I own a rather old house in a remote area in the Midwest. There is a hand dug well behind my house, about 3 ft in diameter and about 35 ft deep, produces a little under 12gpm. We have a new well that we use for our potable water, the old one had a lot of bacteria issues to use safely so we pulled the pump but it's still there and we use the old hand pump to water our gardens.

Can I use this well as an open loop system for a heat pump? Can I put the water back into the well or will it heat it all up so much that it'll kill the efficiency? Will I need to dump the water somewhere?

My backup plan is a closed loop system, just trying to utilize what I already have available to me.

Extra info that might help: -no regulatory building codes in my area -if I need to dump the water, I can plumb it into spray heads in gardens and irrigation systems -water table here is 28' down, my potable water well is about 50' from the well in question

https://www.velaw.com/insights/state-of-the-ira-pre-election-review/

With the new administration and congressional majority, the IRA and it's residential tax credits could be at stake.

I’ve just completed the install of a geothermal heat pump for HVAC and hybrid DHW In my 1966 center hall colonial In MD. 4 ton WaterFurnace series 5 with vertical well and 65 gal Rheem Proterra.

The first reaction to this event from friends/family/neighbors is always “wow, that must be expensive…how much did it cost?” This is a hard question to answer since the cost is actually a cash flow stream of expenditures and income that is only meaningful in the context of an analysis of alternatives.

It took me a long time to understand all of the costs (including preparatory electrical and landscaping work, as well as rehab landscape work), the nuances of the DHW solutions, the available incentives (fed tax credit, state grant, utility rebates on geothermal and water heater, utility funded free financing, and renewable energy credits), and to perform a credible analysis of alternatives. After investing the time, I was convinced that it was financially very attractive.

None of the vendors I spoke with would go beyond platitudes about cost savings, nor were they terribly knowledgeable about incentives. None offered an analysis of alternatives. The vendors were knowledgeable about their product. Period

consumers need to figure this out themselves and it is difficult. Most will never consider geothermal or will eventually opt for conventional solutions with clear economics.

Are there independent consultants that for a fee will help consumers navigate this? Is this a consulting business opportunity?

I'm in the US and getting a closed loop system installed. I have quotes, but they are thin on legalese. What does a contract for geothermal installation typically cover? Is there anything to look out for, or anything that a homeowner should add? I can't find the post now, but I read something about including wording for the installers being responsible for the quality of the installation.

I have a typical central air system (Trane brand) with a standard outdoor condenser unit. It's about 9 years old, 3 ton, 14 SEER. However, it was a considerable investment at the time, and that cost still weighs heavy on my mind (and the unit still works fine). I live in a mountainous area and typical geothermal would be prohibitively expensive since the bedrock is not far down in most areas. However I have a small mountain creek that runs year round, varying for maybe 4" deep during the driest days to 1' or more deep during rainy season. Because I would not need to do much digging, the actual work/cost of getting a closed loop in this creek be minimal (pipe, circulation pump, etc). However, the GSHP itself is currently outside my budget--and I'm also not 100% convinced this setup would work that great in the wintertime for heating. I'm mainly thinking about cooling during the summer. I'm not convinced the creek water will be much warmer than the air during the winter, since it's shallow.

Can anyone think of reasonable ways I could use this closed loop to improve the efficiency of my existing condenser unit or somehow precondition the input air going into the unit? Some ideas I've had so far:

1. Somehow run the closed loop water over the outside of the refrigerant lines (either input or output?)

2. Run the closed loop water through one or more radiators near the intake vents of the condenser unit. Not sure exactly how this would work. The unit takes in air through many slit vents on all 4 sides and a fan blows the exhaust out through the top. Maybe you could have some type of shroud?

3. Have the closed loop water enter the house and install some sort of DIY radiator in the main exit duct. Then I could turn the blower on (only) and only need to pay the additional cost of the circulation pump power. This alone might be sufficient on days when only moderate cooling is required. I could also possibly turn on the condenser concurrently during very hot summer days and I imagine the closed loop cooling would reduce the overall system power required.

