Geo Theromal Heating

Carb

Hi Guys,

Been following this thread for a while and I'm starting to get slightly confused with all the different products. I'm just starting to build a 3000sqf timber frame house (site been cleared) and I was considering ufh on both floors with a geothermal heat pump. That was until I read about Sweco's aerothermal system which they maintain is the most efficient. I've since seen conflicting views regarding this. Anyone got any advice? I want a system that can provide a good supply of hot water that isn't going to cost a fortune. I'm considering a wood burning stove in the house so this coiuld possibly be used as back up. Also, anyone know any companies that provide the complete plumbing solution. Already had a quote for the UFH alone which seemed very expensive.

yop

Who quoted your UFH?

Sweco are getting varied reports alright.

UNEDO

yop wrote:

ummm, do they have any other sites, I know of a number of people who have contacted them, all have been directed to Balla!

I would like to visit another of their sites

cant help you there,YOP.
Hope your raft is down. great weather for the job.

UNEDO

Carb wrote:

Hi Guys,

Been following this thread for a while and I'm starting to get slightly confused with all the different products. I'm just starting to build a 3000sqf timber frame house (site been cleared) and I was considering ufh on both floors with a geothermal heat pump. That was until I read about Sweco's aerothermal system which they maintain is the most efficient. I've since seen conflicting views regarding this. Anyone got any advice? I want a system that can provide a good supply of hot water that isn't going to cost a fortune. I'm considering a wood burning stove in the house so this coiuld possibly be used as back up. Also, anyone know any companies that provide the complete plumbing solution. Already had a quote for the UFH alone which seemed very expensive.

Dont know that there is any alternative to doing ones own shopping round. Knowing the questions to ask is the key. My advice:
(1) Read the Posts from YOP -he has done very detailed research.
(2) Ask SEI Office in Clonakilty for their info leaflets on the subject. This will have key information around the questions you might ask, names/contact details of the suppliers aht have registered with them and the type of heat pump they supply, product quality certification,baseline measures of performance one should be looking for etc.
I spent half a day onthe phone with this listing and eventually ended up with a shortlist of 2/3 options. Hve eventually settled for DX Geothermal from Heliotherm/Climatecontrol( SWECO were not on this list as of the 25th January 2005. )SEI make it quite clear that the list does notclairm to be complete. They point out that they were dependent on companies responding to their survey and providing detail on quality and performance on their product.

Carb

Euro-Tech quoted me aprox €11500 plus Vat for the UFH and a geo heat pump would cost another 11K plus vat. So roughly speaking, it would cost 25K before even touching the rest of the plumbing or cylinder. Obviously it's early days in terms of getting prices, but I haven't a clue what's reasonable for the square footage.

yop

For a supply and install WarmFloor in Tyrone are the cheapest I have found and do an excellent job.

IF you are daft (me!) or brave enough to install the UFH yourself then www.underfloordirect.co.uk are the best I have found, just over 4k for all the ground and 1st floor for 2100 sq ft house, includes manuals and support line, programmable DanFloss T5 thermostats.

The 11k HP, depends on the type, the brine GSHP (GEO) will be the cheapest, then the DX GSHP, then the ASHP (Air) then the Well or Water sourced.

Points to note in the HP quote, size of the unit, what is included, do they supply the rapid recovery cylinder or not, if they do not a rapid recovery cylinder by the likes of www.acv-uk.com/tanks.htm cost you in the region of 1200 euro and you will have to get a cylinder like this when installing any of the types mentioned above.


Carb - SHOP AROUND!! Believe me it is well worth it.

UNEDO - When are you installing you DX?? Where again are you, Mayo wasn't it? Sorry memory like sive!
Raft been poured tomorrow, happy days, expensive days though!

Carb

Thanks guys. To be honest, I thought the hp price wasn't unreasonable as it was capable of providing the hot water also, but I'll check the quote to see what was included. It was the ufh quote that started the panic, so it's a relief to know that cheaper options are available. I'll certainly be shopping around and will be looking into the DIY option.

