Hi, My name is Eric and I live in Maryland. I just recently built a new house and went with a verticle well (two 425' wells, closed loop) geothermal system. Climatemaster 30 Tranquility series. It is soo new that I'm not even in the house yet and admittedly not quite up to speed on the system itself. I've had posession of the home for approximately 60 days and have received two electric bills, each over $400. My 3-zone HVAC system has been set between 63-65 degrees the entire time and I have NOTHING plugged in, not even our refridgerators. The house is unoccupied. Just Tuesday, our builder had the Climatemaster system checked out to assure it was running properly... His email today reads in part - XXX Services went to your home on Tuesday. There is a wire connected to a shut off valve to prevent the system from running in geothermal mode once the fluid in the loops drop to a certain level. The antifreeze in your system is not rich enough so XXX will need to come back and increase the ratio of the antifreeze to protect the line from freezing to below 15 degrees. According to the power company, we are using an average of 123 kilowatts per hour. Given the explanation above from our builder, does this makes sense? Is he saying the system has been running on auxillary heat (I've not seen the red "emergency heat" light on the thermostats, ever) and not the actual geothemal?? I apologize in advance for my ignorance... Any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated! Eric
123kwh does not make sense. That is a big power draw. Were the builders using dehumidifiers, heaters, etc.? Sounds like they are talking about the unit locking out on freeze protection because a jumper was left in place. That is fine, they look like they are sorting it out. So then what was your backup heat (electric)? That was likely running during those months.
123 Kilowatt Hour per day would make more sense. That could be as low as $10 or as high as $20 a day depending on utility rates where you are. Once they get the antifreeze right and the electric resistance heat is not called for so much, you should see it settle out lower. Give them a chance to get it straightened out.
Yep sounds like JW3 jumper was in place so you used a lot of auxiliary. Bear in mind, we have had systems working correctly that spent $400 in Feb.