Any pros/cons, ideas, feedback, or links to relevant existing products are welcome.

I have a Hydronic 4 ton water to water heat pump. It was installed in 2015 with multiple zones. When it was installed they installed ecobee thermostats. The main zone uses an ecobee Smart as it supported external sensors. There are thermocouples for source in, source out, hydronic out and hydronic return as well as room temp. I used to be able to monitor them (plot) in System IQ and then they changed it so that I could only see current values or download the values. Then this year they stopped all support for the Smart so I can no longer see the data or control the thermostat via the app or online. Only manually.

So I am looking for a thermostat to replace the ecobee Smart that would allow me to record the system data or an external device to record those values and I would use a different supported ecobee thermostat. The cost of replacing all my thermostats may be deciding factor.

thanks

I live in the Caribbean. My geothermal is only for AC

They are telling me I need to service it quarterly and I am worried that is excessive. At $400 per service it is also expensive.

I already change filters (myself) every six weeks.

Can anyone who understands Geo thermal cooling help me understand if this is a cash grab or can I go to once every six months.

We’re building a new house and have a vertical loop geothermal hvac system installed. We’re now looking at what to do with the water heater.

Note: LP or electric are the only options available where we live. Geo HVAC unit and water heater would be within 20’ of each other in a mechanical room in the basement. Midwest US, rural area.

I asked my geo guy about getting a heat pump water heater but he mentioned that he thought the geothermal HVAC would end up “competing” with the water heater, effectively reducing the cost savings of both. He recommended an 80 gal electric water heater with a plastic tank that they typically sell.

Can anyone comment if he’s steering me wrong or right?

If you've seen any of my other posts, you know that I installed a 5 ton inverter series MrCool geothermal system earlier this year, and have had nothing but problems with it. I just found out that we are getting a natural gas line down our street in the Spring, so I plan to switch to a furnace and standard AC. Other than the problems I have had with the MrCool system, another big driver for me is that the cost per KWH of heat will be about the same, but with the benefit of "instant heat" coming out of the registers with the furnace. Briefly, I calculated that with a 95 AFUE furnace, the "COP" of the furnace versus electrical heating would be 3.48. This is with electricity costing 25 cents per KWH and NG costing $2 per therm where I live. You can check my math, but I think I got it right. My current geothermal system is open loop and, if I include the cost to pump the water from the well, the realized COP is 3.5, which makes the running cost per KWH the same as the furnace. I'm either going to get a single stage furnace and AC, or a two stage system. No more inverter compressors for me. As much as I would love to install the new system myself, I plan to have it installed by a contractor so that it is covered by warranty. I expect my summer air conditioning costs to be comparable, as pumping the well water brings the cost efficiency of the geothermal down to the standard AC level.

I just got a quote for a 2-ton Waterfurnace system with horizontal loops: $39k all in. No unusual drilling scenarios (obstacles, etc)

I was taken a bit aback by this because we paid 27k for a 3-ton system with vertical loops 5 years ago. Obviously I know nobody here can take a look at my property and get the exact details but ballpark - is the quote I received reasonable? Did installs get that much more expensive in 5 years?

Howdy

I'm a homeowner and I have a Climatemaster TEV064 system installed in 2013. It is a closed loop system utilizing the same well that we drink from - 450 feet deep. Single Rheem Marathon hot water heater.

I really love the system. It's a lot to learn, but once you settle into the groove it requires almost no maintenance. I just swap out new air filters and keep the sediment filter clean. That's it. I haven't had any service on it for probably 10 years.

There is one quirk that bugs me. In October I have the system turned off as the weather here in MD is perfect. During that time the hot water coming from the taps is nice and hot - just the way I like it. When the weather cools and I turn the system on HEAT, the hot water coming from the taps cools considerably. It's JUST warm enough to take a shower and consider it a hot shower but I like it HOT!

I don't understand this behavior at all. The furnace isn't running much, maybe twice during the day and twice at night. The system is set up to dump hot water into the hot water tank. Hot water EWT is 105. (see attachment for screen readout).

