I've been have been reading alot about open loops systems and since we have hard water in our area it seems that a few years down the road I might run into problems. One geo company with roots in europe says that they always run external heat exchangers so that your well water does'nt run through the geo unit. Then a a simple closed loop system from the heat exchanger. This sound good to me, but what are your guy's thoughts of this. Do you under stand what I'm gett'n at here?
Re: open loop too external heat exchanger then closed loop to unit..what do you think This is quite common.
Re: open loop too external heat exchanger then closed loop to unit..what do you think I'd love some input here on this. I can't find a local geo company thats done much with open loop. I here more negatives then with closed,but this external heat exchanger idea seems to make sense to me.
Re: open loop too external heat exchanger then closed loop to unit..what do you think Open loop is designed to give you the flow rates your heat pump requires. A plate heat exchanger (inside the building) separates the, now closed, internal loop from the open loop waters. This gives some mechanical protection to interior equipment and is typical when waters are of poor quality of additional freeze protection is required. Not much to add to this outside the usual "get someone that knows what they're doing" comment.
Re: open loop too external heat exchanger then closed loop to unit..what do you think Iron by itself is not a deal breaker, It may simply cause additional maintenance. I've installed many open loop units, but have no external heat exchangers. Seems extraneous to me. Flip side if water is too rough for a modern CuNi heat exchanger, maybe you should go closed loop (and think about what you are drinking). Joe
Re: open loop too external heat exchanger then closed loop to unit..what do you think I have never seen a seperate heat exchanger in operation. My thought would be if there is a concern for plugging or fouling the exchanger, it is going to be a concern whether it is in the unit or outside the unit. Why complicate the issue, just use the one exchanger.
Re: open loop too external heat exchanger then closed loop to unit..what do you think Must be a northern thing then - where freeze protection is ensured within the building cavity. I don't know of an open-loop commercial job that doesn't use a plate exchanger within the building. For residential, I know of a few.