Has anyone priced systems for a similiar sized house?

yop

As far as I remember YAPP telling me he was installing a heat pump in his house and I think it was near on 3000 sq ft of hut he was building, worth a PM

Wobs

Hi Carb,

My House is just under 3000 sq ft, and your quote sounds about right, maybe a little high on ufh. I also got a quote from eurotech, will check it again tonight and see. To be honest though I don't think they compared aswell with other quotes I got. Again as Yop said you need to really look at what each is offering.

yop

Sorry meant to look at our Eurotech quote;

UFH - 9254 Euro Inc VAT - Warmfloor cheapest - 7262 Euro Inc VAT

Geothermal - 12342 Euro Inc VAT - brine system - Dunstar cheapest at 9596 Euro

Carb

Your Eurotech quotes are similiar to mine whan adjusted for square footage, so it just shows that there could be at least 5K to be saved. I'm off work on Friday, so it looks like it'll be spent on the phone. Thanks for you help.

Eve1

This is a great thread and I spent about an hour looking for it so I thought I would bump it up. Have there been any updates from anyone since the thread stopped?
Eve

yop

No update yet Eve, it seems to have gone quite here on that front

Wobs

Yop,

Would you have a number or web address for Climate Control, have tried googling them to no success. Would like to get a quote for the heliotherm unit.

Cheers

Eve1

Hey wobs, I was talking to them this morning, their number is 093 28166. I mentioned to him that he needed to get a website and he said it was in the making. I got a good price off him too.
Eve

Wobs

Thanks Eve.

yop

Eve, should have said to him that there are gang of us from boards looking at buying from him and he should do us all a deal!!
In fairness I have him haggled to death, will not get more out of him!!

Carb

It's been a while since I posted as update. I'm probably going to settle for the heliotherm unit also. It was probably the most expensive quote I got, but the only other D/X system I was quoted for, didn't supply the hot water, so I would have needed an immersion. Also finally decided on the underfloor heating. My local plumber is going to suppply and fit the underfloor heating, and do all my other plumbing for about 10K plus vat, cylinder included. Ground floor pipes are already in, and concrete is arriving on Friday. Timberframe is arriving on Monday.

Does anyone know about concrete additives/latex which I've seen metioned on a couple of occasions relating to underfloor heating?

Also Yop, were you able to get Climate Control to move much on the heatpump price. I'm going slightly over budget on my windows, do I'm hoping to make some savings somewhere.

Wobs

Hi Carb

Climate control supply the additive for the screed with their UFH. Im sure they would sell you some if your going with their heatpump. You say your local plumber is supplying you with a cylinder, are you not going with the 500L one supplied with the heliotherm unit?

Carb

The cylinder isn't finalised yet, and the plumber is fairly flexible on what he wants to supply ie. if I don't want his cylinder, he'll just knock the cost off the overall price. Have you checked out what the difference is between a heliotherm cylinder, and other cylinders on the market.

In relation to the additive, Climate Control probably would have supplied it, but I would be unable to get it by this Friday. I was hoping there may be something in good hardware/plumbing stores.

yop

Carb on the HP price I think it may have been 200 notes I cannot 100% remember.

Make sure you get the spec of the additive even though I am sure a good hardware store will know what you are on about. Ask Brian, I am sure he would advice.

On the cylinder, I have not know anyone get their own cylinder when it has been supplied by the HP people, I know you are talking about 1200 euro for the ACV tank. I have gone with the option of supply also as to be totally honest it is a 500 litre and I don't fancy transporting it myself either!!

That is decent price on the plumbing though.

jayo99

Heya yop..

Long time no post but been pretty busy..

Still havent made a decision on the heating system... but I'm leaning towards geothermal or wood pellet burner.. You/(anyone) have any ideas of comparison of cost to run for a year for each ?

Also, the roofer is coming next week.. What do I need to get him to do differently upstairs so that the option of geothermal is still available to me.. (I seem to remeber reading somewhere the joists or something are different to support the pipe work) ?

Cheers
Jayo

yop

Hey Jayo, ya I mentioned it to the TF company and they strenghtened the floor joists, they are a 10" floor joist.

jayo99

on the comparison between wood pellet burner & geothermal ?