Ok 105 isn't terribly hot, but it's warmer than the well water that's coming in at 49.8. This should make things EASIER on the hot water heater which is set at around 125. Anyway, regardless of whether the water comes in from the unit or the well, the hot water heater is supposed to heat it up to 125 but for some reason decides to not do that whenever the furnace engaged. By that I mean once I turn on the system for the season, I never again get the 125 degree hot water morning, noon or night - not just when the furnace is actively running.

Anyone have any idea why this might be happening? I'm not an hvac guy and it's IMPOSSIBLE to find someone to work on this system. Thanks!

Looking for help on open loop geo system..just replaced both bladder tanks..1 for house 1 for geo..44 gallon and 86 gallon..what should the tank pressures be set at.. well pump is set to 40 to 60

Preface (you can skip this to the next section to get right to the setup details):

Okay, well I basically had a very rough installation process with Dandelion Geothermal when using them out in NY. Upon getting my system installed the individuals they had sent were never going to tell me about the hardware that came with the unit that could aid in monitoring the unit's performance. I had asked about this and I was, in short, continuously misled about this. I soon found out via Reddit, that depending on your unit, this is a feature you will just have access to from the jump with your Dandelion Geothermal installation as long as you set it up and that users had essentially kept poking Dandelion's support through phone calls until they could get it set up. Upon many many visits for subsequent issues unrelated, with technical support from Dandelion, I kept asking about setting up this monitoring system and just continuously and conveniently misinformed by the individual who was servicing our system.

Eventually, we had a system failure. It was due to a faulty electronic board in the unit. A manufacturer defect, that led us to call Dandelion Geothermal. At this point they informed us that it was a manufacturer defect they had been aware of and that they had just "not gotten to us yet" and were planning to call us eventually for the replacement board.

This time, I had done a bit more research and downloaded the app and all prior to the visit, expecting this tech to definitely be able to help me, as they had to be knowledgeable enough to replace this electronic board, which I figured would be harder. The app had two version, myUplink, which had bad reviews and the newer myUplink Pro, I downloaded the Pro and then eventually both. To register an account on the Pro app, it required me to list my Geothermal Heat Pump's brand name and Dandelion was not listed so I just picked something random to simply make the account (don't do this).

When the new tech arrived, they were MUCH more patient and willing to help. They had setup the monitoring software in the past with help from their own tech guy via their phone and had some idea of what to do. We struggled together for about an hour before we were definitely not getting anywhere. They really did not know what they were doing, neither did I. They essentially then told me to contact this company Enertech and claim this device the "Epic" was broken and that they would definitely help us and it was probably broken. I was pretty unenthusiastic about this as it felt clear to me that this device likely was NOT broken and this was a way of offloading this problem to someone else through misinforming me, the client. But this person was much more helpful than the other tech that usually comes to help us and was very patient and was there trying for an hour WITH me, so I agreed and they left.

Then I contacted Enertech and found out and long story short, this was legitimately just a 2 minute setup. That simple. 2 Minutes to setup. Such an easy and streamlined setup, and if you have the "Epic" device, the information it showcases and the graphs you can see online are yours for the life of the system saved on the Cloud. So it's not some subscription based service for those basic features. On top of this I found out that Enertech is the ACTUAL manufacturer of my particular Heat Pump from Dandelion and that Dandelion basically white-labeled it. And that my Heat Pump qualified for a 10 year (conditional) warranty that was never registered. And that despite you only having 1 year to register the warranty, I was still able to register etc (blessings). On top of this, there is an actual dedicated human being and service line for the setup for this very service, that just exists and ANY installer can simply call for aid, yet they just did not know or look into this. The man, was Ryan, at Enertech (very nice individual, I asked if I had his permission to post instructions and his info on Reddit, he sat for sure, but I thought about it, and he was very nice so I still will just give his name so he gets credit but I don't want to list his email and all that for contact in case he gets flooded. The company line at Enertech is online and easy enough to reach out to and ask for him.

