I have a lot that has a well that is not currently in use. It was used by our subdivision to provide water to about 5 houses. They are now on the county water system as I am. I am getting ready to build and would like to use the well for a ground source heat pump. The well is about 600 feet from the house site. I have specs on the well. It is 325 feet deep, over 200 feet of water. It has 60 feet of well casing. The documents say it has a flow of 5 gallons per minute over 10 hours(not sure what this means). I want to use a standing column pump system. My house will have a 4 ton unit. I live in southern Va. I'm trying to figure out if this well would work for my needs. Thanks, Patrick
You should have enough saturated borehole for about 3 tons of heating without any bleed-off. The next step is a water quality test to compare to open loop manufacturer guidelines. However, consider that a SCW will require another 600' of trenching since you need both a supply and return line. You could put in a horizontal slinky closed loop for the 3 tons in about 1/2 the trench length. -Adam
older well also I too have an older well, different type, it is a hand dug well 40 ft deep with 20 feet of water as of last weekend when I looked down there could it be used as a dx system or not a good idea
Might be confusing terms here. A DX (direct exchange) system eliminates the need for water in your loops be circulating refrigerant through ground loops. This does not mean one couldn't employ DX loops in a body of water....... Your body of water (20 ft deep by ?) has few btu's and could not support much of a system. joe
joe, 20 ft by about 4, the only thing i thought was that it is in the water table so it should convect out to the surrounding water, so in essence i am in a under ground lake right
You are in a little bitty under ground lake or saturated soil both call for hundreds of feet of hdpe. were you to try a copper or such exchanger will the water move enough to keep from freezing? I don't think so. joe
joe, before i just say i agree with you, could a small sump pump be put down there to keep the water circulating, and the evaporator be like an ice bank bulk tank, 7/8 od copper ed
Just keeping water from freezing does not increase btu's available. All I can say is what you propose would only work by design, not by accident. In other words we would have to establish btu's available, thermal conductivity water or surrounding soil etc. Then we have to decide what we are heating. A sandwhich or a home all require a btus to heat. When we know how many we can decide if your well loop would be adequate. My hunch is you are not going to get much out of what you propose. How much is going to be answered by someone who wants to do the math. Joe
