Geothermal heat pump
 

Next week I'm excavating and installing the coils for my brother's Geothermal heat pump installation. I'll take plenty of pictures.
Here is an example of some of the equipment available.
ClimateMaster Inc. - ClimateMaster Residential Units

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My house has had a geothermal heat pump since Oct. 1980. Mine is open loop, with two source wells feeding one 1 hp pump in the one side yard and two return wells in the back yard, all about 20 feet deep. Living in Florida along the coast, once you go more than a foot or two deep around here, it is pure sand until you hit limestone about 25 to 40 feet down.

I've had no problems with groundwater deposits in my pipes and coils, though friends with similar open loop systems have all had deposit problems. A local geologist told me that my property sits above the flow of some underground springs, which may explain the lack of deposits.

This system is one reason for my extremely low electricity use, typically around 1000 kwh/yr.

cool deal Sid. My brother's place is in central Washington, and it gets down into the teens and single digits in winter and over a 100 in the summer for a few days. This geothermal system should be ideal.
He is also going with a couple of solar panels for domestic hot water.

There is a GREAT thread on geothermal heat pumps over at EcoRenovator. If you could share any details about your GSHP it would be appreciated:)

I know I shouldn't ask here, but instead of doing complete gthp, could I put a closed loop system in the ground, using water, with a radiator on each end?

Large rad in the ground to cool the water, smaller rad in the house with a fan to blow air through it, fish tank pump to circulate the water...

Looking for ways to not have to use the a/c...

I don't see why not. I was just talking about this same idea with my uncle last weekend. He live over a naural spring or something and his sump pump is going almost constantly. We talked about using the cool ground water to cool the house.

That will not be nearly sufficient enough to have any affect.

The coils that are put in the ground are very long, 100's of feet in order to transfer sufficient btu's. The length also helps overcome the effect of the ground around the pipes taking on and giving up btu's becoming less affective over the season.

I have miles of cw pipe cooling my radiant floor slab, during cooling season I flip some valves and almost all the domestic water goes thru the floor first. No AC in that addition but it keeps it cool enough but only cost a couple valves.

I like the idea of Geothermal Heat pumps but the in installed cost is too high IMO(15-20 year paybacks). I'll be going air cooled heat pump when my AC dies. I have propane heat so with use it as 2nd stage when below 30 degrees F or with lite the wood stove those days.

You'd be concentrating all the waste heat in one place underground.

You could suck in air through 130-160 feet of underground sewer piping.
6" down, seams to be waterproofed, end to be closed to insects and other critters.

That's what they do when installing active ventilation systems over here.
Normally, it goes over a highly efficient heat-exchanger as it's used even in winter (the ground @ 6' under usually being warmer than the outside air), but for summer use, you could do without the heat exchanger.

No large excavation for me... Its a lot in a trailer park.