[jagxj12]

Anyone here have it?


Parents are getting it installed right now. They are like the 40th people in the area to get it. Supposed to cut energy costs by 40% on electricity, but should save a TON in fuel. Parents pay almost $3,000/yr for heating fuel.


Seems pretty cool. Will be neat to see the results once everything is finished. They are putting sensors on each air duct so that we can control each one to our temp and air flow liking.


Supposed to be almost silent as well. So we will no longer notice when it turns on. Old A/C unit had like a thud when it came on and the lights dimmed for like a millisecond.

Costing like $17,000 or so, but the government is paying for about $6,000 of it so costs are going to take less than 5 years to get back.


I think that they are also getting installed the water heater aspect of it, to save energy even further. So now at least our water system will be able to crank out on electric, gas or geothermal heat, lol.




I have been helping them a lot on the way of this process, and it would be sweet if they still do the solar panels. With the A/C being taken out, our energy bill will always be under $100, and the panels should make our house carbon neutral, plus even sell tons of power back to the power board, of which they pay you double for! So we pay like 7 cents a kilowatt, they will pay us 14 cents for each kilowatt that we give them.


They even called several people who got it done, as references, and they all said that they would do it again.

[evarekataVame]

for heat energy it is a great choice if the geology allows using it

[jagxj12]

for heat energy it is a great choice if the geology allows using it

How does it do the heat part? I am too lazy to look it up. I can't seem to remember how it works.

I know how it cools a house, but I can't quiet think of how it heats the house along with heating house water when the ground 6ft under is a constant temp of like 56 degrees or so.

[vNQmO2BF]

How does it do the heat part? I am too lazy to look it up. I can't seem to remember how it works.

I know how it cools a house, but I can't quiet think of how it heats the house along with heating house water when the ground 6ft under is a constant temp of like 56 degrees or so.

well, when the temperature outside is below 56 degrees...say for instance 32 degrees...that 52 degree constant temp being piped has to heat up far less than if it was having to heat up outside ambient air...at least thats how i remember it works. Same concept really, just backwards.

[medifastwoman]

well, when the temperature outside is below 56 degrees...say for instance 32 degrees...that 52 degree constant temp being piped has to heat up far less than if it was having to heat up outside ambient air...at least thats how i remember it works. Same concept really, just backwards.

There are numerous implementations, that is a pretty bad one though. (Sorry zeddoo, I do not mean to pick on you today, honestly).

The best residential solution, in my opinion, is water sourced heat pumps.

Basically, a heat pump is a backwards air conditioner. Instead of using the endothermic property of evaporation to remove heat from a space, the exothermic property of condensation is used to add heat to the space.

The compressor compresses the refrigerant into a high pressure gas. That gas condenses and releases heat into the space as it cools towards room temperature in the liquid phase. The liquid is then put through some kind of metering device and sent to a heat exchanger -that is cooled by ground water- where it boils. The evaporating process removes enough heat from the water to return the gas to a cool temperature. This process is then repeated at the compressor.

It is actually possible to have a machine that operates at above unity efficiency this way (more cooling power than electric power consumed).

In the summer the traditional A/C can be used, but ground water is used to cool the condenser, again resulting in enough "free cooling" that the system can operate at above unity.

Red_dog,

What kind of system do they have installed, heat pump type like I described above? Radiant? Or something different altogether?

[jagxj12]

That is a good question.

I will go through the paper work. Doesn't say exactly what the machine does, so I will look the thing up and see what it does. Your post made me feel a little interested and no so lazy. Plus I am a bit bored at home atm. Night is going slow.

[jagxj12]

We have the Tranquility 27 system, which seems to do what your explanation is.


I problem that I could see with the geothermal, on top of costs, is I did not know the trench system was going to be so long! If you don't really have any land, the system seems like it would be able to work, unless you want your entire yard dug up. I will see if I can get a picture of it, but a lot of people wouldn't be able to use this because of limit property space.

Neighborhoods these days have less and less property and the houses are only bigger and bigger, which I am sure would need longer pipe work.


Seems like you can count out all cities.

[medifastwoman]

We have the Tranquility 27 system, which seems to do what your explanation is.


I problem that I could see with the geothermal, on top of costs, is I did not know the trench system was going to be so long! If you don't really have any land, the system seems like it would be able to work, unless you want your entire yard dug up. I will see if I can get a picture of it, but a lot of people wouldn't be able to use this because of limit property space.

Neighborhoods these days have less and less property and the houses are only bigger and bigger, which I am sure would need longer pipe work.


Seems like you can count out all cities.

Holy ****! Climate Master makes the compressor for the heat pump systems that I work on.

Your system is multi-staged and has a Variable frequency drive for the fan (Think of it as a fan speed controller, which is much more rare than you'd expect in the HVAC industry). In other words, that is a damn good product.

Also, what you have there is a water-sourced heat pump, similar to what I described above. The type of installation that you have (with them digging your yard up) is a little bit different than what I described though. Instead of using the water table as the heat source/sink, you are using the ground. They are probably digging a bunch of trenches so that can lay down some plumbing (like I did to your wife last night ) under the ground on your property.

The length of the plumbing depends on the size of your system (this is typically measured in "tons of cooling"). But basically, the ground warms the water that warms the refrigerant that warms the air that warms your house in the winter. The amount of energy used by the heat pump (compressor, fan, etc) is significantly less then most -if not all- other types of heating.

A heat pump is called a heat pump, because it "pumps heat" from a heat source to a space. Your heat pump pumps heat from the earth into your house (while adding the operating heat of the compressor to the system as well).

Good stuff my Republican friend, very good stuff you have there.

[jagxj12]

Now let me ask you this.

Would it have been better, or at least the same to use tap water instead of the ground?
We actually have a spring in our back yard that we drink from. It is the beginning of a fairly decent sized creek/river and our spring has pretty good water output.

Could have run pumps/pipes from that, and then used that creek water, we could have piped to drop back into the creek.
Cause wouldn't the water temperature be the same, if not slightly warmer then at 6ft?


Could have saved costs as the trench would have been much much shorter. Maybe 1/8th the length. Plus warmer water?
Then though, might run into the problem of often self maintenance with the filtration system?

[medifastwoman]

Now let me ask you this.

Would it have been better, or at least the same to use tap water instead of the ground?
We actually have a spring in our back yard that we drink from. It is the beginning of a fairly decent sized creek/river and our spring has pretty good water output.

Could have run pumps/pipes from that, and then used that creek water, we could have piped to drop back into the creek.
Cause wouldn't the water temperature be the same, if not slightly warmer then at 6ft?


Could have saved costs as the trench would have been much much shorter. Maybe 1/8th the length.

Only issue that I could see is the filtration system though. With a family of 5 (one baby), we still have to keep up with keeping the water filter changed. Currently only has one filter though, and we are about to turn it into a 3 filtered system, with one self cleaning.

Water has a much higher thermal capacity than the ground. Meaning that 55F water can remove heat from your system faster than 55F earth can, and this is not including the thermodynamic advantages that a flowing river has over ground (for example, water is moving, and that water is a fluid, so more surface area can be utilized).

The absolute best geothermal system would be using ground water. You would pump water from the water table to directly cool your system then expel the water back into the table. This is illegal and potentially dangerous. You could, however, run a closed water loop to the water table to cool, similarly configured to your current installation but, submerged in water as opposed to 6 feet of earth.

[jagxj12]

Could have than drilled wells to the water table, if we didn't use our spring, and then just pump the "used" water into the creek. (all our property)