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We had a new house built and had geothermal installed. We just moved in 3 weeks ago. It's 33 degrees outside and the heat is on. The thermostat display shows "auxiliary heat on". I'm assuming that means the propane forced hot air backup is on. Should it be? Doesn't seem right.

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Originally Posted By: RobA
We had a new house built and had geothermal installed. We just moved in 3 weeks ago. It's 33 degrees outside and the heat is on. The thermostat display shows "auxiliary heat on". I'm assuming that means the propane forced hot air backup is on. Should it be? Doesn't seem right.


Rob,

Been there done that.

The times this has happened to me the following were usually the causes and it's easily remedied.

1.) You just turned the heat on for the season and it will remedy itself in a short while.

2.) The drain in the system is plugged.

Remedy: Inside one of the doors you will see a tray with a drain hole that drains into a hose that ends up going down your sump drain. If the shelf is flooded it is plugged. This can happen due to iron particles or iron bacteria.Try pushing something into the drain hole to unplug it or use a turkey baster to unplug it. Turn the system off while you do this. Close all the doors and turn the system back on.

2.) Your system went into reverse and the condensers are frozen.

Remedy: Turn the system off and allow them to thaw out. Then close the doors and turn the system back on. Make sure you don't open the doors when it's running as you can get negative pressure and the system won't run right.

3.) The filter needs cleaning. Clean the filter and put it back in. If it's dirty enough it may cause your system to go to auxiliary heat.

You should have indicator lights on your circuit board in the system if you open one of the doors. You either have a manual that will tell you what the problem is via the color and sequence of the lights or you will have to call the installer of your system.

Like I said been there done that. Only once did we have a problem that needed servicing and that was because our system is getting old (was installed 16 years ago), and we had coolant leak. We were able to inject a sealer and the system is running like new 2 years later. We do know we are probably at the end of the lifespan for our compressor though.



Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 10/29/11 06:17 PM.

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What is your heat setting at, and what is the temperature of the house, showing on the t-stat? This is right up my alley.


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Jim,

Regardless of his heat setting, his auxiliary heat should not come on if everything else is normal right?


If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.






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The thermostat is set on 66, house temp is 67, outside temp is 33.

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It can, depending on what type of t-stat is being used.Most heat pump stats that I know of, will have a w1 and a w2, which represents 1st stage heat, and 2nd stage heat. Many times, there is 1-3 degrees difference between 1st and second. If the house temp is say 66, and the stat was set at 68, the t-stat will say "we're not keeping up", and bring on 2nd stage heat.Many times, the back up source is electric elements, and can be configured to run both the compressor, and elements. But in this case, with propane back-up,the gas fired possibly cannot run, with the compressor, if the "a-coil" is downstream from the furnace. The high freon pressures(created from the "furnace" running) could damage the system.

Hey Rob, I'm going to assume that since you know the outside temp., that you possibly have a Honeywell touchscreen t-stat, or a White Rodgers touch screen? If you have a touchscreen stat that shows the outside temp,there's a good possibility that your t-stat will shut the heat pump off at a given outside temp. Let me know if you are using this type of stat, and I will walk you through this feature. It may seem confusing at first, but will come crystal clear.


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One more question, you said house temp was 67, stat set at 66....was unit still running? Or was it idle with aux. heat still showing?


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Thermostat is a Carrier Edge. When I posted the temps the unit was not running and the aux heat was not showing. Right now it set at 66, inside at 66 and outside is 35. Unit not running. Aux heat not lit up.

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Originally Posted By: RobA
Thermostat is a Carrier Edge. When I posted the temps the unit was not running and the aux heat was not showing. Right now it set at 66, inside at 66 and outside is 35. Unit not running. Aux heat not lit up.


Was this your first start up for the season and is auxilliary heat staying off now?


If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.






