I also went thru all the whys of geothermo and after much research both here and elsewhere, meeting with several installers, I went with the closed loop in the pond. No regrets.
5 ton unit for 2500 sf living area. Works great. Still newish and watching my electric (which like all else has gone up with the economy the way it is). Looks like I'm running about $30-$40 more a month electric but compared to the LP costs--this is a HUGE savings for me. Payback is 5 years. After research you will learn that components between top notch brand and competitors are not much different, you really need to look at the overall warranty and choose an installer that will be there when you do require maintenance. Our installer was SO knowledgeable and not a hard-sell salesman top--he impressed us tremendously and was a BIG factor in our choice along with the fact that they had done a lot of geo installation to begin with. Closed loop vs open loop, there are a lot of pros and cons for both, the problem with open loop are the filters, silt etc--one lady in town has that and has nothing but problems. Why did I choose closed loop?? I had a pond, it is more efficient than your other choices, I didn't want to burden my existing well or dig a second well, and I didn't want my yard torn up. But here are some pictures to share for those who are looking into it. You will learn that it won't hurt the fish, that it can be brought to surface really easy (they just withdraw some of the liquid from the lines and it floats back up. The ideas of hooks in such a thick pipe has never happened by our installer in 20 years; if it did, no problem to fix. You need to research, researh, compare, compare, price, price, ask, ask--negotiate. There were incentives by the State here of $400 per ton that I took advantage of, most utility companies have some rebates--mine didn't. Ryan on this thread was of much help to me.
