Geothermal heat pump: first winter results

fordmantpw · May 15, 2015

Yes, I was referring strictly to loop size when I said more is better. You want the unit sized properly for your needs. Neither over nor under is good when talking about the unit itself.

Country Geek · May 15, 2015

Redneck in training said:
Find somebody doing directional drilling. The guy who installed ours geo had directional drilling machine. They could install loops from one relatively small hole. I can't recall the brand of the machine. It used a pipe made of mild steel that was passed through several pulleys to bend is in such arc that it would emerge from ground in certain distance. On the front of the pipe was hydraulic motor driving the drilling head. The motor was powered by a drilling polymer that lubricated the bore and provided a thermal contact when the loop pipe was pulled in the bore by retracting drill. They could install loops under the buildings or trees.

They did directional drilling on my install. It was less destructive to the ground than trenching but don't fool yourself, it still disturbs a lot of ground.

In my case they dug parallel trenches three feet deep and 150 feet apart and did the directional drilling from one of the trenches to the other. Those trenches and their spill, plus just the effects of moving the equipment around to do the trenches and drilling, disturbed quite a bit of ground, though less than outright trenching.

This is the trench they horizontal drilled from:

And this is the trench they horizontal drilled to:

Redneck in training · May 15, 2015

Country Geek said:
They did directional drilling on my install. It was less destructive to the ground than trenching but don't fool yourself, it still disturbs a lot of ground.

In my case they dug parallel trenches three feet deep and 150 feet apart and did the directional drilling from one of the trenches to the other. Those trenches and their spill, plus just the effects of moving the equipment around to do the trenches and drilling, disturbed quite a bit of ground, though less than outright trenching.

This is the trench they horizontal drilled from:
View attachment 424988

And this is the trench they horizontal drilled to:
View attachment 424989

The machine I saw was different. The bore was arched such a way that the drilling head protruded in certain distance from ground. Then they unscrew it and hooked up two pipes with U on the far end and pulled them in the bore. The guy explained to me that they dig only one hole and then drill from there in spoke pattern. there was only minimal ground disturbance on the far end.

MacLawn · May 15, 2015

To answer a couple of questions: it's very deep to water at my place. Three 200' drilled holes would not hit water. You can watch all kinds of geothermal installations on YouTube. Here's just one for directional drilling:

https://m.youtube.com/results?q=directional drilling geothermal&sm=3

Dave M7040 · May 16, 2015

Perhaps you would benefit from an energy monitor which could be connected to just your heat pump and in that way know exactly how much nof your electricity use it consumes.
I use the Efergy product but there are others,
Efergy Canada - Home power monitors and wireless electricity monitors
Dave M7040

fordmantpw · May 17, 2015

Dave M7040 said:
Perhaps you would benefit from an energy monitor which could be connected to just your heat pump and in that way know exactly how much nof your electricity use it consumes.
I use the Efergy product but there are others,
Efergy Canada - Home power monitors and wireless electricity monitors
Dave M7040

The thermostat that we got with our Water Furnace has that functionality. I really like it. It's neat to see the power usage, average usage per day/week/month, etc.

buckeyefarmer · May 19, 2015

My unit run times march
Up unit
low 14%
high .1%
down unit
Low 5.2%
high .1%

april up to now
Uplow 20.8%
high. .4%
down low 18.3%
high .1%

low is stage 1 of compressor
If i measure amps at each stage i can convert to actual cost.

Redneck in training · May 19, 2015

Dave M7040 said:
Perhaps you would benefit from an energy monitor which could be connected to just your heat pump and in that way know exactly how much nof your electricity use it consumes.
I use the Efergy product but there are others,
Efergy Canada - Home power monitors and wireless electricity monitors
Dave M7040

There are other monitors on the market: https://www.egauge.net/ or The Energy Detective Electricity Monitor