geothermal

whistlepig · Sep 19, 2009

When we bought our place three years ago it came with geothermal. A Water Furnace system it is. I knew nothing about geothermal until we moved here. It's the most amazing system I have ever seen. Heating and air conditioning costs are a third from where we lived before. And this house is twice as large. It seems to be virtually maintenance free. Ours is horizontal ground loop. Has anyone had any major repair issues with their geothermal system? We are having ours serviced every fall by Water Furnace.

heehaw · Sep 20, 2009

i know a couple geothermal systems that only lasted 7 years and had to be replaced, doing away with all the savings they had bragged about for those 7 years: "but" they did go back with another geothermal system..these were not Water Furnace systems. the only maintenance i have heard of was with vertical systems that got air in the water lines and had to have the air flushed out occasionally. if you can afford a geothermal system, i think it is the only way to go.
heehaw

piller · Sep 20, 2009

Our home is all electric and we have a heat pump. This system works fairly well here although I would really like to have a geothermal heat pump system. One day perhaps.

The geothermal system is quieter because you are using a liquid heat exchange and don't need to run a fan for the ambient air heat exchange. And of course the geothermal loop is much more efficient when it's really hot or cold outside.

Some local public schools near me have recently incorporated geothermal HVAC systems. Geothermal systems can be used almost everywhere although soil tests are needed to determine heat capacity to properly size the ground loop system.

Ken_f · Sep 20, 2009

I made a web page with the adventures of our geothermal system install. (below) We went with a DX system. Yes, we had problems at first, but now that the system is working ok, I generally have no-regrets. A number of my friends have got quotes for high seer, two system houses that are not far from my initial cost of installing this system. So, as time goes on I feel the savings will add up.

As I say on my pages that my biggest mistake was installing a super high efficient system into a super un-efficient house. If I had the time I would have done everything in the house that I could do to make it more efficient. But, the system we had was failing so I had to replace it.

He is the page if interested:

DX Geothermal Project

Ken

whistlepig · Sep 20, 2009

heehaw said:
i know a couple geothermal systems that only lasted 7 years and had to be replaced, doing away with all the savings they had bragged about for those 7 years: "but" they did go back with another geothermal system..these were not Water Furnace systems. the only maintenance i have heard of was with vertical systems that got air in the water lines and had to have the air flushed out occasionally. if you can afford a geothermal system, i think it is the only way to go.
heehaw

Ours was installed when this house was built in 1999. The previous owner that had the house built said he paid $14,000 for the Water Furnace setup. Plug and play. Ours is closed loop so there are no water lines. When we had the system serviced last fall the tech said he had to "burp" the lines. I wasn't home so not sure what he was talking about. From what I have read a complete Water Furnace system installed is around $22,000 now. A friend of mine is building a new house and he purchased a geothermal "kit" for $7,800. He has to do all the labor. Hiring of the backhoe to install the loops, furnace installation, etc. But then he gets an energy rebate on his taxes of $3,000.

hilld · Sep 20, 2009

Ken_f said:
He is the page if interested:

DX Geothermal Project

Ken

Thanks for the link, interesting reading indeed.

D.

Kays Supply · Sep 21, 2009

My son sold ground water heat pumps. He no longer does. The issue was the pipe loop installer. There were leaks in the loops and the installer would not fix them unless they were exposed. They were in wells hundreds of feet deep that he had drilled. Since there wasn't any one else close to our area to do the loop installs, he no longer sells the systems. Also, our local school has the system and it was under sized. By the end of the winter it no longer has enough capacity to work properly. Sizing is very important. Oh! and it also has leaks. Air can't just appear in a closed loop.

wjoerob · Sep 21, 2009

Our geothermal was installed in our new house 5 yrs. ago. It is a 27 SEER heat/AC system from ClimateMaster. They told us at the time that the cost difference over conventional system was about $15,000, and that we would recover that within 3-5 years. 2 horizontal loops, one 3' and one 5' deep. Closed loop, and the installer put 200' length of pipe in a pretty small area of "back yard". We've been totally pleased, and bills are way low, with a total electric house. It's also hooked into the top of the water heater, so in the summer it supplements that. We had a separate contractor for the ductwork and furnace than for the loops. After a year, wife noticed that the crawlspace entrance was warm and the cats were hanging around there. Turned out a piece of ductwork had not been joined properly and was hanging loose. We were heating the crawlspace as well as the house!

buckeyefarmer · Sep 21, 2009

Kays Supply said:
My son sold ground water heat pumps. He no longer does. The issue was the pipe loop installer. There were leaks in the loops and the installer would not fix them unless they were exposed. They were in wells hundreds of feet deep that he had drilled. Since there wasn't any one else close to our area to do the loop installs, he no longer sells the systems. Also, our local school has the system and it was under sized. By the end of the winter it no longer has enough capacity to work properly. Sizing is very important. Oh! and it also has leaks. Air can't just appear in a closed loop.

Leaky pipes = bad installer
Undersized = bad design

Bad installations and bad designs are done on all type of systems, don't judge geothermal by them, the technology is excellent.

buckeyefarmer · Sep 21, 2009

whistlepig said:
Ours is closed loop so there are no water lines. When we had the system serviced last fall the tech said he had to "burp" the lines.

