Geothermal Heating
 

We have some neighbours who recently moved in next door. The home they purchased has a geothermal system installed and it seems to preform very poorly.

When we were over in the summer is was not very cool, just seemed to blow air. Now in the winter they say that its freezing in the house.

Wondering if anyone else is on geothermal and what there experience are like. Do you find it to perform worse than a conventional system or is there no discernible difference?

From what I understood, geothermal is not supposed to replace your primary heating/cooling sources but help maintain a steady temperature within the home, therefore reducing energy costs to heat/cool.

Is that incorrect?

I was under the same impression, however they do not have a second form of heating/cooling in there home.
Currently there interior temps are around 10 degrees and what really sucks is they have 3 young kids. May have to throw them in our spare room if they cant get it sorted soon.

That doesn't seem right to me.. did they tell the builder they wanted geothermal only or something? If so.. big mistake based on my limited knowledge.

Tell them to grab some space heaters from Home Depot or something.

They purchased it from a fellow who built it. His son and daughter in law and kids were living in it for the past 2 years. They were not the greatest when it came to taking care of the house.

I offered up my space heaters for them but told them they need to get a professional in there to take care of it. It may just be something as simple as they do not have the thermostat set right. Apparently they are hard to program right.

I live in an apartment/condo building with geothermal. Many units in my building have problems with the system, though not the geothermal itself.

In our setup, the geothermal system provides cooling/heat to the heat pump, which is powered by electricity. These heat pumps are hit and miss as most builders probably put in the cheapest one they could find. There is yearly maintenance that needs to be done on these as well. We have a service contract with a company that comes 2 times a year and inspects everyone's heat pumps, changes the filters, etc.

These folks should probably call someone in to check out their heat pump. At least make sure it's turned on, filters are changed, etc.

Somewhat. This has a good description of how the system should work:


IMASA is right, they should get their heat pump checked - sounds like it's not working properly (or at all).

There heat pump turns on and its a very noisy unit. From the reviews I have seen, the heat pump they have is very quiet. It seems like there is not enough flow through the lines. They were told that the system they have is running off of the on property well and it got me thinking that perhaps the well can not provide enough water for the system and its been running dry. The pump sounds like it has been run dry before as well.

They had someone take a look at the system when they moved in because this was a large concern of theirs. Apparently, at the time they were doing the deal, the system was not working right. They had the only local guy who does geothermal come out and fix something but he said the system SHOULD work but he cant guarantee it.
I believe the builders were attempting to use this system, run off the well to avoid paying anything for heating/cooling. I also believe, from what the inspector said, this system was not properly installed and the lines were not put far enough into the ground.

I recommended that they put a furnace in there and use that. After looking into the costs of replacing/fixing the geothermal system it is just not worth it unless it can be rolled into the mortgage.
Really sucks for them, especially when they have 3 small kids in a freezing house. I believe the wife will have them over most of the day so they can at least stay warm.

It's obvious that there's a problem with the system but unfortunately it's near impossible to troubleshoot the guy's system without knowing a lot more info about his specific setup.

Geo systems can come in many shapes/forms. Are there any plans or mechanical drawings available?

Although I like the theory behind how geo systems work, I would stay far away from them until they become more mainstream and more of the bugs have been worked out. In the commercial world, I've seen many systems failing prematurely or were designed wrong. I've even seen new builds where some of the loops already started leaking as soon as the project is completed. I wouldn't be surprised if geo systems become the next leaky condo. On large buildings, it's not uncommon for geo systems to cost millions to repair/fix properly.

Problem with geo is what if something does go wrong...lets say its an issue from when they cored holes into the ground....World of pain then. Here is a setup controlling a local bank, other cru's and 18 story highrise. works very well when done right.

i want to know who did that pipe insulation, nicely done

I was expecting way more pumps.