[Greenbuilding] Ground source Heat pumps

[bob.irving at zen.co.uk]

Sumner, while being the great grandaddy of GSHPs (in the UK, at least -
other countries may disagree) is 
definitely a bit out of date. His heat pumps would have been used for
heating, rather cooling.

Lawns and gardens are what we use for burying collectors for GSHPs - in the
UK we mostly don't have 
enough land to do anything else. For heating, this is not always good. If
you have a marginally-sized 
collector, then the soil may freeze and the ground will heave in a bad
winter. You are advised to keep 
the collector away from trees! 

Collectors work best in damp soil. They also work better at least 6 feet
below ground - 1.5 is rather 
shallow and the ambient air temperature would have too much influence. You
would need a borehole 
instead. I don't know what cooling load you would be putting on a system -
presumably using air 
circulation to cool, not hydronic - so others may advise.  

    Bob Irving

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2010 10:22:09 +0100
From: Dan Barry <mr.danbarry at gmail.com>
To: greenbuilding at lists.bioenergylists.org
Subject: [Greenbuilding] Ground source Heat pumps
Message-ID:
	<AANLkTikL4ANvPy8gmc83Dqz_7bPb_1Mw=vZ1W+RWYniC at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

I am overseas and my library is a bit limited.
     While reading *Heat Pumps, An efficient heating and cooling alternative
*, by Dremot McGuigan;  I read of John Sumner's ground source heat pump
placed under his vegetable garden (470 feet of 1"copper pipe  under 1370 sq
feet for hydronic heating of  1700 sq foot house) Location is Norwich
England.

1) Anyone read his books?[*Domestic Heat Pumps,Introduction to Heat pumps*]

2) Anyone heard of the use of a vegetable garden or lawn as a ground source?

3) My retirement home is in Leander Texas on a rocky mountaintop(300 meters)
. If I could use  a garden heat sink I would add raised beds to my entire
front or side yard (the only flat spots close to the house).  Bed rock and
calichi are located 1.5 feet below the surface. This would also be the only
land moist enough to do the job. Cooling is the emphasis not heating. The
only other land is currently occupied by the septic drainfield.
-- 
Dan
Barry


--------------------------------------------------------------------
myhosting.com - Premium Microsoft® Windows® and Linux web and application
hosting - http://link.myhosting.com/myhosting