Also, yop how much did ur dx system eventually cost u ?

qazxsw

Hi folks,

I've just put in ufh pipes upstairs over 9 x 2" joists

I put the 2x2's at 14" centres as requested by the ufh folks (Alternative Heating and Cooling) and thought this would be easy peasy to screed with timbers every 14" to guide me - - - mistake.

1. The timbers are nominal 2" x 2" (actually 45mm x 45mm)
2. The joists are nominal 9" deep

this meant that there were variations in the height of the screeds which made getting an even finish virtually impossible to the extent that I have one portion of the floor fairly ok - i.e. good enough to nail timbe flooring to the 2x2 battens but as the concrete was going off pretty quickly I didn't have time to get the finish on the second side as good a I liked.

To correct all this I'm going to have to rip a few sheets of 1/2" ply into 2" strips and fix these over the 2" x 2" battens and fill between with a sand and cement screed.

If I was doing this again I'd go with plan B --

• use light steel mesh sheets 12' x 8' I think.
• cut these in half giving 6' strips
• use a chalk line to mark the 14" centres on the ply
• put my 2" or 2 1/2 " screeds @ 6' centres between the steel strips
• lay the steel, making sure it's flat on the ply wood (use U shaped fencing nails or something like that if necessary to keep it flat)
• fix the ufh piping using cable ties
• pour the concrete and screed across the 6' gaps

even if the 6' screeds weren't perfectly level they should give a finish even enough for the floorboards as the screeding board wouldn't be acting like a see-saw over uneven screeds that were close together.:mad:

Aqua123

Hi Folks,

One of you guys sent me a link to this thread. I am a director in Aquatech www.aquatech.ie in Cork Ireland.

I am pretty impressed with the amount of research you folks have done. I had a stand in Punchestown last weekend where a lot of the companies you folks have been mentioning were also present.

I will give you my 2 cent worth based on my experience and knowledge in the industry. We have been selling UFH systems in Ireland for 16 years, condensing technology 13 years and geo systems 5 years.

I have personally commissioned every geo system that we have sold to date through out Ireland.

There are a number of types of heat pumps that can be used. Direct expansion (refrigerant gas in plastic coated copper loops in the garden). This unit pulls the heat from the source by using gas and not brine. It tends to have a slightly higher COP (coefficient of productivity) than any other type of geothermal heat pump, as there is one less plate exchanger in the unit, and therefore slightly less efficiency losses whilst running. But the collector can be easily damaged whilst being installed and in some case where the plastic coating is damaged, aggresive soil types can corrode the copper piping in a short time. As a result many companies have marketed and sold direct expansion heat pumps and most have changed to air to water or water to water units as a result of collector problems.

Though I personally believe that in a correctly installed direct expansion system problems should be minimal.

Next you have water to water. This collector is what most of your friends have installed and is the most commonly sold in Ireland. The collector is filled with water and ideally ethylene glycol as opposed to propylene glycol. The mixture should be approximately 30% glycol and 70% water in the collector and its vital that the mixture is well mixed when newly installed, so as to get the glycol into a state of permanent solution. Otherwise the circulating pump to the field would have problems short term and most likely burn out.

This type of collector can be fitted to a heat pump that heats and cools. Because of our moderate climate most end users only choose heating only models. The collector can be installed in streams, rivers, ponds, fields, the sea, boreholes etc. Wet clay type or normal type soil is excellent if a stream, river, pond or the sea are not available to the end user. Shale, rocky or sandy soil is not good and will dramatically cause problems for the heatpump. The size of the collector and heat pump are critical to achieving heat within any given house. Its similar to putting a 1 litre engine into a lorry and wondering why it never moves when you accelerate. Basically a lot of consideration should be taken in sizing a unit based on each individual house.

These types of heat pumps can to the best of my knowledge in Ireland are available with two types of gases currently. R134A and R407C (which are ozone friendly). R134A has higher working temperatures than R407C. Obvious reasons for higher temperature heat requirements are where you may incorporate radiators with UFH for example.

