We had our geothermal well drilled this week. We hit 30 gallons a minute after 180 feet. We need 18 gallons a minute for the geothermal system so we are adding a 30% bleed which = 5.5 gallons a minute.

The drillers encouraged us to make a pond to collect the excess volume of fresh well water. We have a separate artesian well for drinking water 150 feet away - and the two wells are communicating. Must be the same rock spring.

So we need to figure out what kind and how big a pond to make for the volume of water we will be putting there 365 days a year.

Any suggestions ? We own the land below so there is no problem running water into the field.

I have a couple of small leaks on the piping that run to my geothermal unit that I was planning on repairing. It’s a closed loops system with 2 wells.

If I shut down the 4 valves that run into my foundation, is there a way to refill the section I drained down with just a garden hose or do I need a flush cart?

Thanks for any help!

I have an open loop, it's the summer in Alabama, how am I getting freeze warnings?

We are in the process of buying a home with a geothermal system. The house is a foreclosure and has not had an occupant for 2 years. (No utilities on) What do I need to know/do when we get the utilities turned on? Should I go in and turn off all the breakers so the system doesn't turn on for the first time in 2 years without us there? Should we have someone out to inspect it before we turn power on to the unit? I know nothing about geothermal. I don't know what kind of system it is or even how old it is. Is there anything specific I should inspect, look for, or listen for? The home itself was built in the mid 90's. I'm lost and would love any advice. Thanks.

I hope this isn't a dumb question!

We've had a geo system for more than two years now (WaterFurnace series 5, zoned). I just got my electricity bill and my monthly kWh usage is way higher compared to the same period last year: 1322 in 2023 and 1867 in 2024.

I'm in the northeast and yes, it's hot, but I recall last year was also extremely hot to the point we had a draught. I am doing more frequent laundry (3x a week instead of 1x) compared to last year because I have a new baby but other than that nothing has changed.

My system in the attic has had a humidity error popping up for a while now (Error NZ-5; hum too high), but our installer said it isn't an issue unless there's water.

Anyway, does this sound...normal? Could the humidity be stressing one of the systems? I'm having a hard time believing that running the dryer a couple more times a month is driving my bill way up but maybe. At this rate we're not really experiencing any savings or efficiency.

Thank you!

Just got a quote for a 5 Series Packaged WaterFurnace Geothermal Unit. The add on cost for the hot water option with a buffer tank seems super expensive: $3,830 (Complete Hot Water Assist Solution). They priced the Buffer tank (the second tank) at $2,135.

Aren't the two tanks just electric 50 gal water heaters that retail at HomeDepot for about $500-600???

Could I add the buffer tank post-install by their dealer and save $1k?

Also, the price for humidifer replacement seems way high:-humidifier replacement-Bypass-$2,354.97 (operates only when furnace is on)Powered-$2,540 (operates on its own)

Lastly, do you think I need to purchase a service contract?

Welcome your input.

New unit installed a few months ago. We had a weekend party so the doors were open and closed a lot on hot 90’s days. My monitoring system showed it ran for 6 hours straight, shuts off a few minutes and back on. My question is every time I went by the thermostat it was always on stage 1. When does it go into stage 2? Should this be set up with the AID tool after installation and wasn’t done??

Doing some homework for eventually replacing the forced air furnace for my home. I’m looking into a system combining air & ground source heat pumps. I’ve seen these described as Multi Source, Dual Source, or Hybrid. But “Dual” and “Hybrid” can also refer to related but different systems, so I’ll just call them MSHPs.

ASHP & GSHP seem like almost perfectly complementary approaches, and so I’m wondering why I have to dig so much to find info about systems that include both? The former performs best when inside-outside temp differentials are moderate, the latter when differentials are more significant. Reserving the heat or cool buildup in the thermal sink from the previous season for more extreme temps seems efficient. Having both air & ground would also create a way to help manage imbalances in annual heating and cooling needs that would eventually deteriorate the effectiveness of the ground as a thermal sink. Some implementations I’m reading about allow heat to be moved not only between house-ground and house-air, but also air-ground, allowing for optimizing the temp of the thermal sink across the course of the year.

Questions:

1. There are few true MSHPs, ie a single converged unit capable of switching between both. The tech exists, although the “ground source” in the unit here is a thermal tank that appears to be discharged daily rather than over the course of the year. But in general, is there enough overlap in the technology of ashp & gshp that a convergence could bring significant upfront savings?

