I just purchased a new home (it was a bank owned so it's about 200% more house than I would normally afford) It has 2 Geothermal units (5 ton and 3 ton) Best I can tell the 3 ton cools the lower level (so almost never needed) and the 5 ton cools the rest of the house. Open loop system and (pulls from well dumps into creek) talking to the original owner (now 2 sales removed so no reason to lie) he said the well would deliver 20GPM 24/7/365.
Talked to the guy who installed the pump (a 20GPM Grundas I believe) he said the pump could run full bore and never drop the water level.

The house sat unused for about 3+ years. Well only produces 6gpm now.
well is here: http://ohiodnr.com/water/maptechs/we...s=c&wln=558120

Brief stats:
Aquifer Type: LIMESTONE
Total Depth(ft): 160
Test Rate(gpm): 15
Static Water Level(Ft): 60


Now, the local well guy said "Well the problem is that the well is too deep, they probably hit water in the sand at 70-90ft and then kept drilling to the limestone, they used a solid casing so when the well was being used the water ran down the outside of the casing and into the bottom of the well. After disuse the paths down the side of the casing probably got filled with sediment. So they came out and fitted a valve on the wellhead and put 50lbs of dry ice in the well and sealed it (hoping to "reopen" the channels to the water.)

To no avail, still 6GPM. "Yep that's what you're getting from the rock, you need another well to get to the water in the sand"

So I'm having a second well dug, hopfully it will be 12GPM+ but if the well is dry/only does 2GPMetc, is there any way to use that as some kind of reclamation/discharge well?

If not now I've got a well and a vertical hole, if I drill one more well can't I make some kind of semi-closed loop system? (ie pipe my hot exhaust water through the two deep wells for cooling and put back into the system?)

I'm at a total loss here, I bought my dream home but the cost of getting the geothermal to work might mean I have to sell the place. And it's 6000sqft so there's no way I can afford to heat/cool with a conventional system. No one wants to talk to me about options, the only option is "Drill another well". I lucked out into getting $25/ft for the new well. (Of course ohio screws you for $1K for a permit "just because we can")

What are my options/good fallbacks thoughts etc...? Again, any help GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks!!

UPDATE:


OK,..
I just had a second well drilled on the reccomendation of the local well companies (go figure). This one is PVC with a screen. The old pump was tested 100% so it's something with the well for sure now.
2nd well is 160ft deep, static at 60, it's 30ft west of the 1st well and it only provides 6gpm. Sooooo.... Now I'm in a good pickle. Wells cost about $5K each here.
I have 2 wells delivering 6 GPM each, One is the pre-existing well, the other is just,..there.
I need 13GPM for running all geothermal. If it had been working it would have been running non-stop for the past 2 weeks I'm guessing (103 temps) so worst case scenario would be that I would need them both running for extended periods. I need 4-6GPM for running "household needs" So I really need 18-20GMP fixed to cover all my bases.
Just reading the forums, making it a closed loop vertical is out of the question as I'd need another 8 wells ($40K no way!) Horizonal is out of the question as I have a VERY small footprint on which I can drill (1000 sqft ish total)
Isn't there some way I can "recycle" the geothermal water??
My thought is if I have 2 wells, and I pull cold water from well 1, run it through the system then dump it back into well 2 (with a pump at the bottom moving water back to well 1) would the 6gpm of new cool water in each well plus the temp loss of getting to/going down the well chill it enough to move to well 1??
There is no one in my area that wants to deal with this as these two units were put in and are brand new by some company out of state. (so they can't sell me new ones and don't get the warranty work either, there's always going to be plenty of low hanging fruit before they get to me, and the well digging guys are 100% no help, it took 2months to get someone out for this well.
If that doesn't work I'm going to have to drill a 3rd and 4th well (praying that they won't effect each other if they're far enough apart) so I can pool them up to get my Geothermal up and running. (so two new wells @ 5K, 2K in pumps and hookups additional piping etc.. etc.. so a 30K project when all is said and done that I didn't see in my future.)
The one small bit of luck was that I didn't have to shell out $1k for the permit as this new well would be geothermal only.
Again,..any help would be appreciated, the locals don't want to touch this project so I'm on my own this time.

UPDATE:

It's hard to troubleshoot a technical problem when technicians you hire to help are idiots.

OK I finally decided to go with a cistern to geo solution. Got a 5500 gallon cistern installed and filled, and it backfills from well #2 at 6gpm, (well #1 is dedicated for house use well #2 dedicated for geo use) AND I had the dump lines put on valves so I can redirect some/all exhaust water back into the cistern.  Seems pretty simple to me, should work right?


By my caluclations I've got enough water and backfill to run 30minutes out of every hour (it's 18degrees here today so I think that's a safe bet) for 36 hours with no return water being used. Well it's going to run well beyond that so I've been maintaining the heat to keep the pipes from freezing with the loop closed. Today I finally got the house up to 60 with the heat strips, then fired up the geo systems planning on them taking over and.......
 

