A big hole... Hi everyone, Newbie here, first post, apologies for anything overly dumb I am about to ask! We are in central TX and have been interested in Geothermal AC for sometime, and the most common type round here seems to be the ones using a water well. Anyhow on our land was an unfinished excavation for a large swimming pool. We dont want the pool. and intend to fill it in, and I just wondered is there any possible goethermal use for it? The hole is square, 20X40ft and 7 ft deep (perhaps as deep as 9 ft). Would that hole with tubing down the bottom be of any use for AC at all? We wondered if it might be worth it even if it only tries to cool a small guest house (1000 sq ft) I realise that filling the hole with water as a pond might be better, but that is not an option for us, it must be filled in.. Any help MUCH appreciated, we intend to start filling it in this fall.. Cheers, Gman
It might be big enough for a 1 ton Geothermal unit by installing the closed loop in three rows in the space provided, I'm not sure how far a 1 ton unit will get you, all depends on the heat loss of the house. Why not use the pool hole and add additional trenches to make enough to do the entire house.
This is just for a very occasionally used guest house, but for interests sake, how deep a trench is needed in central TX? I havent ever seen a rocksaw that goes deeper than 4ft that one can rent, and if we need to bring someone in, it probably isnt worth the cost for a guest hse.. we just dont want to waste the hole, could it perhaps piggyback with a conventional ac sys just to help it a bit?
Generally the Trenches are 6 to 8 feet deep. I guess for the purposes of running the line from the house to the loop is could be as shallow as 4 feet. As far as just installing a 1 ton unit to "help/assist" a standard air conditioning system, it's not going to be worth the investment. I say your trenches for a closed loops system are going to be one of the least expensive items on a Geothermal system install. If your going to invest in a geothermal system, your better off adding the trenches you need and install a system large enough to heat/cool the whole house. A big hole in the ground really isn't going to save you all that much in the whole scheme of things.
I just installed 3 of the ATP32U03 thermostats on a new equipment installation (3/ tranquility 27's). The thermostat on one unit started acting up on the second day of operation. Moved this to another unit and got same result; on a call for heat t'stat displays 1st call, then not a minute later displays 2nd stage call,then not a minute later called for aux heat. Problem is the board only displays call for fan. Verified this with meter. Replaced with new t'stat and after 1 day of operation the same thing is happening again--without the call for aux. heat .Unit board displays call for fan and y2. I am not sure whats happening here.Anybody else seen this happen?
There is a fair amount of programming that needs to be done on that thermostat. I would double check all your settings
I have checked the problem out some more and the t'stat is not flowing 24v through y1.RElay is bad on the stat.I just can't figure getting 2 bad t'stats in a row even though they do have the same manufacture date.The screen says y1 should be on but the output never happens. Voltages at the terminal board drop consistantly ; starts @26.7v R-C, then as y1 energizes at unit 26.4v, y2 energizes and drops to 25.3v. I checked these voltages without thermostat hooked up, just using jumper wires.I am hesitant about putting another new stat on without figuring out what went on with the other 2.
The voltage drop you are seeing would be pretty much normal. If it stays above 20V I see no harm done. I assume when you jumper unit everything runs fine, is that correct? You might want to jumper the wires at Tstat location.
Yes everything does what is supposed to when you jumper from the thermostat location.Tech support at Climatemaster has not been much help, when you can get through.I went ahead and hung A honeywell on it to see what happens.
I had a similar problem and went through 2 ATP32U03's in 3 days. I talked with the distributor and they have been having a similar problem. I think the issue is the line voltage. I'm on one side of a 3 phase wye circuit, so the voltage is 208, not 240. If the low voltage transformer is strapped for 240V, I only get 21v and the tstat is flaky and often reboots. It it's strapped for 208, I get 26.7v. I think that the MOV's (surge protectors) on the relay outputs are triggering and frying the relays. In both cases, the relays were shot. I bet your supply voltage and transformer are both 208 too. I'm using a ProVision now without problem. It just doesn't report faults.
