..-. wrote:
A neighbor of mine installed a ground water heat pump to heat and
cool his house. For a house of about 2500 square feet and well
insulated, it takes the water from 5 wells to supply enough BTUs
winter and summer to keep the house comfortable. It's very energy
efficient because the high volume of well water, either coming or
going is always about 50 degrees F +/- 10 degrees., so it can either
give or take plenty of BTUs, but drilling the wells was expensive.


Any idea how much water that is?

On Oct 24, 9:29*pm, ".-." wrote:
"nahcr" wrote in message

roups.com...





responding to
http://www.homeownershub.com/mainten...asement-316736...
nahcr wrote:
Thanks for your responses. *However, i still dont understand why a heat
pump won't work. *The heat pump we currently have is outside and it
functions fine until it gets really cold. *So I would think that putting
it in the basement with a large air volume would mean that it would
function just as well, and that perhaps there would be a slight efficiency
gain on very cold and windy days or on very hot days since the basement is
sheltered from the wind and snow and shaded from the sun. *My situation is
unusual because first in proportion to the size of the house, the basement
is very large, and second, the basement cannot be used except to run pipes
and keep the water heaters for the 4 units. *I would like to put the pumps
there because they are ugly and that will get them out of my yard.
If the heat pump worked just as well in the basement as outside, i would
be quite satisfied. *Is there some reason why this would not be true?
Is there any danger to the occupants in putting the pumps in the basement?
If the temperature outside went down to say 10 degrees F on the coldest
day of the year, would pipes in the basement freeze because of the heat
pump?

I'll say it this way: *Heat pumps can only move heat (BTUs) around. *Located
outside, your heat pump can exchange an infinite number of BTUs from the air
since it just grabs "new" air with a new supply of BTUs with its fan as
needed. So, it will work whether the outside air is warm or cold pushing the
BTUs in or out of the outside air (and your house). *If you put the heat
pump in your basement, the BTUs the heat pump can grab are limited by what
the walls, floor and other materials contain or can transfer in/out. *Since
the BTUs can't easily flow in or out of the basement volume of air, walls
and concrete, the heat transfer is not limited by the pump but by its source
of BTUs.

On a hot or cold day when your heat pump is trying to cool or heat your
house, it will run out of BTUs that can be pulled or pushed into your
basement. *It then loses efficiency and will just run without doing any
heating or cooling. *Meanwhile, your basement will either be way too hot or
way too cold. *You may not care what the temperature of the basement is, but
your pipes could freeze on a cold day outdoors as the heat pump sucks heat
from the basement to put into the house. *On a warm day outside, the heat
build up in the basement could be dangerous and damage wiring or the house
structure. *Or, the heat could simply make the heat pump so inefficient, it
wouldn't cool the house; it would just waste electricity.

If you could fill your basement with water which has a much higher BTU
capacity per unit volume than air and concrete and use that water for your
heat pump, you might make your idea work; but there's also a good chance
that you would have a block of ice in the basement for much of the winter
and a pool of steaming water for much of the summer.

A neighbor of mine installed a ground water heat pump to heat and cool his
house. *For a house of about 2500 square feet and well insulated, it takes
the water from 5 wells to supply enough BTUs winter and summer to keep the
house comfortable. *It's very energy efficient because the high volume *of
well water, either coming or going is always about 50 degrees F +/- 10
degrees., so it can either give or take plenty of BTUs, but drilling the
wells was expensive.

Tomsic



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Another way of looking at this might be to figure out how many
tons or BTUS those heat pumps would be. I don't know heat
pump ratings, but they are going to have to be in the range to
heat a house. So for those 4 small condos in DC, let's say the
total capacity needed is 100,000 BTUs. A typical window AC
unit is 6,000. So, when you're using the heat pump to heat
the house, it's like having 17 window AC units pumping cold
air into the basement. It doesn't sound like it would take very
long for that to drop the temperature way down. And the lower
the temp, the less efficient the heat pump is, the less heat you
get out, etc. In the summer, you would have the reverse, with
the equivalent of 17 window AC units pumping their heat into
the basement.

responding to http://www.homeownershub.com/mainten...nt-316736-.htm
nahcr wrote:

Thank you Tomsic, you have made the problem clear for me.

