Re: Geothermal heat pumps for heating and A/C
From: Bob Morrison (morrisontook.enet.dec.com)
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 94 12:23 CDT
On Thu, 13 Oct 1994, wight [at] world.std.com (Nancy E Wight) wrote:

Subject: Re: Heating systems

>Thanks, David for your info on geothermal heat pumps.  We are also 
>considering them seriously.  Boston Edison is going to give us some kind of 
>a price break if we install them.

  I don't have specific answers, but I have some questions which I have de-
cided to ask in the newsgroup so others can "hear" the answers.
  Would this system, if installed, consist of a single device (the thing that
has a freon-cycle compressor in it) for the entire community or a separate 
device for each unit and for the common house? If multiple devices, would 
there be a separate underground fluid loop for each device, or would there be 
a single loop with the fluid piped to each compressor device?

>1) If we install electric geothermal heat pumps, we will not be having gas 
>piped to our site, which means we have to use electricity (where solar is 
>not feasible) for heating water.

  I assume it would be quite expensive to pipe gas to the site and that New
View would be charged for this. I further assume that you have already de-
cided that this cost can't be justified for water heating alone.

>2) I'm worried about the "extreme weather", which we have a lot of.  Would 
>we also have to have a furnace (and air-conditioning system) for backup?

  One concern that comes to mind is that this system would have a lot of 
stuff that can break down and it could take a long time to get it fixed; it
may require obtaining parts or bringing in experts from VERY far away. This
being the case, I would be uneasy about depending on it as the only source of
heat. I think a properly designed system would have more than enough capacity
to handle your heating and A/C needs, but you will need to ask Boston Edison 
and the manufacturer of the system some tough questions to be sure. 

Bob Morrison

Home: Boxboro, MA               Work: Digital Equipment Corp., Littleton, MA

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