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Ok, I'm somewhat familiar with Carrier t-stats.Been a while since I've had my hands on one, but do have a lil' bit o' knowledge. Does Your t-stat show outside temp.? I googled your t-stat, and I see some use this feature. If so, there is a feature, and yours may possibly be using this. Forgive me if I ramble, but just trying to give you something to look for. I see your outside temp. is 2 degrees warmer than earlier. If your stat shows outside temp, it will have an outdoor air sensor. The reason behind this technology, is as the BTU requirement goes up, the Heat pump cannot keep up with the heating needs. So instead of your heat pump continuing to run, and 1. wear itself out, 2. Your house getting colder and colder, the t-stat will shut your heatpump off, and use the "aux" heat.As Cecil said earlier, could be one reason. I'll try to outline some simple reasons you were operating in auxillary.

1. Your house got too cool for t-stat setting, before you pulled the trigger and turned the heat on. This could cause W2, or second stage heat to activate. When home reached temperature, W1,or 1st stage heat took over and all was good. This is why I do not recommend playing musical t-stat with a heatpump, unless you're going to be away for an extended period(days). Understand thermal mass for this ideology.

2. Your outdoor temperature setting for "compressor lockout" is set between 35F and 33F. I'll try to explain a bit about this. This temperature setting is the cause of many conversations and disagreements.I am most familiar with air to air heat pumps, and their BTU production performance, but the principles remain the same. Some manufacturers, recommend (air to air), this setting be set at 0 F.(IMO 25F) Now, in an air to air heat pump, as the outside temps go down, BTU production drops. At the same time BTU requirement rises. Think of a graph. There comes a point where the BTU production is not adequate, and you're just spinning your light meter. In a groundsource, since the ground temp. remains constant, the BTU production remains the same,but the requirement will rise as outdoor temps drop. So, since the jury is still out, on where to set this temp.,every installer has been told something else.And thus this temp is set where "they think it should be". They may have even overlooked this feature, and the stat is set at factory default.

Here's what I recommend, if you wish to play with this.


If you have a manual, you may want to get it and check the temperature which your heat pump drops out at.If it's set at somewhere between, 35 and 33, there's the reason.Manufacturers use different terminology. Look for "compressor lockout".Do not look in the literature for the furnace, and equipment itself. This term will mean something entirely different in the equipment manuals. Look in t-sta literature only.



But remember when changing this setting, there will be a point in outdoor temp. where the Heat Pump cannot keep up. So when changing an outdoor setting, make sure you monitor when the outdoor temp changes, and when the system is running, but the system is running a long time, and the house temp starts acting like it's wanting to drop below the setting. Then you go into the programming,(this may be called "compressor lockout temp.) and set the temperature to a higher setting.
With an air to air heat pump I usually start at 25 F but with a groundsource, I cant tell you...too many variables. But should be lower than 25. I cannot find an installers manual online yet. If I find one, I'll keep you posted.

I'm not a very good teacher, I hope I have not confused you.

Last edited by JamesBryan; 10/30/11 08:42 AM.

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I'm learning by reading this and I don't have one. Good information!


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Since it's a brand new system I had the HVAC guy come back to check out the geo. Prior to the visit he called Carrier to make sure things were done right. Apparently the "balance point" for the system was set at 40 degrees. So with an outside temp at 40 or below the auxiliary heat helps out. The system is now set at 30 degrees. I was under the impression that the auxialiary heat didn't kick in until temperatures got a lot lower than that.

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I recently installed a Geothermal Heat Pump and I don't have any type of backup installed. I left the aux backup heat strip out. The ground loops should not allow the system to fall below 55 degrees. If the Aux comes on then the purpose for installing the Geothermal was pointless. Do not use the set back temperature on a geothermal either it is best left on the same temperature.

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I don't understand why the outside temperature makes any difference. Our system is a three stage. Stage 1 and 2 are geothermal (loops in our pond) and stage 3 is the auxiliary resistance electric.