I was informed on quite a bit, essentially, Dandelion is not responsible for the device just the Heat Pump and so although you may pay for this device and have it as part of the Heat Pump installation, because the Heat Pump is actually an Enertech Heat Pump that is white-labeled as Dandelion's, Dandelion does not put much effort to help you set up that device because they do not handle that piece of the Heat Pump themselves. So they rather not fully train their installers on it or how to operate it or aid customers with it or what to do, as they see it as not their device. And so this just leaves customers blissfully unaware of this wonderful feature to monitor their system's performance.

Anyways, y'all helped me on this Reddit even know about this. So this is my Reddit Pay-It-Forward for all you Dandelion Geothermal folks out there.It's been a long ass journey, so I really needed that large pre-explanation to kinda explain that experience. Hopefully, someone reading that who was frustrated dealing with the same things will read some of that and feel some solidarity, knowing they were not alone. And so without further ado, I will very succinctly explain how to setup this device below.

THIS IS THE PART YOU CAN SKIP TO, IF YOU ARE JUST INTERESTING IN SETTING UP THE DEVICE NO FILLER, NO STORY, JUST THE INSTRUCTIONS:

Alright, So I have an iPhone, so my instructions will be most similar to iPhone users, unfortunately, but you can likely still gleam something from them for Android users etc. out there. The "Notes" are just little extra tidbits that help smooth over potential confusion. You don't need to read them if things are running smoothly without hiccups. The "Reasoning" is added so you can see my logic. This is not needed to read either. I figure this is just helpful as a communicative tool so you can understand my rationale if you are frustrating on a step and want to understand why you are even doing it or something of the sort.

