any contractors in the area. So, I wonder if it’s even doable there, or if it just gets too cold. If it is doable, then how easy and expensive would it be to install myself?