Geothermal Assist For Floor Heat

[newboy]

Has Anyone Looked Into Adding Geathermal Assist To The Floor Heat System?

 

[mac]

I was slightly involved with putting in a system in Wisconsin in an old barn that was converted into a vacation rental. It works fine. The big deal would be if this was a new or retrofit. If new, you can build it in . The floor slab needs the loop of pipe laid in when pouring the floor. The loop in ground to get the heat will probanly need to be 10 feet below grade, and at least as large as the slab you want to heat. Have read of other geothermal systems that are used in Greenland, but they have active volcanos there to aid the process.

 

[newboy]

thanks for the reply. this installation would be new. with the cost of natural gas and propane i really think this needs to be considered with new consrtuction. hope there is more information available from owners who have tried this process.

 

[Jim Caudill]

Newboy, you are on the right track, but I think you will find information, scarce to non-existant from the car wash industry. Do not go forward with any plans to build a new wash until you have a new design that does everthing possible to conserve both energy and water. Consider exactly how electricity is metered and sold. Use energy efficient lighting with a lower "security level" for when the wash is not being actively used. Consider carefully the ramifications of going 3-phase vs single phase. Look at ground-source heat pumps as well as natural gas fired, high-efficiency boilers. Consider using tankless heaters in a bank with manifolding to allow just 1, two, or 3 bays to be operated. Consider adding solar panels on the roof with a manifold system and auto controls to allow the heat source to draw from the warmerst source (return water flow, ground loop, or solar panel). Use underground tanks to allow for significant water storage. Many, many, many issues to be figured out. All washes I have seen are "freshened" designs of the napkin sketches from the 60's. Best control system I have heard of is from a family up in New York who's last name starts with the letter "H" (escapes me just now). Uses PLC's for almost everything. Reclaim probably won't make sense for you, but look at using your RO reject water, and be extra cautious about adding a in-bay automatic. See what effect on your demand-metering (assuming that is what you will have) the dryers will have on your electric rate. See how much water the automatic consumes and what the realistic "cycle-time" is for doing the top wash. If your cycle time is 5 min per car, you can only do a maximum of 12 cars per hour, and that assumes they will be "waiting in line". Come and visit me, and I'll show you a couple of million dollar washes that were built on traditional thinking, that will never positive cash flow.

On edit: The family is "Hoffman" with a number of car washes in New York. One of the members here is "thoffmanjr" (you can do a search). Here is a link to one of his postings http://forum.autocareforum.net/showthread.php?t=640

 

[washnvac]

I installed six geothermal loops to assist w/ floor heating back in 2000 on a 5/1. This was not an actual geo system w/ a compressor. I was pre-heating the floors to 50, then the gas heater would take over. In the evening, the heater would shut off, and I would simply run the circulator over night to maintain 50 . I was saving about about $300/month. But as the Winters have become milder, I found I am only running floor heat about 20-24 days per year. So in 05, I installed a geothermal heat pump and used the loops for that. That gets used about 9 months out of the year for heating/ cooling, and it has been a great use for the loop field. A true geo for floor heat will be expensive, and probably does not make sense for the amount of time floor heat is typically used.

 

[Jim Caudill]

Steubenville Ohio is at a similar lattitude as I am, and I suspect has similar winters. I can easily spend $3,000 a month for natural gas in the winter. Shouldn't take long to recover the additional cost on an initial install. Retrofits are an entirely different animal. You need to think about proper slab construction, insulation, tubing circuits/layout, and proper placement of the tubing within the slab. None of these were done properly for my wash; extremely costly to try and redo. Shouldn't cost hardly any extra to do it right the first time.

 

[pitzerwm]

A friend of mine, put geo in his house years ago, that part worked good, but the "return" for the water wa his swimming pool, it worked so well that his pool stayed at 90+, that created other issues.

 

[robert roman]

One of the problems with "green" technologies (i.e. photovoltaics) is that there are a lot of companies that sell products that are made with inferior materials which are supported with very poor customer service.

If you are interested in geo-thermal, you may want to check out Eagle Mountain. Their website is www.GeoMaxUSA.com