We have seen -30F without out our thermostat calling for auxiliary heat. Even if it did call for it, I have the breaker off on the heating elements so they can't turn on and burn up all that electricity. I figured it was smart to have the auxiliary installed and available in case the compressors go down. In that event, at least we wouldn't freeze to death though it would be pretty chilly.

I may be missing something on the outside temperature, after all, I am no expert.


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Somewhere, I'm not understanding either. We too have a three stage geothermal system. We have a closed loop of two 300 foot wells, which have an average temperature of 53 degrees. The loops enter the house just above the basement floor, so the closest they come to the ground surface is about seven feet. Outside temperature should not have any effect on when the compressor can run.

We have our system set so that we have to manually turn on the emergency heat.

With that said, our system has gotten "confused" a few times. It just happened two nights ago again. Nobody knows why, and the service tech is again coming out today. We have four zones, and when it has gotten confused, the emergency heat has come on, and the dampers to the parts of the house that are not calling for heat will open. Both times when it has happened, the thermostats in those areas were set to 62 degrees, and the areas had reached 72-74 degrees before I discovered the problem and reset the system.

One of my fears is that the control system is so complex, they may never figure out why this happens. My other fear is that this will happen sometime when we are away from home for several days.

If the tech comes up with any good answers today, I'll be sure to post.


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I realize this isn't a HVAC forum and that this post is a few years old, but some of the people on this forum seem to know quite a bit about Geothermal systems.

My question is about my system that was installed last winter in a 3000 square foot house in michigan. I have two geo units running on closed loop system consisting of 6000 lf of burried 1" black hose. If it is running constant and the auxillary heat disconnected form the thermostat, I can only keep the house heated at about 25F outside. Any lower and the temperature of the house drops. I don't really want the geo running non stop and I would like to not run the auxillary. I had a new ducts installed since the house originally had base board heat and the field was installed by the same contractor. It seems like everything is working correctly, but for some reason I cant get the house up to temp good and it drops in temp fairly quickly.

I recently had my crawl space spray foamed and the walls of the house injected with foam. This hasn't seemed to help.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what to look for to help increase my efficency? ie, not enough cold air return, too little pipe in the field, too much tonnage of heat?

I originally was trying to keep the house at 74 and i'm down to 71 now. The air temp with geo only is around 78F. My incomming water temp is 37F and outgoing is 34F. I don't know what the temp was at the beginning of winter, but it's been very cold and my geo is running a lot, so I think the ground is getting colder than normal.

BTW, my contractor that installed my system and a similar system in his house said he is paying a lot of heat this winter too. Him and I are paying the most for heat than anyone else I have taked to who has geothermal heat. I think he might have made the same mistakes on his system as he made on mine. I just don't know what those are.

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I just went through this , and got the problem solved yesterday by the tech who initially installed our system.

We could only heat the house to about 55-60 degrees above outside temps without the emergency heat. The system was really straining. It has been below zero F here for the last week or so. Without wood stoves, we would really be freezing.

We'd called for our annual service back in October. They kept putting us off. We finally got someone out here yesterday, and it was the individual who did most of the original installation. He also is their geothermal expert.

It took him less than 10 seconds to diagnose the problem. This was at least the third time I've been furious over what he has found due to errors by others.

We have an Abatement Technologies, LLC filtering unit as part of our the geothermal system. It has a 5-inch thick filter, a UV filter, and a common 1-inch thick furnace filter.

A few months back I gave away two 5-inch filters, worth about USD $50 each because their tech told us our system doesn't use them.

Wrong!!!

The tech that came out yesterday pulled out the 5-inch filter, which had at least an inch of crud on it. He asked why we hadn't replaced it. I told him that when it had been serviced before, the tech told us that our system didn't use those kinds of filters.

Anyway, today we are running back where we should be. It is about +6 F now, and the house is a comfortable 72 F, with the system running just periodically.

So, check all your filters.


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I can't help much with the Geo. Dwight lives in Minnesota and has a geo system, and it seems to keep his house warm without running on any aux heat. Hopefully he will chime in.