1. Have a mobile device and something small and pointy on hand. Like those SIM card ejection tools or a unwound paperclip. Reasoning: You need to use an app on a mobile phone and you need a small pointy object of a certain length to reset a device. I personally used an unwound paperclip.
2. Download the "myUplink" app off the App Store. *Make sure it's "myUplink" and NOT "myUplink Pro" Reasoning: "myUplink Pro" is actually JUST for Installers and NOT for you. I was told this once I contacted the manufacturer directly.
3. Go to the Geothermal Heat Pump on your property. Find the "Epic" device and the QR Code sticker near it. NOTE 1: It will be a small plastic box (mine was white) attached to your metal Geothermal Heat Pump case and have a continuously glowing white LED circle. REASONING: This is the "Epic" device you need to setup this monitoring software that I had help setting up. If you don't have this, I personally, cannot help you.
4. The "Epic" device is not firmly drilled into the Geothermal Heat Pump case or anything. So SLIGHTLY wiggle it. Make sure not to damage anything and get a feel for its rigidity and where there is some "play" or "give" and THEN slide it off so only the wires behind the unit are keeping it steady and lay it down. For mine, I simply simply slid it up slightly and it came out clean. Underneath the device is a port and then a small hole. This hole is the Reset. Now comes the pointy object of decent length. Jam that in to "press and hold" the Reset FOR SIXTY FULL SECONDS. This is a FULL 60 seconds, not an "about this long" it's pretty damn close to exactly 60 seconds. You will know when the device is Reset when the white LED circular light flashes a couple times strongly white to indicate completion. This is a noticeable LED change, it's not extremely subtle or anything. NOTE 1: You know this step was done correctly if right after the white LED circle on the "Epic" device is "darting" white LEDS around in a clockwise pattern as if it's processing, loading, or waiting for pairing. REASONING: These devices are apparently very finicky to setup and the setup can have some issues. So you Reset the device to just set yourself up for a clean quick experience without having to ever go back to a drawing board. Using the paperclip is fine, that is the advice I got from Ryan at Enertech, whilst being aided in my very own setup. So don't be weary of this being some warranty voiding thing or something. And if you want, feel free to just verify yourself, I am just a random Redditor and it's YOUR system. Never forget that.
5. On the "myUplink" app hit "Add System" and then when you are on the screen that has this text "If your device has a QR code similar to below, press scan the QR code" and then much below that "If you have already connected your device to the internet, press find connected devices." WIth 3 clickable "buttons" on the screen. First one, "Scan the QR code" in orange, second one "Find connected devices" in orange and third one "Help" in gray. Click "Scan the QR code" and put your phone camera up to the QR code on the sticker near the "Epic" device on your Geothermal Heat Pump case. And then once you see a pop up open to use a particular "wifi" with some odd name, ACCEPT THIS! NOTE 1: If you cannot find this QR code sticker or it's damaged, that's very unfortunate. There is a manual code near it though. I do not know how to work that with the app, however you can take that and call Enertech and I am sure they will be able to help you, all is not lost. REASONING: Everything you have been doing is just building up to scanning this one QR code and then having it register your device. The "Epic" device actually has its own inbuilt wifi. So you are connecting to it's wifi initially, for the setup, then you can fill in YOUR wifi information, to work off your own wifi in future.
6. After the app registers your device, it will send you through a couple screens. Unfortunately I do NOT remember the order. So I will just explain what to do on both, the order of which comes up actually does not matter, so don't worry about that. On the screen that asks for your wifi information, you should type out your desired wifi information in your home, so you can get off the device's wifi and use your home wifi. On the screen that shows your a whole slew of desired information, like your unit, your address, etc. etc. You fill that all out and then you can actually Rename the System whatever you want, instead of that long series of letters and numbers. REASONING: This is just the final steps of registering your account and setting up the app so it works in your home. This is the last part that requires you to be near the unit.
7. Now that you have the whole app setup, you should see it begin to load all the metrics and performance info you have been waiting for. From NOW on, you will have all your daily data collected and saved in the Cloud with myUplink. It is meant for monitoring, not controlling the unit. There is a website that you can access tied to the app that allows you to look at graphs and such and really monitor your system's performance. NOTE 1: I asked if I could control the unit. Idk why, seems like a dumb question now, but I asked it. I was told nah it's just for monitoring. I already can control it via my smart thermostat, so idk why I asked. NOTE 2: I was told that the information on the site can be more detailed than on the app with graphs etc. and it's great for seeing if there is an issue with your system etc. NOTE 3: I called Enertech and directly asked, before I finished the process, if this is a timed service and there is eventually some subscription fee etc. I was told that "just like a Nest thermostat" I can access this data on the Cloud indefinitely with no additional cost, because I essentially bought the device when I bought this Geothermal Heat Pump. I do not have a Nest thermostat, so I did not really fully understand that, but I felt they answered affirmatively that this is not some subscription based Cloud service after some trial period, we get at least this base information forever as we already essentially paid for this device.

Hi everyone! I am renovating a house (around 170 sq m) in Belgium and seriously considering geothermic from the start.

i have asked the municipality and I can dig up to 53 m: I received a quotation for a closed loop system and the company claims they can make a 6 KW system with 5 holes.

They also state that the temperature at that depth is stable at 12-14 °C (53-57 F).

My main contractor is trying to talk me out of it claiming that the efficiency would not be so high compared to a air-water heath pump.

He also claims that it's possible that, after some years, the heat exchange to the ground would end up lowering the average temperature of the soil and thus decreasing further the efficiency.

Can I ask your opinion on this?

thanks!

Hello we are having a swimming pool installed and I’m looking at the hole 20’x30’ and I just see an opportunity to install some geothermal pipe to possibly be used in the future. So my question is would it be ok to attach the pipe to the rebar between the soil and soon to be poured gunite?

Does anyone have a DX Waterless Geothermal System with a variable compressor/heat pump?

My system currently has a 1-stage compressor + variable speed air handler. I was told by my contractor that this is the only setup you can have for the DX Waterless systems.

My understanding is that this means my heating and cooling will run at a single speed but that this speed can be changed ONLY at the time of install.

Please let me know if the above is correct.

We just moved into a house with multi-zone geothermal heating and cooling. One of the zones is the basement which is freezing cold ALL of the time. The other zones are above grade. Can we run the basement zone on heat while the other zones are set to cool? What problems might that cause?

