Has anyone heard that their horizontal pit should be saturated with water after the intial backfill? I know that my installer of the Earthlinked DX system put in 4 or 5 long runs of plastic hose directly above the copper lines. These plastic hose ends were cinched above ground after backfill. He states that Earthlink reqiures the install of these hoses for warranty. When speaking with some folks they state that these hoses are used to saturate the pit after backfill to achieve proper and quick settling of the earth around the copper lines to achieve efficiency.
My field was installed in mid October and never saturated. My electric usage is twice the amount then quoted from the energy loads from my installer, and his energy loads were very similar to another contractor that I had quote the job. I believe the energy loads are accurate, but until I have proper settling of the earth around the copper lines, either thru time or the use of the soaker hoses, my electric usage will be higher then anticipated.
Any comments?

Pipe is for the water supply to make soil wet.  Wet soil has better heat conductivity and better specific heat compared to dry soil.

If you have high e-bill then the installer suggested you could check the following things,

(1) What fraction of the hour does heat pump running at the given temperature?

(2) Does it cause axilliary heat running?

(3) Do I have additional heat loss, which was not accounted when the system was designed ? (Do additional insulation)

If your system needs to run long time check the return vapor temperature (measure the temperature of the copper pipe on the returning side). If it is below 30 F, there is not enough heat exchange on the ground.  Ask installer to check for the system defect, there may be ECR's 5 year warranty??

Hope it helps.

There are specific controls hooked to a solenoid valve so that when the vapor line rises above x it soaks the field whey it drops below y it soaks the field

While it is a great idea to soak the feild for propper compaction I believe arid locations or extreme conditions could require this control , I believe its required for , just in case .