This is a well-known design aspect that good GHX design software considers. He continues, “In these situations the center of the ground-coupled heat exchanger (GHX) array begins to act as thermal storage. None of the residential systems that these companies have installed have this kind of saturation problem.ĭan Ellis, ClimateMaster, CEO and one of the early leaders in the industry says that this issue is confronted “only in larger commercial systems with a dense ground heat exchanger array and with unbalanced seasonal loads, (ie more heat rejection than extraction or vice versa).” WaterFurnace, based in Indianna was founded in 1983, Earthlinked, based in Florida was founded in 1980 and Oklahoma-based ClimateMaster is over 50 years old. homeowners install approximately 50,000+ geothermal heat pumps. residential, commercial and government buildings. Over 1,000,000 geothermal (or ground-source) heat pumps are used in U.S. Here is my response to this question: Even in this shaky economy, ground-coupled or geothermal heat pump sales are steadily increasing in the United States. I’m guessing you’ve come across this argument before? I have never heard of that before and scientifically that doesn’t make any sense to me. He said that after 10 years the ground no longer maintains its average ground temperature of 55 degrees F. A reader writes: I was talking with a friend the other day and he said that he heard that closed-loop systems only last about 10 years because the ground temperature equalizes after several years as a result of so much heat being removed.

Lifespan of a water well