2. Alternatively, perhaps convergence doesn’t matter much and it would be just as well to install both an ASHP & GSHP, so long as they were well-integrated. (Maybe that’s already a common arrangement and I just haven’t dug enough to realize it?) In addition to reduced power bills, would it be reasonable to expect each unit to last longer, and experience reduced maintenance needs? Since the two units would each essentially only work part time, and also operate under less taxing conditions. With an ASHP there to complement, the GSHP setup needs would be less extensive & expensive. Obviously this would still cost a lot more upfront, but maybe the total cost of ownership would still be better than having just one?

I haven't seen this particular issue discussed, so here goes:

We've had our 5T Waterfurnace 7 system for about two years in western NY and it works great. No issues with performance or comfort. My issue is confusion over some of the displayed air temps between the Symphony app and my thermostat. I probably should have asked more questions when the system was installed - and I can still give them a call, but thought I'd check with the crowd first.

The issue: I'm seeing some odd temperature display behavior between my thermostat and Symphony, especially in the cooling season (now), even though the system itself appears to be working fine. There may be a bad temp probe or data display issue but my testing to try to understand the problem has generated some confusing results.

There are 4 different temperatures I'm looking at:

1. The Supply Air temp in Symphony

2. The Return Air temp in Symphony

3. The room air temp displayed on my thermostat (located in the middle of the 1st floor living room)

4. The room air temp measured by my independent calibrated lab thermometer (located within a foot of the thermostat)

Question 1: Is the Return Air temp coming from a probe on the return side of the WF7 unit? The thermostat temp always tracks the Return Air temp - truncated to integer degrees (not rounded, just lops off the tenths - even if 0.9). I read somewhere that Return Air temp value is just coming from the thermostat room temp reading, but the evidence seems to show the other way around.

Here's the data:

a. Most of the time the displayed temperature on the thermostat does not equal the room temperature at the thermostat (as measured by my independent, calibrated lab thermometer), sometimes off by as much as 5 degrees.

b. The thermostat and independent thermometer temps are closest when the mode is OFF (no cooling) and fan in Auto (no airflow, since mode is OFF), and most different when the fan is in Continuous for a long period of time.

Test 1 - cooling off, fan running continuous (note: cloudy day here, outside temp low 70's so outside should have little impact on interior temps) for about an hour for temps to settle out. Symphony shows:

Snapshot at about 12:20pm. Independent thermometer room temp = 71 deg.

I'm suspicious of the Return Air temp because with no cooling, it makes no sense that the supply air temp is like 6 degrees cooler. The supply air temp does seem reasonable since it's close to the independently measured room temp.

Test 2 - I then set the fan to Auto, which turns it Off since operating mode is OFF. I leave it this way for another hour with no airflow for temps to stabilize. No windows or doors are open and there are no other air handlers.

Snapshot at about 1:20pm. Independent thermometer still 71 deg.

With no airflow, the Return Air temp dropped from 76 to 72 (in the first 30 minutes, then stayed 72). I assume that's because some of the warmer return air from the 2nd floor is not present. The supply air temp dropped also, probably because the basement location of the WF7 is pretty cool and it's just measuring ambient with no airflow.

Test 3 - I then went back to Fan on Continuous for another hour. No other changes.

Snapshot at about 2:30pm. Independent thermometer still 71 deg.

Pretty much same result as Test case 1. All I can conclude is that:

1. My thermostat is not displaying the room temperature at the thermostat, but instead seems to be showing a temp internal to the WF7. If it were displaying the room temp at the thermostat, the repeatable change from 76 to 72 to 76 makes no sense, since the thermostat is not near a duct and the independent thermometer did not change.

2. The fact that there is an approximately 6 degree drop from return to supply when there is no cooling active implies at least one of the temp probes is not in good working order. I suspect the Return probe because I then did a reading at a 2nd floor ceiling return grill in the warmest room and I was only reading 73 deg. Not sure where 76 deg could be coming from.

Sorry for the long-winded post, but really curious if anyone has seen anything similar or is more familiar with WF7 sensors, calibration, etc. and has suggestions.

Thanks!

We are looking into geothermal in Maryland, it would be for an existing old house (120 years old) currently have gas fired boiler, and cool with window units. The house is enormous,(4000 sq ft) and a fixer that we have are also working to insulate properly.

Needless to say, energy bills have been insane. We are looking for cost savings over time.

We are in a historic district, so we would potentially qualify for the MHT 20% on top of the Fed 30%. Downside is we don’t have duct work. That plus the BGE incentive, and MD state grant, it seems to be a good option.

I have a few questions I was hoping folks could answer:

1. in this sort of extreme heat (90-100+) does the cooling really keep up? Meaning can it keep the house at 70-75?