Closed loop = water lines that are (almost) permanently sealed, purged of air. It's hard to get all the air out, but a good installer will purge several times to get as much as possible. It's normal to have to purge some more eventually. The better it's purged, the better the system operates (more efficient).

There are pressurized and non pressurized closed loop systems. The non pressurized systems are "self purging", but you have to keep track of the fluid level in the tank, due to evaporation. On a pressurized system, if not pressurized correctly will cause some of the same symptoms as air in the line. Remember the pressure changes with temperature, most systems are installed and pressurized in the summer, when the pressure reading will be higher. In the winter, the pressure will decrease. If it decreases too much, the pumps can cavitate and not pump the water.

heehaw · Sep 22, 2009

don't fool yourself into thinking these systems are quiet: the only thing that is not running compared to a normal system is the little 1/4hp fan: the compressor is still running an that seems to be where the majority of the noise comes from. some systems muffle the compressor noise better than others: with the normal system the compressor is in an open package with no way to muzzle the sound: the geothermal compressor is in an enclosed box that uses lots of sound deadening padding. also you will usually have a smaller compressor with the geothermal system, which natually makes the noise level lower. water contains air, in a closed loop system, you pump that water around an around an around, an some of the air separates, so the system can become "air locked" an have to be burped: i've never seen or heard of a closed system that doesn't pressurize the water? but that sounds like that would solve the problem of having to have a system "burped".
heehaw

ShaleniFarm · Sep 22, 2009

Anyone want a free Carrier geothermal unit?

Send me a PM...

buckeyefarmer · Sep 22, 2009

B & D MFG., Inc. Home

They own the patent on non pressurized flow centers. As long as you keep the water at the proper level, no air enters, and it purges air as it operates. Some people put their header inside, with valves on each loop, then you can flush and purge with just the flow pump, without using a flush cart.
Non pressurized seems is getting very popular due to a lot less service callbacks because of air.

traders · Oct 2, 2009

Here is another company that produces low pressure geothermal systems. They are very easy to self install if you have good diy skills. 30% federal tax credits apply for present. some states also have tax credits available. That makes geoexchange systems costs almost match an air to air heat pump. Geothermal will save you a great deal of money for years to come.

www.arit.com

Take a look.

traders

buckeyefarmer · Oct 4, 2009

traders said:
Here is another company that produces low pressure geothermal systems. They are very easy to self install if you have good diy skills. 30% federal tax credits apply for present. some states also have tax credits available. That makes geoexchange systems costs almost match an air to air heat pump. Geothermal will save you a great deal of money for years to come.
.

traders

According to their web site you get a "fluid control Center" and "loops and header pipes prefilled with BioGlycol". The also state they do not furnish Geothermal heat pumps.
They also state that they use "double locking compression fittings" with "no requirement for expensive fusion welding".

There's no way to install a "prefilled" loop per IGSHPA recommendations. IGSPHA requires all buried connections to be heat fused, which isn't all that expensive by the way. I'm not sure what BioGlycol is, don't see that one in the IGSHPA manual either.

whistlepig · Oct 4, 2009

What little energy geothermal uses is electric. We had fuel oil where we used to live. Even with the heat and A/C our electric is cheaper here than where we used to live. And this house is twice the size. Granted this house is newer and much better insulated. For us we can heat and cool this house cheaper that we could just run the lights and TV at our old place. It is that much of a difference. You can shop for any kind of furnace you want. Efficiencies to 99.9%. Geothermal is 300% efficient.

whistlepig · Oct 4, 2009

heehaw said:
don't fool yourself into thinking these systems are quiet: the only thing that is not running compared to a normal system is the little 1/4hp fan: the compressor is still running an that seems to be where the majority of the noise comes from. some systems muffle the compressor noise better than others: with the normal system the compressor is in an open package with no way to muzzle the sound: the geothermal compressor is in an enclosed box that uses lots of sound deadening padding. also you will usually have a smaller compressor with the geothermal system, which natually makes the noise level lower. water contains air, in a closed loop system, you pump that water around an around an around, an some of the air separates, so the system can become "air locked" an have to be burped: i've never seen or heard of a closed system that doesn't pressurize the water? but that sounds like that would solve the problem of having to have a system "burped".
heehaw

Ours is a closed loop system. No water. It's not quiet but not noisy either. We can hear both the heat and A/C kick in or off. We had our system "burped" last fall as part of the normal yearly service. We haven't had any trouble with it. Maintenance free except for changing filters.

heehaw · Oct 5, 2009

compressors are just not really quiet when they run: but i admit there is a big difference between equipment: some are considerably quieter than others: same with the air handlers, some of the blowers will sound like a plane taking off when they kick on, others you will hardly notice.
heehaw

buckeyefarmer · Oct 5, 2009

Geothermal is the real deal when done right, but it's got to be done right per IGSHPA standards. I'm not to sure about the stuff that "traders" was pushing. The geothermal compressors is the same used in heat pumps and AC units, except now it is usually indoors in a box instead of outdoors in a box, so noise insulation is very important.

One of these days i'll get mine installed.