not sure if my last post made it, sorry if this is a repeat.  So short and sweet three contractors three diffrent units each one says theirs is the best and points out the flaws in the others.  Switching from Oil to heat radiant floor and domestic hot water.  What units should I be looking at and what should I stay away from?  So far Water furnace, Econar, and ECR are my options.  ground trenches 4 ton unit getting diffrent advice on how long the trenches should be.  I live in Washington state.

Tough call.

The skill and integrity of the installer are generally more important than the brand of equipment. I have and like my Waterfurnace (so far), but Econar and ECR are established brands as well. All use many of the same or one of only a few choices of components (compressors, reversing valves, contactors, thermostats, etc)

That a contractor runs down other brands rather than focusing on the positive aspects of their own system is a black mark.

Regarding trench length, there generally different ways to skin that cat. Go with whoever seems to have most precisely assessed your soil conditions and building / zone loads rather than relying on 'rules of thumb'

I just had a fourth contractor today, still waiting for a bid from him and one other. This one tells me that the Hydron heat pump is his choice. Says he works with water furnace also but prefers the hydron. Has anyone heard of this heat pump, good bad?

I also prefer Hydron to Water Furnace.

I would recommend the ECR unit. DX geothermal is a wonderful way to go. And it's usually less expensive up front, along with being more efficient.

EarthLinked (ECR) is a tested and proven product in 14 different countries, and 41 different states.

I've installed Trane, Climatemaster, Waterfurnace, Geofurnace, Hydron, Econar, FHP, and EarthLinked. EarthLinked definitely takes the cake. The only advantage I see about any water source heat pump over EarthLinked is that EarthLinked is limited to smaller buildings. With your house, though, it would be your best fit. We've had tremendous results with their performance. In almost every case, the EarthLinked units have performed better than expected.

Another point is that the DX loop is completely maintenance free. It won't need re-purged or re-pressured after a few years of operation. It won't need expensive flow center pumps replaced as a result of the loop needing to be re-purged.

One last thing, though... Even though I strongly recommend EarthLinked, ANY geothermal heat pump sized and installed correctly is MUCH better than ANY gas/oil/fossil fuel system.

I hadn't heard of Hydron Module but just now surfed it a bit. While the stainless steel cabinets and dual compressor offerings are unique, there was very little info on the web and efficiency (EER) of the dual compressor systems was little more than half of WF, acording to one doc. They don't use ECM blowers, blaming them for air stratification - I don't buy that argument - proper duct design should prevent that.

They wouldn't be in the running unless I came into more / better info. That they don't maintain a comprehensive website is a huge black mark in my book

The Hydron Company was just purchased by the Enertech Company.  Their website is currently being reworked. 

I am not sure where you found the above info,  but it is not current nor correct.


Hydron units come standard with ECM blower motors.

Send me your email and I will send you a spec book pdf for you to look at.

You can get my email from my website listed below.

geodean,

I sent an email as you suggested.

I like the idea of two compressor systems as they better address the turn-down issue which I regard as a weakness of both WaterFurnace and ClimateMaster units - 1st stage capacity on the Copeland compressor is 70% of 2nd stage. A 70% 1st stage is too much for multizone systems when only a single small zone calls.

A Co. in Arkansas, Hydroheat, has a system with 2 dissimilarly sized compressors - that's a neat idea since it allows 3 speed operation like a 3 way light bulb - Low = small compressor, Medium = big compressor, High = both compressors.

What's really needed is a compressor able to work like ECM blowers - continuously variable load within a range of 25-100%, or even 10-100%. That would allow single room zones, for which I think there is a market in higher end homes

what system are you talking about Hydron or ECM.

Hydron is a brand of geo heatpump. ECM is a type of electronically controlled blower (made by GE?) used by many if not most higher-end heat pump manufacturers, both geo and conventional air-source. ECM blower effciency and speed control is a marked improvement over decades-old PSC blowers with hardwired speed taps.

I do now understand thanks to docs from Geodean that Hydron uses ECMs on some models. I skimmed performance data for Hydron and it appeared to me that their effciencies are good but exceeded by WaterFurnace Envision series

Im a enertech dealer and Hydron is the way to go. Stay away from DX in my opinion. Enertech is also GeoComfort which I install.