Collecor manifolds should NOT be made of metal. Propylene glycol is aggressive to metals like steel, brass, copper and black iron fittings and/or pipe. Ethylene glycol is not corrosive and a much safer liquid to have in a collector.

There are a lot of factors to be considered when designing a good system.
For example a horizontal collector should be at least 1.5 times the area of the house. The larger the area you can provide, the more efficeintly the heat pump will work. Circulating pump sizes are also critical in terms of correct flow rate requirements for the compressor and plate exchangers. Filters both on the condensor and evaporator plates are vital.

A correctly designed collector, utilising the correct pipe materials etc. has a life span in excess of 20 years. The type of pipe, i.e. LDPE (low density polyethelene), MDPE (Medium density polyethelene), HDPE (High density polyethelene) is also important based on which type of collector is being used.

There are a number of types of horizontal collectors that can be used. Slinkies, sandwich and so on, which when correctly sized can be palced in smaller areas in different design setups to still provide sufficient collector area.

Air to water heat pumps are a simple plug and play machine, should be less expensive than any of the others I mentioned above as there is no requirement for a physical collector. They are the least efficient heat pump available, because they have to reverse cylce (heat the plate exchanger taking the heat from the atmosphere, to defrost it). The the heat pump can then resume in heating mode. This is done automatically by means of a sensor. When an air to water heat pump is defrosting the plate exchanger it is costing you money and the heat is being expended to the atmosphere. Even so, the unit should be approximately 300% efficient.

Compressor noise and location. I can certainly tell you that the heat pumps we sell are as quiet as a fridge. They use Copeland scroll compressors. They have been installed indoors and out doors. Ideally, in my opinion a heat pump should be installed outdoors. WHY? because a compressor no matter how quiet makes a droning noise which is constantly varying based on the demand i.e. hot water or heating.

All heat pumps should have computerised, intelligent weather compensation built in. This gives the heating intelligence which self regulates the building when the heat pump is on thus further reducing savings.

For a system to be considered as a weather compensator, three temperatures are critical (1) external temperature (2) internal building temperature (3) flow or return temperature.

I only threw a few ideas at you people here and hope that it has cleared some issues and questions. By all means email me if you like for futher unbiased information whether you are buying else where or not buying at all :rolleyes:

brian@aquatech.ie

Cya folks

yop

Brian, thanks for your detailed information, very helpful and it is great to get an unbiased and detailed post from an actual supplier.

If you were to purchase either a DX or brine system, which one would you got for, and why would you pick one over the other.

In your opinion, what is the best setup a person can put in?

Some companies suggest 300l, 500l cylinders, other suggest a small cylinder, I understand that the closer the cylinder is to the HP the better as it reduces heatloss. Why the different size cylinder and what advantages of one over the other?

After talking to a number of DX suppliers, it has been suggested that we do not need as much piping as we would if installing a brine system, is this true?

Another company is suggesting a bed of sand below and above the pipes, I see you mention sandy soild can be bad, so in your opinion is the sand bed a bad idea??

What about getting loads of soil from mushroom farms and that, is it of any benefit to the collector??

Once again welcome to the DIY section, I hope we don't wreck your head with questions!

All the best

slayer92

Lads,

Just to confused things more!! check out a company called www.surfacepower.com. It has offices in Mayo and NI. It offers a modest wind and solar unit, the total output is only about 1KW. The standard package @€;1800 offers a wind generator with a 700w output and a 100w solar panel, you can add more solar panel to boost the output. The combined output charges a battery bank which is connected to 220V AC inverter.

I was thinking if you had your 300 -500l storage tank, you could put a standard 1kw imersion heater in it, supplied directly from the inverter unit. This way, you could be boosting the water temperature and reduce the running hours (and cost) of the heat pump


Regards

slayer92

yop

Anyone any exp with surface power, is what they offer good or a load of pants?

fearrchair

have a look over in the Green forum under wind turbines etc its a big post.

They seem to disucss them a lot over there Zonecentral i think (could be wrong) has the house nearly running entirely on it with the objective of disconnecting from the esb in the future !!