Does anyone have any recommendations for someone who sells and installs geothermal heat pumps in the Panhandle?

I think that the one I've talked to so far is clueless about them. He seems to think that the only possible way to do one is to dig wells going down two or three hundred feet. That may be necessary in a house lot in town, but not out in the country where you have plenty of room to run the pipes horizontally underground.

I had one in the house that we built. Upfront cost is large but savings per month is a decent payback. We had one at the office with wells and went lateral at the house. Wells by far(water table was 100+ feet) better that lateral loop at house. They ended up doubling the loop distance at the house. Effective cooling once the ground heated up and dried out was no where near the cooling with the wells at the office. The missus really griped that it wouldn't cool enough at times. Doing it over I would (1)use wells and (2) put in the zone system water furnace has. There are times you want it full bore in the den/living area and can shut off bedrooms. Hope this helps

Eric,

You first calculate your heat load on your house. Then you calculate the linear feet of piping that you need for this heating and cooling load. This will vary depending on if you install horizontally or vertically. Vertical is using less length. Both horizontal and vertical can work.

What is your goal for Geo? If it is energy savings then I would say you could do other stuff that has a quicker payback.

If you really want to do it then I would recommend vertical especially in your environment. In the dead of winter it will be very hard to extract heat from the soil unless you oversize the horizontal well field. Vertical wells will have a more stable temperature to extract heat or reject heat that a horizontal well field.

It can work if designed properly, but the payback can be long.

Also lots of people have problems with the well fields heating up over time and then having problems cooling.

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Eric,

You first calculate your heat load on your house. Then you calculate the linear feet of piping that you need for this heating and cooling load. This will vary depending on if you install horizontally or vertically. Vertical is using less length. Both horizontal and vertical can work.

What is your goal for Geo? If it is energy savings then I would say you could do other stuff that has a quicker payback.

If you really want to do it then I would recommend vertical especially in your environment. In the dead of winter it will be very hard to extract heat from the soil unless you oversize the horizontal well field. Vertical wells will have a more stable temperature to extract heat or reject heat that a horizontal well field.

It can work if designed properly, but the payback can be long.

Also lots of people have problems with the well fields heating up over time and then having problems cooling.

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What depth are you talking about horizontally?

I can imagine there being a big problem if it is 3 or 4 feet deep. 10 feet deep should mean a lot less variation in temperature -- shouldn't be more than 4 or 5 degrees over the winter.

The figures I've seen for temperature variation with depth after that is generally about 1 degree per 70 feet, but that isn't specific to this area.

There is another option. We have two water wells at the house. We could possibly set up an open loop system where we use water from one well and then drain it into the other well.

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I had one in the house that we built. Upfront cost is large but savings per month is a decent payback. We had one at the office with wells and went lateral at the house. Wells by far(water table was 100+ feet) better that lateral loop at house. They ended up doubling the loop distance at the house. Effective cooling once the ground heated up and dried out was no where near the cooling with the wells at the office. The missus really griped that it wouldn't cool enough at times. Doing it over I would (1)use wells and (2) put in the zone system water furnace has. There are times you want it full bore in the den/living area and can shut off bedrooms. Hope this helps

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Our main concern is heating in the winter.

We've gone many years without even bothering to connect the swamp coolers that we use. When I was a kid, I don't think we used swamp coolers more than two or three summers.

eric send me an email and I will send you my cell to talk.

Geothermal systems need to be balanced with heating and cooling. if you try what you are proposing with mostly using it for heat with little to no cooling then you are going to have problems in the long run.