Geothermal heat pumps, also known as ground-source heat pumps, can be one of the most cost-effective and efficient ways to heat and cool your Virginia Beach home or building. However, occasionally geothermal installations go wrong, often as the result of an inexperienced designer or installer. Below are some of the common pitfalls and ways to avoid these issues:
1. Oversizing equipment.
Oversizing equipment is common not only with geothermal heat pumps, but also in more conventional equipment like air conditioners.
Some contractors still use rules of thumb for sizing equipment, and then add a large “safety factor” to ensure that the equipment is big enough for the job.
Not only do heat pumps use more energy than necessary when oversized, but oversizing leads to short-cycling of on and off, which wears equipment down much faster, just like starting and stopping a car.
Also, because oversized equipment has shorter run-times, you don’t get the same amount of filtration and air circulation throughout your house, which can lead to bigger temperature variations in your Virginia Beach home.
Your Virginia Beach HVAC and geothermal specialist will provide you with a detailed ACCA Manual J heating and cooling load calculation for your home based on your insulation, windows, and other details.
2. Improper distribution system.
Many Virginia Beach homeowners spend a premium for a geothermal heat pump, only to integrate it with a lousy duct system or poorly designed radiant system. This is like putting bald tires on a brand new car.
The best geothermal heat pump in the world cannot make an improperly designed air duct system more quiet or comfortable. Likewise, when a radiant system is not optimized to keep floor temperatures low, much of the efficiency of ground source heat pumps is lost.
Residential duct systems should be designed in accordance with the ACCA Manual D.
3. Wrong pump for the job.
The circulator pump is what moves water through the ground and into the heat pump itself. The pump must have enough power to overcome all of the friction from the piping and fittings, as well as be able to overcome the pressure drop of the heat pump.
If the pump is sized to small, there will not be adequate water flow through the heat pump, potentially causing malfunctions or hurt the unit efficiency. On the other hand, an oversized circulator will use far more electricity than necessary. Your Virginia Beach HVAC contractor will select a pump based on a head loss calculation and the specific heat pump.
4. Ground loop sized incorrectly.
The key to a good geothermal system is the ground loop itself. An undersized ground loop is almost impossible to fix and will lead to an inefficient system at best, and a frozen (“slushy”) or overheated ground loop at worst.
At the same time, a grossly oversized ground loop will be prohibitively expensive for little benefit. Never use “rule of thumb” for sizing your ground loop; your Virginia Beach HVAC contractor will take into account the heating and cooling load of the building, soil conductivity and temperature, flow rates, and other factors all into account.
5. Poor coordination.
Depending on the size of the geothermal project, any number of different players may be involved, such as the owner, a general contractor, drillers, HVAC contractors, sheet metal installers, engineers or architects, etc. The more parties that are involved in the project, the more important good communication becomes.
For instance, your Virginia Beach HVAC contractor needs to be aware of any changes that the architects make in the floor coverings to make sure the radiant floor works as designed.
Ideally, one contractor is responsible for all aspects of the geothermal system, including the equipment, ducting, and drilling or trenching. That way, if something goes wrong there is no “finger pointing” and the contractor can work to correct the problem.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_D_Best
f you are looking for a professional Virginia Beach geothermal heating contractor, then please call us today at 757-498-1323 or complete our online request form
Geothermal heating and cooling systems are the perfect way to green your Virginia Beach home and save money. But how does it work and how much money can you actually save? Review the information in this article and consult with your Virginia Beach HVAC and geothermal specialist to learn about the benefits of this energy-efficient system.
Let’s Start With How A Regular Air Conditioner Works.
Like a geothermal system, they are basically a heat pump that draws the heat out of your Virginia Beach home and radiates it outside. The reason that regular air conditioning can cost so much is that as the outside temperature rises and becomes higher than your inside temperature, your air conditioner has to work harder and harder to radiate the inside heat outside.
How Does A Geothermal System Work?
This is where a geothermal heating and cooling system can save you a bunch of money. The geothermal system also uses heat pumps, but they don’t try to radiate the heat into the hot outside air. Instead they take advantage of the fact that just a few feet under the ground, the temperature is much cooler than the normal summer air and warmer than the normal winter air. In fact, depending upon where you live, the underground temperature only has to be adjusted a little to be perfectly comfortable for your Virginia Beach home.
In a geothermal system the air is heated and cooled by circulating water or coolant through a series of buried pipes, thus quickly cooling or heating up the circulating liquid and returning it to your Virginia Beach home through the heat pump. Think of it this way: how much could you save if your air conditioner was drawing air that was already cooled, or your furnace could save if it was drawing already warmed air.
