Streblerm
Addicted to ArboristSite
A little background. I have a geothermal heat pump that I have never been satisfied with. Neither performance nor economy have ever been what I thought it would be, at least on the heating side. I refer to it as my $16k air conditioner. Well, last year it went from not working well to not working at all. I have had four techs look at it and only one has offered a solution @$1200 with no guarantee that it will work when he is done. I can buy a new unit for about 2k with the tax credit so putting 1200 in an 8yo unit with no guarantee it will be fixed seems like a bad idea.
This is what led me to burning wood. The wood stove has never let me down, but the wife has this crazy idea that the whole house could be the same temperature and if you were cold you would just push a button and hot air would come out of the duct work. crazy right?
I am kind of hooked on the geo. I like my air conditioning and I have the wells so the cost of a new geo unit is similar to the cost of installed ac. The problem is how to take advantage of cheap gas (30 cents per therm in my area) for heating. I was all set to install a new gas furnace and tie it into my plenum but two furnaces seems like a new can of worms.
My latest hair brained scheme is to design a hydronic system with a heat exchanger in the plenum of the geo. I would use a tankless water heater as a heat source and my current tank as a preheat tank since the geo will heat the water to some degree. I realize this will still be a slightly complicated system but at least it will be of my own design.
So the info I am looking for is around size of heat exchanger, loop design, sizing, pumps, water temp, etc.
I need about 80k btu output to keep my house warm down to -10f which is 10 degrees below the design temp for this area. I was trying to explain this to the last "professional" who came out and wanted to put in a 140k btu furnace.
This is what led me to burning wood. The wood stove has never let me down, but the wife has this crazy idea that the whole house could be the same temperature and if you were cold you would just push a button and hot air would come out of the duct work. crazy right?
I am kind of hooked on the geo. I like my air conditioning and I have the wells so the cost of a new geo unit is similar to the cost of installed ac. The problem is how to take advantage of cheap gas (30 cents per therm in my area) for heating. I was all set to install a new gas furnace and tie it into my plenum but two furnaces seems like a new can of worms.
My latest hair brained scheme is to design a hydronic system with a heat exchanger in the plenum of the geo. I would use a tankless water heater as a heat source and my current tank as a preheat tank since the geo will heat the water to some degree. I realize this will still be a slightly complicated system but at least it will be of my own design.
So the info I am looking for is around size of heat exchanger, loop design, sizing, pumps, water temp, etc.
I need about 80k btu output to keep my house warm down to -10f which is 10 degrees below the design temp for this area. I was trying to explain this to the last "professional" who came out and wanted to put in a 140k btu furnace.