I would search far and wide for a company that will do an energy audit on your house. That's where they put a temporary door in, with a fan. They turn on the fan to suck air out of the house, and they then check to see where air is coming in. They then go around plugging all the holes to get the house more air tight.

I'm going to have that done to my house this summer. First thing that they'll have to do is spray foam the crawlspace. Then we'll see where all the outside air is coming from. I've blown in insulation in the walls and ceiling, installed all new windows, ripped all the siding off of the house (except for the first layer - no sheathing on the house) and re-sheathed it, caulked the seams and tyvek wrapped it. I still have considerable amount of air flowing through the house.....

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What Scott said!

Energy audit is best. Determine heat loss calculation and Geo system capacity. Find and fix the drafts and leaks. For foam be sure it is closed cell. This is where your air seal will come from. Lots of work, but if you removed the attic insulation then sprayed down a layer of foam and reinstalled the attic insulation would help a bunch.

Low-e windows, storm doors, etc all help. Check air filters as mentioned also.


We are running geo, but also have a fireplace. We have no problem making 95°f water for our water to water system. If we were to have a problem or deficiency, we have a Takagi tankless water heater to back up the Geo.


I have a panel meter that logs kwh used by our HVAC system. As of last night it had used 850kwh or $102 in electricity. A big month for us is $120 or so, but I've never tried w/o the fireplace. We are 2 story LOTS of windows.



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Originally Posted By: RobA
We had a new house built and had geothermal installed. We just moved in 3 weeks ago. It's 33 degrees outside and the heat is on. The thermostat display shows "auxiliary heat on". I'm assuming that means the propane forced hot air backup is on. Should it be? Doesn't seem right.


Check the programming in your thermostat. If it isn't programmed correctly, it could be skipping stage 1 and 2 and going right to Aux. This was the issue we had when we first installed our geo system. In our case the electric aux was disabled (breaker off) and only stage 1 was enabled. Since it was air conditioning season, stage one was good until 88F degrees outdoor. That is when we discovered the programming issue.

In the Winter stage 1 is good down to about 5 F depending on wind and time of day. Stage 2 takes us down into 20s F below zero. Aux remains turned off at the breaker.


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What are the brand names of your geothermal systems? My brand is Water Furnace which I believe is built in Ft. Wayne, Indiana not far from me.

Interestingly my local plumbing and heating contractor (not the one that installed my system or services it) said they got fed up with some of the other systems they dealt with, and went to Water Furnace. For some reason they had nothing but issues with the others, and the customers were running them ragged.

My open loop Water Furnace (discharges to the pond) has been going strong with a few very minor issues since 1994. The last service technician said it should go strong for many more years. A previous one thought the compressor would at some point but the last tech said it looked good.

My only real concern was the scaling and build up of iron on the end of the discharge hose (See picture below), but it turned only to be on the end that is in the pond as far as I can tell. One day while it was exposed in open air, as I had the pond drained down, all the iron scaling just dropped right out, and as far as I can tell it's completely clear now. I even cut some of the hose off to see if it started again and it was all clear. It course this won't be an issue with closed loop systems.


Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 01/24/14 09:10 PM.

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When I checked into Geo, I researched both types of systems (closed and open). I was told that a closed system performs worse and worse as the heating season drags on because of the heat loss in the ground around the pipes. They said the ground was a good insulator, and that during cold spells the ground around the coils wouldn't recover quickly. Because I had a pond to dump the water, an open system was recommended vs. a closed system.

What is your usual ground water temp, and can you check the temp of the coolant before it enters the system?


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Esshup,

I'm hearing open loop aren't pushed much anymore. Have you heard that too?


If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.






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Cecil, a friend and client is working on construction plans now for a building that will have Geothermal heat and cooling. An open system was recommended vs. a closed system. 4 years ago an open system was recommended for my place. So, my experience is just the opposite.


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Interesting.


If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.






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