Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Geothermal Heat Pump

Is it me or is this thread whacked? It's very, uh, w i d e.

too bad, too
it's a keeper
-
...moderators...???

I think it's a great thread. I like reading about geothermal systems. What are you guys talking about???

It's a good thread for those who have a pond and want to do geo-thing with it. Keep it going; it helped me with my research and decision to go geo.

Please allow me to re-phrase what (I believe) Jersey and I were trying to say.
Theo answered my request for a moderator. He went back and re-configured a set of posted pics (on the previous page) to narrow the very wide view so that a horizontal scroll bar wasn't required to read it.
You're right MarkECIN...it's a fabulous thread and well worth keeping and growing. Jersey and I couldn't agree more.

Since there's talk of giving geothermal it's own zone. Should we be calling it a ground source heat pump?

It seems the term geothermal is becoming more closely associated with deep well steam power generation than residential HVAC.

Geothermal is easier to say, sounds cooler and will be a hard habit for me to break.

I say we stick with "geothermal" . Let the multi-megawatt power plant guys change their terminology if they have a problem.

Whew! I'm glad that's taken care of...

Of all the things I did when I built my house, the Water Furnace was by far the best. I will get payback in three years.

Oh Ok now I get it. I have a 24 inch monitor so I didn't see the w i d e.

And the post didn't seem wacked and I know wacked.

Ok, y'all...need your opinions again. First full winter with the geothermal (closed pond loops). We had the maintenance man come out and check the settings (he has to make some calls and get back to us, been two weeks). One thing I'm still not sure of, when should 'heat strips' come on? Any of you know? This last week it's bee minuses and low one digit and even though we have the thermostat at 72; it shows 63 and we do believe the heat strips are kicking in a lot (as we notice the lights dim). Any of you with geothermal have gone thru this??? I know its pretty complicated settings etc. Bottomline, the house is warm and my electric bill is only running about $30 more a month because of the geothermal unit.

I'm still learning how these things work. I didn't even know about the defrost cycle until a month ago when I contacted a geo-contractor to talk about their power draw. I was hoping to some way, some how, have the option of a geo system on a decent solar power system. When he told me about the power draw when the coils are defrosted, my plans also defrosted.

I also wondered if geothermal could be run off solar....what I see now, I doubt it. Our biggest complaint is we notice the power draw...the lights get dim (I haven't checked with the electric company as far as what their thoughts might be). I know it's real complicated with the settings, stages etc. on the thermostat and on the geothermal units but we just think the heat strips should not be coming on as often (so we feel it's in the settings). We're waiting on the installer's pro to get back but in the interim we are puzzled. We put the strips in as 'backup' but this geothermal stuff is pretty complicated.

It probably depends on region you are in. I was thinking about solar source heat pump also but the cost and expected technical difficulties pretty much killed the project before it started. At the end we decided on classic GT instead unproven, exotic and unnecessarily system.
We are in south central Iowa and have Waterfurnace geothermal in operation fourth year. Our "fluffed coil" heat exchanger contains about 2500 ft of pipe and is in our pond about 300 ft from the house. We have 5 ton unit (5 kW) and heat about 4000 sq ft by floor heating. Our last month heating bill was 97 dollars for 2150 kWh.

We didn't have enough water in the pond first year so about half of the heat exchanger was above ice. Inlet temperature dropped to about 24F and return to 21 F but the house was still reliably heated. I think that floor heating is primary reason for low heating cost. We have set temperature entering the floor to 100F so the required temperature differential is much less than for forced air.

Ladia,
Did you set pex tubing into a slab, or are you running pex under a wooden subfloor?
-
(edit)
Welcome, Ladia! Are you also a pondmeister?

I think Blaine has a geothermal system in his house. Hopefully he can jump in here and discuss this.

My hubby believes that any time you have that much power pulling where it keeps lights in house dim--it isn't good. (He says that isn't good on motors and things). We really believe it happens because of the heat strips or maybe it's because the geo runs harder in the winter to keep up vs summer. I just thought that it runs all the time and there would be no difference. I'm hoping someone has noticed same with their geo.

Yes,the PEX with oxygen barrier is in the slab.

Is this the aircraft hanger house?

When the heat pump starts there could be noticeable voltage drop for few seconds. If the lights remain dim during the HP operation you should investigate why. It might be bad connection between the breaker panel and the transformer or the cable isn't sized properly. Either case is potentially dangerous in the sense that the bad connection or the undersized cable can overheat and start fire. The heat pump shouldn't take more power than a stove. Heat strips, on the other hand, can take significantly more.
We have geothermal unit that draws about 5 kW when running. We don't have heat strips. Our lights dim for a fraction of a second when the unit starts only. Our transformer is about 35 ft from the breaker box.

Thanks. Will call the geo man again, tired waiting for him to come back with answer. We, too, feell it is dangerous.

Make sure he is an electrician. The geo people are usually plumbers. Your problem might be located out of your house. The heating just made it apparent. They need to measure voltage drop when the heat is on and find what and where causes that. It might be potential fire hazard.

Thanks, will advise what we find out.

I have a 6 ton WaterFurnace heating almost 5000 sq ft. This past week, it has been in the teens at night, and the unit runs a lot more than normal, as expected. I disconnected the heat strips because I don't want them to come on. On my system, the heat strips will come on anytime the thermostat is set more than 3 degrees warmer than the room temperature. I don't want this to happen. My electric bills stay under $100/mo.

Mark, we had a similar problem when our system was first installed. It was August, and I turned on the heat just to see if it worked. It didn't. It turned out that the company that installed the system used the wrong type of thermostat. Actually, they were aware of the problem an had just installed one temporarily so that we would at least have A/C while waiting on the right one to come in.

A light activates on my thermostat when the electric element comes on. It has been on often the past couple of weeks with temps consistantly below zero but I have never noticed lights dimming for any reason.

IME lights will dim when ANY electric load is marginal for the electric service.