BIG MAC Posted March 10, 2007 Share Posted March 10, 2007 Anyone tried it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fulcrum Posted March 11, 2007 Share Posted March 11, 2007 No one can explain satisfactorily, when asked, why it is so "efficient" or cost effective when compared to other forms of heating. It really does seem like a smoke and mirrors scam.I do understand the theory behind the systems. But how can an investment of around €20000.00 + maintenance plus all the complications of installation, for heating in France, be justified when other forms of heating systems are less expensive.It's not as if when you have installed it that you wont have to replace systems after so many years of operation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chancer Posted March 11, 2007 Share Posted March 11, 2007 I have afriend in the UK who has started his ground source heating installation company in the last year.He was knowledgeable of it in Sweden as his wife is Swedish, he explained to me that over there, there are many properties that cannot have mains gas (and also perhaps bottled due to the temperature) and most people use oil fired boilers.The real crunch is that they have to pay road fuel rates of tax on heating oil! That coupled with the huge geothermal activity going on under their feet shows why they have a very advanced geothermal heating market.He imports Swedish made heat pumps.isoenergy.co.uk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIG MAC Posted March 11, 2007 Author Share Posted March 11, 2007 Cheers JR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
avinalarf Posted March 11, 2007 Share Posted March 11, 2007 Geothermal is very common in Sweden and Canada, for example. I'm not aware of any particularly high levels of geothermal activity in Sweden - just thought they were more environmentally conscious, have more land to install the systems and are more willing to adopt new technologies than many. Personally I think it is more of a punt to rely on a continued supply of reasonably priced hydrocarbons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pickles Posted March 11, 2007 Share Posted March 11, 2007 There are a couple of different types of source that have been tagged as "geothermal". The first is where there there are eg hot springs etc, which can be found in certain countries but is not terribly widespread, but where it is available can be used to drive eg a turbine because you're dealing with something which is essentially HOT. The second and more widely available possibility concerns using the ground as a source of heat to drive what is in effect a refrigerator in reverse - ie a heat pump. This uses the relatively constant temperature that is to be found a couple of metres below ground (of the order of 10 deg C) - either via a trench into which coils of water-carrying pipe are laid or via a deep vertical borehole. If you have a virually inexhaustible supply of water at 10 deg C, then you can in effect cool this via a refrigeration system, which extracts the heat which you can then use to either heat up the water in your house, or heat the house, or both. If you think about how a fridge works, what it does is to transfer the heat energy from the air inside the fridge and dumps it into your kitchen via the radiator of the back of the fridge. This is how a heat pump works. So we can convert the heat energy from a lot of water at 10 deg C into a much smaller quantity of water at 60-80 deg C. The only energy that you need to put into the system is that needed to circulate the water and that needed to drive the heat pump. I am told that commercially-available systems can get 4KW of heat energy out for 1KW input (which would come from your electricity supply).RegardsPickles Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIG MAC Posted March 12, 2007 Author Share Posted March 12, 2007 Couldn't have put it better myself Pickles! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nicos Posted March 13, 2007 Share Posted March 13, 2007 Very interesting Pickles - I'm very interested in the coildescription you mentioned. Do you know of any links or sites whichwould indicate cost of installment, and land needed to 'run' atypical 4 bedded house?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pickles Posted March 13, 2007 Share Posted March 13, 2007 Have a look at this articlehttp://www.invisibleheating.co.uk/installheat.pdfAlsohttp://www.est.org.uk/myhome/generating/types/groundsource/http://www.nef.org.uk/gshp/gshp.htmhttp://www.actionrenewables.org/techgshp.htmhttp://www.iceenergy.co.uk/heatpumps.asphttp://www.heatpumpnet.org.uk/http://www.ecoheatpumps.co.uk/http://www.feta.co.uk/hpa/As to costs, I've seen numbers in the range of £6-15K quoted, but this will depend on who digs the holes, etc.RegardsPickles Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nicos Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 Thanks for that...lots to read up on![;-)] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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