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Ken
MVM
join:2003-06-16
Markle, IN

Ken to boogi man

MVM

to boogi man

Re: Do Air Conditioners and Heat Pumps cool equally well?

said by boogi man:

how far away from the pond are you? i'm really curious about the particulars of your install that would make a CL system in a pond more expensive than a well. generally the pond, lake stream option is one of the cheapest as it requires very little trenching/digging comparatively.

I'm going to repeat myself one last time. From every single bit of research I have pulled up from dozens upon dozens of different sources every single one of them has all agreed that open loop is cheaper than closed loop every single time. At no point in the last several months of researching this have I ever heard a single time that any possible way is closed loop cheaper than open loop. My particular situation my pond is right next to my house, and I have 5 acres of land. I could easily put in a standard horizontal loop in the ground, I could put in a pond loop, or I could do open loop. I am going with open loop because according to everything I have ever seen it is always cheaper to operate than the other methods. If some how closed loop is cheaper then I want to see some evidence of this, but so far nobody has shown me anything accept the link cdru See Profile posted that said closed loop is better, but that doesn't mean much as they make more money off a closed loop install and they didn't factor in the cost of the pumps on the closed loop making it an unfair comparison anyway. When it comes to unbiased sources not out to make money I can't find one that doesn't say open source is cheaper. If you want to prove me wrong feel free to do so with some link to something unbiased showing closed loop is cheaper to operate.

leibold
MVM
join:2002-07-09
Sunnyvale, CA
Netgear CG3000DCR
ZyXEL P-663HN-51

leibold

MVM

said by New York City Geothermal Heat Pump Manual :

As closed loop piping and the required grouting material add
another layer of heat transfer resistance, the closed loop system is
designed for lower winter entering water temperatures and higher
summer entering temperature. These wider temperature ranges
reduce the effective capacity and efficiency of the heat pump
system. Closed loop piping costs are typically in the same range
as the cost of the heat pumps and thus add to the overall cost of
the installation. Generally, these closed loop systems are more
first cost than the above systems. A compensating increase in the
overall system efficiency can be anticipated by the reduction in
loop pumping costs
. However, the requirement for slightly larger
equipment remains a disadvantage.

You won't find anything that will say that closed-loop is unconditionally better then open-loop because in most situations where both open-loop and closed-loop are feasible the open-loop system tends to have a lower initial cost. The cost difference may not be large (or even in favor of the closed-loop system) when new wells need to be drilled but the difference is significant when an existing well can be utilized for the open-loop.
It is easy to determine operational costs for the small circulation pump in a closed-loop system (the effort to circulate the water in a closed loop is the same no matter how deep the loops are buried). The same does not apply for open-loop systems where it makes a big differences on the lifting power of the well pump depending on the depth of the water table.
This means a true comparison of the operational costs of open-loop and closed-loop systems requires a site-specific analysis.

Even with operational costs likely to be lower in a closed-loop system the question remains whether the difference is large enough to make up for the higher up front installation costs ?

boogi man
join:2001-11-13
Jacksonville, FL

boogi man to Ken

Member

to Ken
so Ken what you're saying is that you don't actually know. go get real estimates and get back to us. there is a reason i asked you for the particulars of your installation.