Ground Source Heat pump project

[rich76]

Anyone had this undertaken ? Even the experts are a bit cagey on whether it will really cut costs or just send our electricity costs sky rocketing.
Apparently they will remove all our gas boilers and replace all the rads throughout. The new boiler will be to boost the water temp if the ground source doesn't bring the temp out at 60 plus. County led project so they will steamroll ahead anyway lol

[steveg]

VS gas heating I don't think it will cut costs. They are very efficient (around 300% give or take) but because the price of a unit of electricity is around 4 times as much as a unit of gas it will still cost more. If you are going from other forms of electric heating then I can see it makes sense, but won't be rushing to replace gas boilers with it any time soon, although doesn't sound like you have a lot of choice.

[Nail]

Is it going to be a vertical bore into the ground or is it going to be a horizontal one?

[EBJ]

The housing trust put one of these in my mums garden and in the middle of winter it stopped working, days of phone calls only resulted in a guy appearing with the smallest electric heater i have ever seen with an air blower, moved mum in with us and a week and a half later after many phone calls, and letter of complaint a guy came and re pressurised it, basically a manual hand pump and he was the only engineer they had that could do it and had been off sick so every thing they told me as excuses was a pack of lies.

[rich76]

Is it going to be a vertical bore into the ground or is it going to be a horizontal one?

Vertical bore. 15 holes at 150m deep.
When they start I am going to tell the neighbours they are starting fracking

[Nail]

Interesting!

It would be really cool if you could almost do a case study of it for us. Such a minefield of info.

I wish Siri g covid we had dug the sports field up for GSHP.

[timmydog]

as a plumber i have looked in to this a great deal, over a 20 years period after installation it work out about 60% more expensive than gas this includes installation running costs also you more than likely need extra insultation maybe reglazing and doors if an old building

[Nail]

Although not Ground Source, this is an interesting read.

https://www.cibsejournal.com/technical/ ... eat-pumps/

It details about not insulating the building, which I found surprising but it does make sense.

[Keyolder]

Although not Ground Source, this is an interesting read.

That was an interesting read

I have a rather well-off friend that installed an air source heat pump system in his house, he already has a solar array and battery storage. He raves about it but said it was expensive plus he had to replace all the house radiators. Reading between the lines although in summer he uses very little from the grid, in winter it’s a different story as his house is large and in the middle of nowhere.

[DieselPunk]

I've fitted quite a few in domestic settings in a previous job.
They're great, I'd like to have one at home, currently got an oil boiler very expensive at the moment.

If the school has solar panels, then it will be very cheap to run.
One of the biggest problems with Air Source is when the weather turns. If the outside temperature falls below the point required to extract heat, then the built in electric heating elements kick in. Meaning that potentially for a few days/weeks a year the heating will be electric only.
Ground source uses the temperature of the water table, the brine pumped down can be -2C the heat transfer is usually enough to gain a couple of degrees, which is then transferred via a heat exchanger and compressor (think of of a fridge in reverse). This very rarely becomes too cold in winter for the electric element to take over.
Of course the cost of drilling down 150M for 15 ground loops is expensive compered to non for Air source.

The school will need new radiators as the heating works best when it is left on low all day.
It is not as responsive as gas boiler.