As you can see, I’m new to Geothermal related forums, I prefer using forums for my hobbies and interests, not posting problems.  Anyway, sorry for the long post, to the best I can recall, here is my experience over the last three years…Our house is exactly three years old and we have had countless breakdown/performance issues with our Hydro Delta MegaTek Quadra-Therm unit.

1^st unit lasted several months and kept loosing coolant due to a cracking line.  When the third solder job didn’t hold up, my HVAC contractor that sold us the system removed it and replaced it with a completely new unit that was updated with redesigned components and other improvements. 

2^nd unit lasted around 20 months.  With this unit our electricity usage seemed much higher than planned, to the point that I repeatedly complained to the contractor.  Eventually a temporary electrical meter was installed to monitor the usage.  I was repeatedly told by the HVAC contractor that my electrical usage wasn’t out of line vs other customers with similar units/homes.  I was convinced that something wasn’t right.

Then during the winter months, the unit couldn’t heat the house without the emergency heat kicking in.  To complicate the issue, the unit couldn’t heat the 80 gal domestic water heater.  So I had to turn the breaker on for the water heater and heat our domestic water with the element.  This system was sold to me as providing 100% of the heat source for the in-floor radiant heat (which had not been hooked up yet) and domestic hot water (which is what sold me on going with this HVAC contractor).  Obviously by now we knew the system couldn’t produce enough heat to even heat the house let alone any water.  Next the compressor went out, so a new compressor was installed.  However, the same lack of heating continued.  Another compressor goes out and it is determined that a valve is defective allowing coolant into the compressor.  The contractor serviceman brings a Hydro Delta engineer from the factory to our home, they spend a full day replacing the valve and retuning the unit and felt confident our unit was as good as new.  That very night our unit goes down again.  The factory engineer (John) is still in town so they come back again the next day.   They determine that the same valve is defective due the valve being damaged during the solder job.  So a factory soldered valve is shipped from the factory with extra line on both sides of the valve so it can be soldered with out the heat being so close to the valve.  Unit goes down again in a few days.  Keep in mind 100% of our heat is coming from the emergency back up and 100% of our hot water is coming from the element while these issues stretched through an extended period of the winter.  The service offered by my HVAC contractor was excellent considering the difficulties, the serviceman was at our home countless times.

3^rd unit.  HVAC contractor offers me a third unit and gives me a choice of trying a water heating unit again or going with a non watering heating unit.  Contractor encourages me to go with a non waterheating unit because he’s not confident in HydroDelta’s unit and had problems with every other unit like mine they installed.  Also said I would get a $1700 credit back as the non water heating unit cost less than the standard unit.  So now I’m left with electric element heat for domestic hot water and no heat source for the in floor radiant heat, which was never hooked up yet.

13 months after installation the 3^rd unit, it started acting up last week.    Seemed to labor and fan speed was continuously in high and it couldn’t cool the house. We noticed the unit has gotten steadily noisier with an annoying pulsating hum (The previous 2 units seem noisy in the end as well).   Even with a clean filter the unit eventually went into “Discharge Lockout”.  Serviceman was back again and after an unknown repair, the unit is back up and running again, but for how long?  What will break next? 

So far I’ve received no charges for any of the repairs.  Received no compensation for the high electric bills while the system ran on emergency heat.  I’m stuck with inefficient electric elements heating the domestic hot water.  Contractor offered an electric boiler as the heat source for the radiant in-floor heat, while he kept the $1,700.  As if it cannot get worse, the 200amp panel has no room to wire in a 20 amp electric boiler (HVAC contractor also wired our house)  Contractor wants $5,000 for complete install of the boiler.  His suggestion to wire the boiler is to but the geo emergency heat on a switch so that emergency heat can be manually shut off and boiler ran off those breakers.  How much will my electric bills be affected by the electric boiler operation???  How many more sleepless nights will I have???

Joe. thank you for your thoughts.

Concern #1 -  I don't think my contractor handles any other geothermal brand. 

Concern #2 -  Not sure I want a Hydro Delta unit given the track record of my own unit and now that I've began researching on the internet found many others having similiar issues.

Concern #3 -  After unit #2 went down and I was offered a replacement.  I followed the suggestion of the contractor to go with a unit without the on-demand water heat.  SO I can no longer heat water as effiently as possible.  This is NOT what I was originally sold on.