My wife and I looked at a GSHP pretty seriously when we moved to our new-to-us
house. Most manufacturers still make them, as I recall Trane bought one of the
older suppliers so their stuff was very nice. Most of the newer ones are sized
for industrial but you can get GSHPs on the lower end.
In our area (Durham NC, i.e. north central NC) there were a lot of these
installations that went in 20-30 years ago, from what I gather. The copper
ones (required for direct exchange systems) corroded and the iron ones
(indirect) started to leak, so (according to my normal HVAC repair guys)
'everyone' wound up replacing them with normal heat pumps rather than rr the
tubes. I'm sure that's a bit of an exaggeration on their part but we do have
very acidic soil (high clay content) so possibly not. They work for a very big
company in the area and said they didn't know of any residence with a current
GSHP installation.
When I called around for quotes two years ago there was only one guy willing to
even price an installation, and he was pushing hard to get me to stick with one
of the high-efficiency above-ground units. He himself had been using a
pump-and-dump GSHP (the most efficient install, basically you tap a spring, add
heat, and send it on its way) until the first big drought a few years back, and
said that his new installation of air-source was as efficient. Since then I
know a new company has opened in Raleigh that does exclusively direct exchange
(DX) but we didn't want to go there, I'm an indirect kind of guy. If anyone is
interested I can probably dig up their contact information. They had training
programs and whatnot so you could satisfy your inner nerd about the technology,
but I am unconvinced that running Freon through the ground is a good idea.
YMMV.
What I did learn from all that is that if you go with a GSHP install, call the
local HVAC companies and talk to their old techs to get the real ground
temperature. I read/heard high 60s for the area, the HVAC guys said they've
seen 72. Couple that with many complaints of an undersized heat-dump volume
(i.e. not working on hot days over time) and I believe the HVAC guys were
probably right. It's a lot easier to bid low on an undersized system with a
GSHP, too, since well size is proportional to temperature difference.
Between that and the major pain it is to drill a well in the city we decided to
go non-GSHP; at the moment we've just got a central AC and mobile heaters,
which suits our use of the house quite nicely. When the kids are bigger (i.e.
not in the living room all afternoon) we'll go central air-source HP, probably.
Good luck. :)
-Tim
www.waterfurnance.com is what I
have, don't know about any others. Try a
google search.
Harry
Which brand is the effective ground source heat pump to buy.?
value for money.
mak
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