Greetings, 1st post on this site. I tripped over it while searching for a part for my obsolete desuper heater. I have a US Powers GSDX that we installed when we built our log home in '93-'94. Does anyone else here have one of these? I'd like to compare notes. They went out of bussiness shortly after we installed our system. I've searched the site a bit and noticed a couple of things. Lot's of talk about the aux heat. Why is that? That's one of the reasons I went geo. My aux has never come on in all those years unless we move the thermostat to far at a time. or turn sys off and restart after house is cold. I will qualify this by saying that I also have a woodstove. But we have gone as long as 2-3 weeks at a time without a fire in a cold snap like we are experiencing now on east coast without backup coming on and sys only running approx 80+% of the time. This my questimate of on-off time by observation no hard numbers of run time.
It seems that the common systems now seem to be water based instead of gsdx. Is there a reason for that.
Can anyone point me towards a manufacturer or dealer of gsdx type systems in the mid atlantic. I only know of one and I like what I've seen of their product. They seem to have worked out most of the little niggling issues that we have had over the years with our early generation sys. My sys is working fine but is getting older and I'd like to start doing my homework for when the day comes that it will need to be replaced or upgraded.
I'm also looking for  a water temp valve for my desuper heater that doesn't function properly anymore. Most hvac and plumbing places just shrug when asked about it. It is the valve that controls water flow into the DSH. It is adjustable and works like a car thermostat. It's labeled "watts reg. co. 1/2 70a-z not anti-scald" it sweats into 1/2 copper pipe. Thanks much. Great forum. Wish I had access to this kind of info this easy 15 years ago!

Watts Regulator is a company still in business to my knowledge - try them directly. The Addison / ECR Hot Tap add-on desupers utilized a similar arrangement - not sure if they are still in business or selling that box anymore. I think I still have the guts of one in my basement, but I have no idea if the valve is still there or even if it ever worked right.

Modern desupers avoid this valve in favor of letting a greater flow of water be heated only 10-15 degrees per pass through the desuper. This simplifies the desuper and greatly increases total heat recovery. Careful plumbing is needed to keep the higher flow of often tepid water from chilling the existing hot water. Current method is to supply desuper from cold water line and return it via the boiler drain. This method is totally incompatible with gas-fired storage type heaters and marginal with single tank electric storage heater setups. It is much better to dedicate a preheat tank upstream of the regular hot water tank / heater. I've written at length elsewhere here on that issue so won't repeat myself now.

As for aux heat, you obviously have a system sized to avoid it - that's good. In many cases, though, total cost of ownership (initial investment and operating costs) is minimized through carefully specified system size incorporating some use of aux heat.

I infer you have a DX system wherein copper refrigerant lines are directly buried. Those are still sold, and one of their rabid fans will likely be along any minute now to comment on your questions (paging tuffluckdriller). It may be that a new unit could be piped to your existing copper loop field - but I'll leave that question for others.

I beleive your system morped into the Earth Source product as opposed to the more popular Earthlinked. For parts try our friends at Free Source energy in Minn. They are no longer the Earth Source distributor but can probably help (ask for John). For replacement down the road, your loop field will likely work with either system.
Regarding your aux. heater question, depends entirely on system design.
Good luck,
Joe