I have a 2 year old climatemaster tranquility 30 5 ton unit that has a very slow refrigerant leak. The first time it ran low after about a year the installing contractor topped it off and said to keep an eye on it and would do a warranty repair if it happened again. Well now he is retired and out of business, will a different authorized climatemaster installer perform the warranty work? I wasn't sure how HVAC warranties worked as I have never had to use them before. Would a slow leak like this even be covered?

Thanks for the advice!

Tried to get a contractor to come out to give me a quote for a geothermal heat pump in my town house. He gave me the quote but said he the estimator didn't want to because of issues with HOA. Are geothermal heat pumps feasible in an HOA town house? Seems like it can certainly be something of a hindrance but not an outright impossible? Any contractors aware?

tl;dr - Can I have both hot water (hydronic) heating and mini-splits for cooling with a geothermal system?

I've had a long term interest in a geothermal system. My current HVAC set up is 4 window units for cooling and hydronic heat (natural gas based) for a combo of radiators and heated floors (wife loves her heated kitchen and bathroom floors). The house has no duct work currently. I'm wondering if I'm looking for a unicorn here or if a realistic solution exists.

My wife strongly wants to stick with radiators and heated floors for heating purposes. I've certainly heard of systems that can heat water enough to meet the demand, and or have supplemental heating if it is really cold (I'm in Maryland and it rarely gets below 10F here in the winter).

For cooling I think minisplits make the most sense.

Is it feasible to have a geothermal system that both heats water for use in a hydronic system, and provides cooling for use with minisplits? I know it would certainly be easier to just use minisplits for both heating and cooling, but that will result in an unhappy wife (which results in an unhappy life). Am I chasing a unicorn here? I just had a tech come out to give me an estimate and he strongly discouraged the idea of going this route saying I would have nothing but problems and be very unhappy. I have no reason to think he was wrong, but I always like to get a second opinion from internet strangers.

TIA

I just turned on my heat on my three year old system for the colder fall nights and it isn’t working. Everything else works, the cooling and even the aux heating coil. Ive check the thermostat and at the system to make sure it “thinks” it is heating the house. I don’t think it’s the reversing valve because it’s not the like the air conditioner is on when heating. I’ve done a ton of research but cannot find any other cause for this.

First year with geo and thus, first winter. During the summer the desuperheater makes perfect sense. A primary place to drop heat before the ground. Should I turn off the hot water assist in the winter, or does it not make a difference?

Edit: should have mentioned that I only have one tank. WF5 series.

Help me please! My pressure is low on the geothermal pressure tank, and I want to add fluid to my system. As far as I understand, the red arrow points to a filling valve I should be able to use to add fluid to my tank. However there is a higher point in the plumbing with no valve in between (yellow arrow), would that not all drain out if I open the valve to pour more fluid?

Hi - new guy here. Our A/C went out on our 28 year-old propane furnace and regular A/C system and I'm planning to replace with a geothermal horizonal closed loop system. The house is 2200 sq ft above grade and 1400 below grade and is well insulated and sealed. The old system was a 3.5 ton system and seemed to be adequate but I'm looking at replacing with a 4 ton geothermal unit (upflow with side return). I have lots of flat open pasture behind my house so a horiztonal closed loop makes a lot of sense. I haven't arrived at an exact design for the ground loop, but my preliminary thought was 650' of trench 3' wide and 6-8' deep. I'm also thinking for simplicity to use a unitary loop with no manifold. This would only be 1300' of 3/4" HDPE pipe with a pipe at each edge of the trench. I've seen recommendations for 500' of pipe per ton but this seems to apply to slinky and horizontal boring methods which would have a lot of interference between the pipes. In the case of horizontal boring, 2 pipes occupy the same hole and would be right next to each other. The soil I have seems to be very good for geothermal because it is clay and moist for good thermal conductivity. Oh yeah, I live in Central Missouri. What do you guys think? Is 1300' enough pipe?