First of all I had a million problems even getting the units to work, turns out the company that installed my goethermal (Heat and Cool out of Indiana)  wired it for the wrong tonnage, hooked a 60amp heat strip to a 30amp fulse box, didn't wire the thermostats right etc.. etc.. so it took me forever just to get to the point of "ok my units are fine, now what" Got a local company to come sort all that out (in the dead of winter now) and I have working heat strips and 2 geo units that kick off after about 1 hour of running with temperature warnings. Seems the water I'm recirculating is chilling the water in the cistern too much and my output temps are dropping below 30 so the units shut off.

Keeping in mind I'm NOT a geo/HVAC/water guy, I'd have thought the geo would be smart enough to ONLY extract enough heat to keep the water at 32 on the output rather than just shut off but,..whatever.

SO by running closed loop all the time to keep the basement pipes from freezing (pretty much non-stop) I've chilled the cistern water to the point it's "too cold to use"

My cistern is 15ft underground so I think it's maintaining it's temp ok when not being chilled. but I did run the small unit on low (45) just to keep the pipes from freezing so,... maybe I chilled ALL the water that way. Just seems like it's not a long term solution that can possibly work if this can happen with just the 1 smaller unit.

So the net result is I'm heating my house on heat strip$$$. Now the cistern guy asked why I don't just fill the cistern with antifreeze and never dump again, and my jaw dipped a few times and I can't imagine why this wouldn't work. (I'm sure it won't because my geothermal system is out to kill me but I thought I'd ask) My first thought is that at some point I'll have heated or cooled the cistern water to the point where the efficiency is gone, but as long as I'm returning water to the cistern I'm going to do that anyway, I just thought it would take a LONG time, not 1-2 hours.
Obviously this would require them disabling the temp sensor which scares the bajeezuz out of me.

My current options are:
Run with system partially open dump (so well water at 50degrees is replenishing)
This antifreeze idea
Add 2nd cistern and draw from one, dump into the other and hope the ground warms/cools enough to make up for any heat/cold I add back into the system from waste stream (or optionally run it partially open) (or have two 5500 gallons w/antifreeze)

current cost of geothermal system
18K for 5 ton and 8ton Bryant 27 seer systems
6000 for cistern and install
600 for two heat strips installed
800 for guys to come out look it over and say "whoever installed this was an idiot, here lets fix this and this"
So 25K plus for my whole system (which I think is still OK for what I got) but that payoff date keeps slipping into the future.

Once again,..Looking for help and suggestions. I feel I've made a baby step in that I've actually felt heat from both units w/out heating strips, and I can actually walk around in the house now with the heating strips. I still have faith this can be a great system there's just a lynch pin fix here somewhere to make it all work correctly.

I'm sure someone will chime in.

These Geo systems sure seem like they have a lot of problems with them. The search function on this forum is not the best but if you go back and search you will find dozens of threads about Geo system problems.

he said the well would deliver 20GPM 24/7/365.

Really? Even during the worst drought (ever)?

I have a VERY small footprint on which I can drill (1000 sqft ish total)

So, now you have TWO wells in 1,000 sf area? And they both yield 6 GPM? At the SAME time?

I need 13GPM for running all geothermal.

Your numbers actually work for using a storage tank. Ie, you are so close to having enough that the average use over 24 hours should always be less than the 12 gpm you now have. Thinking in terms of gallons per day should help.

I don't know anything about "developing" wells, but there are techniques to improve flow (and they are less expensive than another well).

Worse case, add some conventional heating/cooling to reduce peak loads. It won't effect the total usage very much.

I would think you could just turn this into a closed loop system with vertical wells and be done with it.

One time when we did not have enough flow from the well to do a pump-and-dump, we put a heat exchanger on an open loop and made in to a closed loop.  PM me with your email address if you are interested.

The key to good geothermal is getting the right person to design and install it from the git go. There are plenty of people living with happy systems who do not turn to the intranet to vent their happiness. lol

The sooner you get some pro consultation on a wholistic way to address your problem, the sooner you will get the truth and stop pissing money away. Another forum has Mark Custis, and Joe A. Both roaming geo expert pro's and consulting engineers.
Eric

We already know what the problem is and it's not the geo heat pumps Lbear.
You have enough flow for geo, so you just have to either do priority demands for DHW or in this cas a potable water cistern might be employed. You could capture and pump all of the geo discharge water as the temp is not more than 10* or so different than ground water.
Or you could recycle geo water to augment what is there by pasing it through the heat exchangers twice before disposal.

You don't need a heat pump expert, you need a water expert.
j

Looking at your numbers, just dump 1-2 gpm back into each well. Then you have standing column wells that will produce 14-16 gpm with a very high bleed rate.

