A client is planning a new No. Calif. residence of about 3800 ft^2, and also an indoor pool. It will have both GSHP and direct solar. This will be his second GSHP house. Our initial guess [for power planning] was a pair of 5 ton units; that's likely oversize. He was planning on using vertical loops, but it appears Santa Cruz has imposed a new tax on geowells. So given he has 10 acres of bare meadow AND a Fiat-Allis HD11 dozer and backhoe and road grader available nearby, and can borrow a DitchWitch; we're now talking about horizontal loops. [I suggested "Why not just buy a drill rig too?" but he paused at that suggestion....] So we're thinking of paying for both H & V designs to compare. There are two obvious horizontal construction approaches: dig trenches, drop in pipe, backfill. Or: use the dozer and move a LOT of dirt, lay pipe, and plow it all back; move to next section. I wonder who has actually used the latter? I'm thinking we are talking removing 4+ feet of dirt, then replacing it. I assume we'll need something lighter to do the restoral without damaging the loops. Plan B would be fix the backhoe and use it. I don't think the DitchWitch can get deep enough. Comments??
We did one job like this. You can see photos here We will probably never do another. It was just too much dirt to move.
