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Utilizing the constant temperature of the earth, a geothermal system pulls heat from the ground by circulating water through underground piping.
The Earth Stores Energy from the Sun
During the year the earth stores energy from the sun and even on the coldest days of winter the earth maintains a constant temperature of 50°F at a depth of six feet below the surface. A geothermal system taps into this unlimited supply of energy to heat your house during the winter.
Tapping into the Earth’s Energy
A typical installation utilizes underground pipes to circulate a water and antifreeze fluid through the ground which absorbs heat and carries it back to the geothermal heat pump in the house.
Turning Low Temperature Heat into High Temperature Heat
A geothermal heat pump compresses the low temperature heat from the underground pipes into a concentrated high temperature heat. This high temperature heat is distributed to your house by air (ductwork) or water (in-floor hydronics).
Distributing the Heat to Your Home
The process to distribute the heat to your home from a geothermal heat pump is no different than a conventional system. Most often distribution is either a forced-air ductwork system or an in-floor hydronic system – or both.
Cooling In Summer
In the summer, the process works in reverse with the geothermal heat pump absorbing heat from your house and circulating the warm fluid through the underground pipes releasing the heat into the cool ground.
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Loop Design
The heart of a geothermal system is the ground loop.
A well designed and properly installed ground loop system will provide a very efficient geothermal system. This should not be left to chance or rule of thumb. Thermterra will analyze the soil conditions for your system and properly design a loop field to optimize performance.
There are two types of loop designs - Closed Loop and Open Loop.
Closed Loop
The most common design is a closed loop system which uses a continuous loop of pipe acting as a heat exchanger with the ground. A water and environmentally-friendly antifreeze fluid circulates through several hundred feet of buried pipe pulling heat out of the ground. This fluid returns to the geothermal heat pump which extracts the heat and the fluid flows back out to the loop field.
The key advantage of a closed loop system is that they require little, if any, maintenance and will last for 50 years or more.
Open Loop
Open loop geothermal systems use groundwater from a conventional well as a heat source. The ground water is pumped into the geothermal heat pump to extract the heat and then the water is disposed. Since groundwater is fairly constant year around, it is an ideal heat source.
The advantage of an open loop system is that they are easier to install since they utilize an existing well. Two key conditions are necessary: The ground water source must have sufficient volume and local laws must allow the discharge of the water after it has flowed through the system.
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