I building my new home on a 4 acre lot. The house will set up on the highest point on the lot. We don't want to bore and or trench, but we were thinking placing lines behind our retaining walls. The walls will be built and then back filled and we thought it would be perfect time to bury the lines to the heat pump. Will this work? Building a single story slab on grade. Radiant heating and cooling for a 2200 sq/foot house. Full sun all day long 1450 plus elevation. Atascadero, CA Refer to the attachment for a visual explanation. Please feel free to comment with your Pro's, Con's or other questions. Thanks for your review.
This might not work well since it is not buried in the ground, thus heat cannot flow well to the pipe. It also depends on the heating needs of the house. I assume you would need more pipe, better than a single loop as indicated in the drawing?
I've been down the road a few times on this with our clients at a local ski hill. They need to dig a fairly large foundation on a slope. In summary, it doesn't really make sense. You can get some nominal tonnage out of a setup like this generally - 1 or 2 tons that could be used for domestic water or some zone load. But you can't really get a proper install in to service a full house load. There are restrictions to keep in mind as well - trying to stay 10' away from any foundation/retaining wall is one of them. I don't want to be the guy that gets the phone call due to frost heave.
Yeah this just a explanation of placing the lines behind the retaining wall. Yes I do need to calculate my usage I just want to see if placing the lines behind the retained wall would work. Thanks for input.
Atascadero, California has a frost line of 0'' to 10''. Also we will be grading 6' down into the clay layer and benching up 4 to 5'. Before benching back up I reckon we'll dig a couple trenches down another 2' to 6' for a deeper layout. I will have 100' to 200' more length to that graded elevation on my property which should be enough to have a proper Geo Thermal tube layout. I couldn't find any code restrictions for laying the pipe under a Retaining wall at which I will have to ask the city if there's a problem with that. Thanks for the insight!!