The fact is that the Environmental Protection Agency considers geothermal heating and cooling the most energy-efficient, clean, and cost effective space conditioning system available. It is true that these systems are generally much more expensive than a regular fossil fuel burning system.
But Just Think About The Benefits:
- It is estimated that once installed, a system should last anywhere from 50 to 200 years.
- You can save up to 70% of your typical heating and cooling bill.
- At that rate you can pay for your system in as little as 5-7 years.
- You will have a zero carbon footprint because you’ll be burning no fossil fuels.
- Geothermal systems are very low maintenance.
- During the summer, heat drawn from your house can provide you with hot water for free.
Best of all, you won’t care what the price of heating fuels do, because you won’t be using any!
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=RJ_Current
If you are looking for a professional Virginia Beach geothermal heating contractor, then please call us today at 757-498-1323 or complete our online request form
If you are considering a Geothermal heat pump for your home then you will need the assistance of a trained professionals that has years of experience in the Suffolk Geothermal Heat pump industry and can provide you with the quality services that you need for you Suffolk home. Give the experts at Hawkins Heating and Air Conditioning a call and see what they can do for your heat pump needs.
How does a Geothermal Heat Pump get the heat from the ground? The heat pump utilizes a loop of refrigerant sucked through a vapor compressed refrigeration cycle moving heat either in or out. The source of heat is actually much more stable and continuing then air based heat which tends to be less controlled. The other benefit is that Geothermal Heat pumps can also be used to pump the heat out of your house for instant cooling during hot weather. Geothermal heat pumps are also more economically friendly and can reduce the effects of pollution, electricity, and global warming.
What are the different kinds of Geothermal Heat Pumps? So far some of the different types of geothermal heat pumps in existence are; Ground Exchange, Direct Exchange, closed loop, vertical, horizontal, pond, open loop, and finally standing column well.
o Ground Exchange – This type of heat pump uses the grounds current heat and exchanges it with the temperatures in your home. If you plan to have a ground sourced heat pump then you will need a heat exchanger which sits against either ground or ground water to make the pump function properly.
o Direct Exchange – Instead of using a circulating refrigerant the direct exchange geothermal heat pump works by using a SINGLE loop refrigerant in direct thermal contact with the ground.
o Closed loop – The typical system uses two loops on the ground side and one loop located in the appliance cabinet which exchanges temperatures with the loop which is pulling the temperatures from the ground. Closed loop systems have much longer and larger pipes implemented into the ground for better accuracy and also have an extra loop located in between the refrigerant loop and the water loop, pumping in both loops.
Closed loops come in two different types themselves one being the vertical closed loop and the other is the horizontal closed loop. The difference between the two being the vertical closed pump has pipes which run vertical through the ground while the horizontal closed loops have pipes running horizontally through the ground.
o Pond – Pond based heat pumps are not commonly used due to the need to be close to an external source of water. Pond based heat pumps are more preferred and recommended for people who want to use a pump but have bad quality water, or a low heat source currently containable by a standard heat pump. The Pond based heat pump gets its name from the fact that the loop dragging in the heat is located underneath a large body of water, for example a pond.
o Open Loop – An open loop is a heat pump which draws in water from an external source stores it in the main refrigerant where heat is extracted from the water source and the water is then returned to the external source.
o Standing column well – A standing column well heat pump is much like an open loop heat pump except it is designed to pull in water from deep within a well and exchange it for heat in the main refrigerant where it is then returned back into the well while traveling down it exchanges heat with the bedrock.
How does a geothermal heat pump work in large buildings?
A geothermal heat pump works in all different ways each make varying depending on its best function for what it is replacing. For example a heat pump moves anywhere in between three and five times faster than the heat or electricity in which it consumes it is actually outputting more energy than it is inputting this causes the efficiency of thermals to exceed anywhere between 100 and 200 percent. While your average electric device will typically never exceed 100%. This proving that a geothermal heat pump will always exceed the performance of the electric device it is equivalently designed against for a specific building or structures size.
What is the environmental impact of geothermal heat pumps?
The impact is to be frank very positive, producing less greenhouse gases, and built to be biodegradable and non toxic in the external sources. But the negative side is that the refrigerant system uses a type of refrigerant which is actually a cause of depleting the ozone layer. This refrigerant is called chlorodiflouromethane, it is harmless when used properly but leaks can cause the ozone layer to deplete. But don’t worry this product has been favored out and is being replaced with a more environmentally safe product.
So if you have decided that a heat pump is right for your Suffolk home give the professionals at Hawkins Heating and Air Conditioning a call and let them assist you in getting your new heat pump system installed.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_J_Owen
If you are looking for a professional Virginia Beach geothermal heating contractor, then please call us today at 757-498-1323 or complete our online request form
A typical Virginia Beach application involves a ground source heat pump underneath or near a home, that extracts the earth’s natural energy and transforms it into usable heating output.