"Bob F" wrote in message
...
.-. wrote:
A neighbor of mine installed a ground water heat pump to heat and
cool his house. For a house of about 2500 square feet and well
insulated, it takes the water from 5 wells to supply enough BTUs
winter and summer to keep the house comfortable. It's very energy
efficient because the high volume of well water, either coming or
going is always about 50 degrees F +/- 10 degrees., so it can either
give or take plenty of BTUs, but drilling the wells was expensive.


Any idea how much water that is?


No, but I'll see if I can find out and post back. Some of the wells are
supply and the others are return and which is which depends upon the water
temperature as well as what mode the heat pump is in (heat or cool).

Tomsic

On 10/25/2012 6:15 PM, .-. wrote:
"Bob F" wrote in message
...
.-. wrote:
A neighbor of mine installed a ground water heat pump to heat and
cool his house. For a house of about 2500 square feet and well
insulated, it takes the water from 5 wells to supply enough BTUs
winter and summer to keep the house comfortable. It's very energy
efficient because the high volume of well water, either coming or
going is always about 50 degrees F +/- 10 degrees., so it can either
give or take plenty of BTUs, but drilling the wells was expensive.


Any idea how much water that is?


No, but I'll see if I can find out and post back. Some of the wells are
supply and the others are return and which is which depends upon the water
temperature as well as what mode the heat pump is in (heat or cool).

Tomsic




In the wells we use, the loop is one continuous circuit. There is no
supply and return, each well has two pipes that are connected at the
bottom of the well. When the pumps are running the water goes down one
pipe and up the other to the next well. The HVAC units are either
extracting the heat or the cool from the loop based on the thermostat
requirements. If the well field is properly sized the circuit sheds
heat into the well field strata during the summer or heats the loop in
the winter. The idea is to provide close to a constant temperature in
the loop that is much closer to the desired room temperature than the
delta using outside air. It takes a lot more Btu's to heat a room using
the outside air at 0* than to work with a 55* loop.

--


___________________________________

Keep the whole world singing . . .
Dan G
remove the seven

I have basement with over 13,000 square feet w/ 9 feet to upper floor.
When temperature is 0 F outside basement is in low 30's.
Water temperature is in low 40's.
I am wondering if there is enough heat in basement floor & walls to heat 1,000 square feet on upper floor with heat pump.

On Monday, June 4, 2018 at 3:12:56 PM UTC-4, wrote:
I have basement with over 13,000 square feet w/ 9 feet to upper floor.
When temperature is 0 F outside basement is in low 30's.
Water temperature is in low 40's.
I am wondering if there is enough heat in basement floor & walls to heat 1,000 square feet on upper floor with heat pump.

If you're proposing to try to extract heat from the basement and use it
upstairs when the basement is in the low 30s, it's probably not going to
work. The system won't have to run very long before the basement air
temp drops, you're turning it into a freezer. And the lower it goes,
the less efficient a heat pump is. That is unless the basement is
much larger than the 1000 sq ft. What other choices are there for heat?

On Monday, June 4, 2018 at 5:40:58 PM UTC-4, trader_4 wrote:
On Monday, June 4, 2018 at 3:12:56 PM UTC-4, wrote:
I have basement with over 13,000 square feet w/ 9 feet to upper floor.
When temperature is 0 F outside basement is in low 30's.
Water temperature is in low 40's.
I am wondering if there is enough heat in basement floor & walls to heat 1,000 square feet on upper floor with heat pump.


snip

That is unless the basement is
much larger than the 1000 sq ft. What other choices are there for heat?


OP, you say your upper level is 1,000 sq feet and the basement is 13,000 sq feet?

Is that a typo?

If it really is a 13:1 ratio, it might work.


m