- Environmentally Safe
- Renewable
- Much more economical than gas, oil, or electricity
Simple Science Creates Affordable Comfort
The basic principles of ground water heat pumps are simple. Well water maintains a constant temperature all year long. Consequently, it can effectively heat cold winter air and cool hot summer air. The National Ground Water Association has been promoting geothermal heat pumps for use in heating and cooling systems for many years. They are now being joined by contractors, engineers, architects, and equipment manufacturers taking advantage of the large savings that can be provided by this most abundant source of free energy.
Conservationists are becoming very excited as they discover that geothermal heat pumps are an efficient, economical alternative to diminishing fossil fuels.
Well Water Most Efficient
Well water can store large amounts of energy because of its high specific heat, (i.e. the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of a unit weight of any substance 1°F).
* Unit Measures of Heat
It takes significantly more energy to raise the temperature of water than it does for any other liquid. Therefore, when the water temperature is lowered by 1° F, more energy is released per unit weight than any other substance. Heat energy is released from ground water by using a geothermal heat pump.
Heat Pump
The heat pump works like a reversible refrigerator, relocating the heat from ground water to the home in winter and from the home back to the ground water in summer.
Heating Mode
A liquid refrigerant flows through the heat pump, absorbing heat energy from the ground water. This liquid refrigerant evaporates to a gas at low temperatures and pressures. After the refrigerant evaporates, it is passed through a compressor which efficiently raises it temperature as its pressure increases, thus enabling the heat pump to give off heat to your home or commercial building. The opposite of this process occurs in the summer.
Cooling Mode
As the refrigerant evaporates, it absorbs heat from the inside of the house or commercial building and transfers it to the ground water via the heat pump.
Efficiency
Because the temperature of the ground water remains constant all year, the output from the heat pump remains constant all year…warmer than the air in the winter, and cooler than the air in summer.
Scientists call groundwater “Natures most efficient energy-storing system.”
Summer Cooling and Winter Heating … How Does It Work?
The following graphics depict how geothermal energy is used to heat and cool your home:
Where does the energy come from?
Our Mother Earth is a sphere with a diameter of about 8,000 miles. Beginning just below the surface of the Earth, scientists have found that for the first several miles the temperature remains relatively constant (50° F throughout the northeast.) Below this, the temperature rises gradually to about 2200° F at a depth of about 100 miles. For the next 7,800 miles, the temperature rises from 2200° F to 7800° F at the center.
Our Mother Earth is absolutely packed with heat energy.
It only depends on man’s ability to find safe and economical ways to extract and use it. Happily, this methodology has been found in the device called a Geothermal Heat Pump which allows us to tap the energy of the earth at the upper 50° F zone without having to deal with the much greater temperatures at the deeper levels.
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