I have a new geothermal install, 1000' vertical loop, pump, Climatemaster with HWG and all is working very well. Is there any meters or equipment I can buy to monitor the system over time, to be sure it is running ok? I don't plan to do much in the way of service myself, but I am an EE and would like to avoid waiting until some large failure before calling a geothermal pro to look at the system.

http://www.welserver.com/intro.htm

Check out this system, Docjenser of Buffalo Geothermal uses them on lots of installs.

Here is one with a Climatemaster- http://welserver.com/WEL0448/

Chris

I am able to monitor temps and historical data using the Ecobee, but I was thinking more in terms of pressures, fluid topoff, some device to communicate with the Climatemaster maybe?

You should not need to topoff your fluid unless you are running a non pressurized flow center, a closed loop is just that... closed, no air or water goes in and no air or water goes out. Pressures will change as the loop temp raises and lowers but its not a big deal. The biggest thing you should watch for is if the emergency heat is turning on or if the unit won't cool, beyond that it should be working properly for many years to come.

ok, will do. thank you.

"I realize there is also a TE30, but I am not evaluating this model."

".....some device to communicate with the Climatemaster maybe?"

The TE 30 and TZ 22 do have communicating controls, but you ruled them out.

be a student of entering and leaving temps and you will be able to recognize trouble.

The TE model had a lot more options that I would have liked, but my installer highly suggested against the digitals so I went with his experience and the TT

Posted By kinglerch on 20 Jun 2014 05:24 AM
I have a new geothermal install, 1000' vertical loop, pump, Climatemaster with HWG and all is working very well. Is there any meters or equipment I can buy to monitor the system over time, to be sure it is running ok? I don't plan to do much in the way of service myself, but I am an EE and would like to avoid waiting until some large failure before calling a geothermal pro to look at the system.

I'm one of the many here that use the Web Energy Logger ( http://www.welserver.com ) to do exactly what you want to do, ranging from real time monitoring with alarms to very long term historical analysis (i.e., dreaded borehole field heating over time since I live a hot climate).

See http://www.welserver.com/WEL0043 for a pretty elaborate setup.  It's possibly more that you want but it's a good example of a lot of stuff.  It's also used as an example by instructional organizations on energy management.

Later you posted that you'd like to include pressure monitoring.  While certainly this is very easy and straightforward to do with the WEL, still, I would not recommend it.  In fact, I would not recommend you connect anything to your refrigerant lines.  Doing it in error, developing a small leak over time, etc. will all result in significant problems for you since there's so little refrigerant in these package geo systems to start with.  Plus, you're likely to have warranty pushback from your distributor if you later have performance problems.  You can measure temps at the right places and infer refrigeration problems instead.  This is what I do to signal when a refrigerant leak is developing.

Best regards,

Bill