2. has anyone used a particularly good company?

3. any tips on calculating energy savings adjusting for window unit usage in the summer and wall heater use in the winter?

4. generally any tips or advice for a newbie that you wish you had known?

The home we purchased has a reservoir-based geothermal system. It looses a little bit of water every few months and I top it off. A contractor once told me to just add a little windshield washer fluid every now and then. The system has trouble keeping cool with outside temps above 88 degrees etc. Can I? Should I? add some form of antifreeze to the system to help with heat transfer and efficiency. Will it help? Thank you!

I had just under and acre of land cleared and destumped. It’s sandy soil. Water table is between 8-12 feet. Driveway will be about 100 feet long, opening into a circle with the garage on the other side of the circle. All driveway and garage will be close ish to 7000 sq feet. The house will be right next to all of that and will probably be another 2600 sq ft footprint. So 9600 sq feet total. Lower Adirondacks. 4 foot frost line, but I’d do 5. House and garage will be on insulated slab with frost walls.

Say the finished house will be 4000 sq feet, well insulated. What are my limitations? How wide should a trench be? How many tons for the house and feet of loops to put in?

I come from a plumbing family and have lots of friends up here with excavators and other heavy equipment. Before I start dropping stone I want to know if it makes sense to do horizontal piping while it seems like such low hanging fruit.

The other day I had a trouble indication on my thermostat so I ran downstairs to check and I had a drain light flashing on the furnace. I opened it up and sure enough the drain tray was plugged with some lint, I cleaned the drain tray and separately cleared the main drain line and it all appears to be working as it should I also cleaned the air filter as it had been about 6 months. I powered the furnace back on and now I have a high pressure fault. I've lived in this house for 6 years and I've had a few different issues with this system, never had a high pressure fault. I think it may be a lockout caused by the drain fault? But that's why I'm posting. Also I've observed it from start up after cycling the breakers, when the unit would normally begin to cool, the flow center(replaced part 3 years old) kicks on for about 5 seconds and then quits and that's when the high pressure light comes on. I have a tech scheduled for Friday but if it's something I could fix I'd appreciate it.

To keep this as simple as possible, the capacitor went on our 3 ton ClimateMaster Tranquility 27 about two weeks ago during a pretty good heat wave. Replace the capacitor and off to the races, everything was working fine. A week later we left for vacation and set it to 75 for the week, scheduling for it to come back on to the set point of 69 at 2pm. We get home at 7 and the temp is still 75 on the thermostat. In 5 hours, the temp didnt drop a single degree. Typically it will drop 3 degrees in less than an hour (we set it to go down to 66 at night to sleep). Service guy came out again today and found the loop pressure was down to ~2psi. So he pumped it up to 40psi. Delta T across the unit was 19 degrees so he called it good, but the unit has not shut off since and has never been able to get down to the set point of 69 all day. We even tried shutting all the doors upstairs and it’s still not keeping up.

The only other thing that happened in this time was we had a lightning strike in the yard the night before we left for vacation. There was a power surge of some sort because so far I’ve found my low voltage landscape light transformer and (2) Battery Tenders fried.

The first floor and basement unit (4 ton) has had no issue keeping the rest of the house at 69 degrees. I bumped that unit down to 66 to see how fast it could change the temp, and it seems to be working fine. Dropped it down to 66 in about 45 minutes.

What could possibly be wrong? I have a hard time believing it’s due to the heat wave because the last heat wave was no problem whatsoever.

Any ideas?

I just purchased a home with a geothermal unit and know nothing about it (that's why I joined this group!). Anyways during the home inspection it was noted that green antifreeze was detected: "The indoor coil from the geothermal cabinet was inspected with UV light and a dye antifreeze leak was noted." I will be getting a qualified geothermal technician to inspect the whole system but am just wondering if this is normal? Thanks in advance!

Iv tried several times to get quotes to drill wells. Everyone is quoting me between $4-$12/ft, and I need 5 wells.

Even the cheapest quote is looking to cost me double the cost of buying my own cheap well rig off of Ali-Express. It only has to make it through 5 wells, so I'm considering treating it like a harbor freight purchase and putting it on my trusty charge card.

Have any of you purchased one of these and had any success doing your own wells?

We got our GSHP two years ago. It's a 4 ton Waterfurnace 7 with 3 267 foot vertical wells in Southern Maryland in very clay heavy soil.

It was sized with winter in mind. We also got some weatherization upgrades and replaced our wood stove.

This last winter we did a LOT of heat with our wood stove, probably around 1/3 to 1/2 of our heat.

