On Dec 21, 6:50*am, dpb wrote:
wrote:
On Dec 20, 10:28 pm, dpb wrote:
wrote:

...

I should add that geothermalheatpumps are a whole different animal.
They are very expensive, but if installed properly I believe they
would be very efficient *and useful down to colder outside
temperatures ...
Yes

... (although still noisy).
No. *The removal of the air source to the recirc fluidpumpmakes all
the difference in the world. *It's the air exchanger that's the noisy
component and it goes away.

Well, there's quiet, and then there is quiet. *Truthfully, I don't
have a geothermal HP (do you?) and have never seen one. *

....

Yes, I had one for several years. *It was virtually inaudible running
over the typical fan air movement noise. *As compared to an air-exchange
unit or even a typical A/C exchanger it was what I would classify as
silent. *(Moved is reason for the "had" -- am looking at replacement
furnace now and ground-loop is certainly in the consideration).

And, your complaint of the air/air exchangeheatpumpgoes away -- the
air at the outlet feels nice and toasty -- not quite natural gas hot,
but no "wind chill" factor at all. *(The loop in the TN house replaced
an air exchange unit so I have that to compare to by direct experience,
too.)

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You and Roy have both made insightful comments. I have heard that if
the working parts of a geothermal unit can be remoted from the house,
the house will indeed stay quiet. Personally, the loudest thing I
want to hear in my home is the fridge, and only because I know it's
keeping my beer cold. Which brings me back to Roy's input. My
contactor finally installed an upgraded Honeywell thermostat that is
supposed to fire up the furnace if the temperature error in the house
is too large. Like Roy, this should give me a comfortable recovery in
the morning as well as reducing the consistent noise. I haven't
gotten this new option fully dialed in yet, and now it's the dead of
winter.

I left out some details in my original post, which could be important
to this discussion, but I felt the post was already exceeding a
rational length. My outdoor compressor is a long way from the indoor
coil. It's over 50 feet away. To maintain efficiency my contactor
tried using a large diameter, I think it's 1-1/8 suction line. I find
that it takes nearly twenty minutes of HP running to fully heat up the
piping. It never really heats up with cycling. It's hard for me to
see how this can be efficient and I have to believe that it leaves the
register air cooler than a short run pipe might (say under 15 feet).
Like I said, these systems are much less straight forward than a
simple 95% furnace, and way-way more complex than the old 70% furnace.

I also forgot to add that I might feel better about the heat pump,
it's cool register temperature, noise, and slow recovery; if I was
burdened with the large cost of straight electric resistive heat.