What are the benefits?
The chief benefit of using this type of heating system is energy conservation. In times when “going green” is the order of the day, this benefit is not to be taken lightly. Geothermal heating systems use up to 25% to 50% less electricity than conventional heating or cooling systems. Basically, this means that a geothermal heat pump uses one unit of electricity to extract three units of heat from the earth.
This natural form of heating can also help improve humidity control by maintaining about 50% relative indoor humidity, making geothermal heat pumps very helpful in humid climates.
Because these systems have no outdoor condensing units, like air conditioners have, you don’t have to worry about a noisy apparatus outside your home.
How Does it Work?
To understand how this type of heating system works, it’s important to understand its parts. A regular heat pump has an outdoor unit called condenser and an indoor unit that’s called an evaporator coil. A material called a refrigerant transports the heat from one area to another. When compressed, it is a high temperature, high-pressure liquid. If it is allowed to expand, it transforms into a low temperature, low pressure gas. The gas then absorbs heat.
In the winter a regular heat pump system extracts heat from outdoor air and transfers it inside where it is circulated through your home’s duct-work by a fan.
Geothermal heat pumps are built on the same basic premise as regular heat pumps. The difference is that the geothermal type draws heat from the earth instead of from outdoor air. The heat from the earth is considered to be stable and even. In addition to providing heating for your home, this type of energy can also provide air conditioning and in most cases, hot water.
These heat pumps move heat from the earth into your house in the winter, and pull the heat from your home in the summer and move it into the ground by using a series of pipes. This series of pipes is called a “loop.” The loop is installed under the surface of the ground. Fluid travels through the loop, collecting heat from the ground (in the winter) and carries it to the house. There, an electrically driven compressor and a heat exchanger condense the Earth’s heat and discharge it inside the house at a higher temperature. Ductwork then disperses the heat to different rooms.
With air conditioning, the technique is reversed. The underground loop draws out surplus heat from the house and allows it to be absorbed by the Earth where it is then stored. The system cools your home in the same way that a refrigerator keeps your food cold – by pulling heat from the inside, not by blowing in cold air. Talk to a professional HVAC contractor about all of the benefits and to get started today.
The latest rage in the heating and air conditioning field are geothermal heat pumps. Whether you are building a new Virgina Beach home or looking to replace an existing system, you might want to consider switching to this long-lasting and cost-efficient system.
No matter how hot or cold it is outside, the temperature of the earth stays constant just a few feet below ground. A geothermal heat pump takes advantage of the fact that the ground temperature is lower than the outside air in the summer and higher than the air in the winter. This system uses a series of circulating pipes to pull heat from the ground into the home during the winter and to move heat from the home to the earth in the summer. Using the earth means not having to use as much electricity as with a traditional system to heat and cool your Virgina Beach home. This reduces your operating costs and environmental footprint.
A Virgina Beach geothermal heating and cooling system is a little more expensive to install than a traditional furnace and central air conditioning system, but the low operating costs will save you money in the end. If you are retrofitting your home to geothermal, you can recoup your investment in two to ten years. The underground piping system can last for twenty-five to fifty years and the heat pump can last for twenty years. You will see significant savings over such a long time period.
There is no outside condenser unit with a heat pump and the pipes are buried underground. This means the parts of the system are protected from the elements which means less maintenance. No condensing unit means less noise as well. You can relax on your deck or patio without hearing the constant hum of a traditional unit. Some systems are designed to heat your water as part of the circulation cycle saving you additional money.
Installing heat pumps is not something you can do yourself. You will want to find the right Virgina Beach AC contractor to deign and install the system. Check out local HVAC contractors to see what brands and services they offer. You should be able to find reviews made by previous customers that will give you a good idea if the contractor is right for you. Since geothermal systems are energy efficient, you might qualify for tax credits or rebates from your state or the federal government.
Since many geothermal systems are Energy Star rated, you might qualify for an energy efficient mortgage. The cost of improving your home’s efficiency is added into your mortgage giving you more time to pay off your investment. The right contractor will help you pick the best system for your house and budget. You can also arrange for your contractor to do a yearly maintenance check to make sure your system is running at its peak.
The application of geothermal heating/cooling, also known as ground source heat pumps, has been named “the most energy-efficient and environmentally sensitive of all space conditioning systems”, by the Environmental Protection Agency. The system’s basic concept takes advantage of the earth’s constant temperature, approximately 55 degrees, to heat and cool a building. By tapping this steady flow of heat from the earth in the winter, and displacing heat in the earth in the summer, a geothermal heat pump can save homeowners 40 to 70 percent in heating costs and 30 to 50 percent in cooling costs compared to conventional systems. Read more