To the point that we only used 323 kWh in February, the month we did the most heat. Our total heat was ~1300 kWH.

Last July, our AC was 366 kWh. This June, which was VERY hot, was 360 kWh. Our previous summer we did 1000 kWh. This year I am already at 550 kWh.

Is there any risk that we are running the system in a way that it wasn't speced for by relying less on heat? My gut instinct is that it is a problem(ish) in the abstract, but we aren't anywhere near the problem. Is that probably right?

Question: I’ve got a horizontal loop system with two of the six lines running right where we intend to build an inground pool.

Could I just excavate a new trench from one side of the pool site to the other and tie into each side in order to cut out the middle which will be ripped out during the pool excavation?

Is this something I could do on my own, or would it be too complex to drain/fill the lines, bleed/check pressure, whatever else you do, etc.?

I have a question about larger, municipal sized geothermal generation plants.

Something that would support 10,000 homes for instance.

How attractive to thieves is something that scale?

Is there anything of high value, like copper wire for example, in a quantity large enough to attract theft?

It's my understanding that once the wells are drilled and the plant is built, It's a bunch of iron/steel pipes moving steam around, some cooling fans, a few computers in the control room and that's about it (apologies for the broad brush).

Unless they think you drilled somewhere special and your brine is full of gold or some bs, I can't see a plant being interesting to thieves.

I don't know for sure, which is why I'm asking. Thoughts?

I got a great deal (I think) on this Miami Heatpump. The guy was running an open loop on a new build and his well didn’t produce a high enough flow rate. I picked it up from him and I am trying to hook it up and figure out if it works okay. When I got it the compressor was hooked directly to the line side of the contactors as soon as I turned power on to the unit the compressor immediately ran. I am not getting any fan kicking on though. I am slowly working through figuring this out but thought i may have missed something obvious. I have gone through a lot of the manufacturers technical support documents but haven’t found where I hooked anything up wrong.

I'm in the early stages of planning a modular new build on a raw lot on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Right now my contractor has an allowance of just under $16k in the contract for a geothermal forced air system and I'm just trying to get an idea of how realistic that is. I've not independently reached out to any installers yet and I've never built a custom home before, much less a modular that is built in the factory.

It's a 2,557 sqft rancher/rambler on a walkout basement foundation (so eventually just under 5,114 sqft of finished living space). The property has had a soil survey with the perk test and the area around the planned build site is "Ingleside sandy loam" with a k factor of 0.15.

I have no idea what size the system will be but I know it will be a relatively efficient building in the long run. Just looking for general cost realism at this point.

This is the entering water temperature in a Waterfurnace 5 series geothermal HP. House has 7 units and this is what happens to the loop field when you hire the wrong contractor and undersize the loop in a primarily cooling climate. And it's only June.

Hi all,

We're ini CT and have had a Dandelion installed system for about a year and haven't had any major issues. So when a buddy of mine mentioned he was looking into geothermal I let him know they handled our install.

Today he came back with followup questions after getting a bunch of quotes. And he mentioned that he had not checked with Dandelion because they were having issues in Connecticut. That's what all 4 companies he talked to said. Personally I haven't seen anything along those lines.

Has anyone else encountered that information? Or are the other companies just making things up to promote themselves? I mentioned he should at least talk to them and see what _they_ say.

I’m putting in a 4 ton and a 3 ton WF5 in a new build and adding a desuperheater to the 4 ton unit in the attic. Debated a single 80 gal vs 50/50 gal preheater and main tank. We were concerned about weight distribution and plan to split them up to above load bearing walls as they going in a well insulated attic. Are there guidelines on how far components can be apart? Could they be a floor apart, 10 feet, 20 feet or would there be too much heat loss in the run and lose significant efficiency? I can’t seem to find anything on WF spec sheets. Rationally, I think about pipes going to the spigots and they may run 30’ between floors and across the house, and you still get hot water.

I have two systems, a package series 7 in the basement and a split series 5 in the attic for the second floor. 3,300 s.f colonial style house built in 1991. I’m in Maryland.

I keep both thermostats set 74 in the summer. The second floor humidity is between 68-72%. The first floor humidity is between 60-65% Day to Day.

I added a dehumidifier tied to the supply in the series 7 with little effect. I can see condensate being produced.

When I’m away for the weekend the humidity will drop between 3-5% but quickly go back upon return. I have no mold or anything but why can’t I get my RH to drop?

Recently closed cell spray foamed the basement, air sealed the attic and added R-60 loose fiberglass.

What else should I be looking at?