Wow,..lots of good info here, I'll try to reply to all the replies so far with this post and update:

Lest anyone make $$ assumptions based on a 6K ft house, "spend the money you obviously have it!" I got it as a steal from a Bank owned foreclosure where the bank didn't winterize properly, so all pipes burst, sat for over a year and a half, became a mold farm, was broken into etc... I most likley couldn't afford to heat the place if it was electric, I was depending on the geothermal to save me some money (big joke there) Of course I have passive solar water heat as well so that helps a *little*. The Bank replaced damaged original 5 and 3 ton 25 seer geothermal with same sized 27 seer units as a condition of my purchase (as the water in the coils had frozen and broken them) and now I've got all the drywall/roofing/plumbing/electric done but I can't move in because I have a respratory issue where anything over 90w/high humidity is a killer for me.
So while I'm using more efficient systems and the required GPM is less, it's still over what I'm producing.

There is 0 problem with "The system" when it gets enough water it drops the temp FAST, but then it runs out of water and I have to shut it down, so I can't run it long enough to cool the house. (close to 6000sq ft) I'm not running the 2nd unit (3ton) as it only cools the lower level of the house which is considerably cooler than the upstairs (6+ degrees cooler) it's about 50% basement (walk out), but at this point I don't know how what the best running configuration is to cool the house as I can't run either units.

Tomorrow they do the testing to see if pumping well 2 dry will effect well 1, if not then a 3rd well may be in order if there's no drawdown problem solved for now.

*****
- Joe
I like the idea of a storage tank and/or running the dump back into the house system, I have bottled water/water cooler water delivered for drinking so we're really only talking shower/laundry/dishwasher so if that water was a little warmer it wouldn't really matter at all, so that's an idea I like that is on hold till I know what's up with the two wells I have now.
My only concern there is that If I need to run both systems, aren't I running a 1GPM deficit (ie won't I run the wells dry?)
Please forgive me if I'm looking at this in too simplistic a way, I'm just assuming max loads vs avaialable water.
Unless what you're saying about on demand would be: (output and/or available non usage water fills tank for home use, then run both till there's low water then switch to one till there's high water etc...
Sounds like at that point I need lots of controllers/pressure/depth meters etc.. to keep the system from running dry and the units switching on/off/over etc.. (ie $$$) would all that stuff be cheaper than another well?
***

As far as dumping water back into the well, at that point aren't I just "heating" the well water? (you can't cool a house with hot well water can you?) Wouldn't I have to put it in a cooling tank or loop to keep that from happening? I looked at the amount of looping for Vert & Horiz and I just don't have the footprint or money for H not the money for V. (in fact I'm tapped 100% at this point, so all solutions are going on hold till I get cash including getting someone who knows this stuff more than "the local well guy" to help figure it out, thus my posting on here.)

The original owner said they went through the drought of 85-87 w/no issues. 20GPM 24/7 granted that was the year after it was installed so...who knows.

As far as dumping water back into the well, at that point aren't I just "heating" the well water?

Perhaps you missed the 2 gpm part. You pump out 8 gpm, two go back in after being run through the heat pump, the other 6 go in the creek. It's called a standing column well and is a well proven design, even in some cases where > 90% of the water is returned to the well.

I hope the well test shows that you can run 6 GPM from each well. That would give you 12 GPM, and if you need 13 GPM to keep the heat pump happy, the bleed back idea is a good one. I don't know if you could dump back into the potable well, but you could in the geo well. Get 6 GPM from the potable well and 7 GPM from the Geo well by dumping 1 GPM of water back into the Geo well.

You bought a mold infested house, claiming it was a steel, and you have respiratory problems. As you might already have a sense here that you will keep paying for things for a long time to come, and some things you will not be able to fix with money. The frequency and severity of certain respiratory problems, such as asthma, is directly related to theconcentrations of certain molds in US households. Sell the house and stay healthier, no "dream house" is worth getting into things you are getting yourself into.

You bought a mold infested house, claiming it was a steel, and you have respiratory problems. As you might already have a sense here that you will keep paying for things for a long time to come, and some things you will not be able to fix with money. The frequency and severity of certain respiratory problems, such as asthma, is directly related to theconcentrations of certain molds in US households. Sell the house and stay healthier, no "dream house" is worth getting into things you are getting yourself into.

My mold mitigation company is the best, they sealed the house and used a mold eating enzyme. The basic premise is that this enzyme fog "eats" mold. They put enough of this stuff in the house to eat mold if it was on every surface and there's still not enough for it, it's starving and ravenous, so it seeks and destroys. When it dies it's carcass is a non-toxic mold inhibitor. Fog injected into every nook, cranny, and crevice. http://www.rtbmold.com Air purity each month for 6 months after show air quality being perfect (and that's with just the whole house fan keeping things moving) Mold is the last thing I need to worry about.