Thanks for the responses. Yes I have a buried copper with freon system. After 15 years of living with what was considered by many at the time experimental technology Include me in the rabid fan catagory. This has been the lowest maintanance and most trouble free hvac sys I have ever had in a home. To say nothing of the fact that in a total electric home my bills have been 1/3 to 1/2 of what my neighbors have had over the years in similar sized homes. Of course there are other factors to that: lots of insulation, all flouresent lighting, high efficiency appliances, good windows. I'm sold on the combination of geo and wood heat. After years of experimentation these days we normally leave the heat pump set in the low sixties and build a fire if it's cool after work. The log home has some unique properties with the thermal mass factor. On sunny days even when cold outside the shell warms nicely in thae sun and radiates inward for hours. Spring and fall we require little of no supplemental heating or cooling. Temps are regulated by opening windows.
Anyway as for reusing the field. One maunufacturer has told me it would not support their product. I have a horizontal field and the main glitchof the sys occurs in drought situations which are becoming more common as of late. In summer cooling when the ground dries out it will overload with heat and have trouble absorbing more heat. Sort of a thermocline kind of effect. Fortunatly they placesd a long soaker hose over the feild when it was installed to help make the ground settle on the coils by wetting it. Sometimes it becomes neccessary to turn on the tap to this hose to wet the ground to cool the coils. Problem is in a drought you don't want to use a lot of water from your well to do this. This is a very humid area in the summer time and my sys makes large amounts of cold condensate. I tried useing a condensate pump to feed the soaker hose once but it wouldn't push the pressure needed for the buried hose. I think I'm going to work on this again this year with a storage tank and a float switch. I'll use a larger pump to push the water. Has anyone done something similar? How did it work out? I figure this would do a better job of constantly wetting the field and let the system cool itself. The 1st sign we used to get that this was happening was too hot shower water. When the refrigerant comes back hot then the desuper heater would heat the water in the hot water to extreme levels. I believe this got worse as the above valve failed. I turned the desuper heater off a while back and would like to put it back in service. Sorry for the long post.

Total condensate flow is likely to be on the order of 1-2 gallons per hour, probably not enough to help much.

Soaking a horizontal field is (from what I've learned here) a one shot remedy to reconsolidate soil around the lines for better heat transfer. Doing it on an ongoing basis to maintain dampness and / or transport heat away from the loop via the movement of the water is another matter entirely. It helps, as you have noticed, but flows in the GPM range vs GPH range are I think what you'd need.

Thanks, You make a valid point. I guess it would be easy enough to measure my condensate on a summers day to get real flow #s. You are probably correct that it wouldn't be enough. I was thinking in cummuative terms. It only takes running the hose at a moderate flow for an hour or 2 every few days to get things back under control. It is only needed in severly hot dry weather when the ac has been on nonstop for days on end. Those times when you can dig a hole 2 ft deep before you hit moist dirt. We have had a couple of years without a real rainfall between memorial day and labor day since we built. The soil here is quite rocky so we bedded the coils in a couple of inches of sand to prevent punctures as the ground settled. I'm sure that cut down on heat transport a little but beats an under ground leak. My thought was if I run all condesate avail during the cooling season through the soaker it would offset and slow the drying of the soil somewhat. That and the fact that I could do it with materials on hand with little or no outlay of cash. That way it would be a cheap experiment. If it helps great if not no big deal just running the water out the front of the house instead of the rear. If I ever build again I'll put the septic uphill of the coils. LOL I don't think massive amounts of water are required just enoght to moisten the soil so it will absorb heat again. Sort of the same prnmciple of what happens if you pick up a hot pan on the stove with a wet towel. The heat travels through the towel much faster than dry.
Just a note on the original settling of the soil. We had a 50'x50'x5'deep hole in the front yard and filled it layer by layer and tamped it with a very large bulldozer as each layer was placed back in the hole. We ran the soaker alot that 1st summer and did see some settling. It was a wet year '94. In the winter of '96 we had 3'-4' of snow in one storm. A week later we got a torrental rainstorm on top of the snow which caused massive flooding and soil saturation in the area. When it was all over the ground over the hole had sunk between 6"-9" enough to require some grading work! The difference in the system was noticeble.

Regarding condensate flow: a 3 ton unit operating at 75% sensible / 25% latent and producing its nominal tonnage will make approximately 1 gallon per operating hour.

As long as it costs little to get the condensate out there, then by all means go for it - you wrote of buying a pump, which might not be worthwhile for such a low flow

I wonder if it would be fairly easy / feasible to automate use of the soaker hose - perhaps by sensing excessive compressor current, head pressure, or discharge temperature and then activating a water valve to the soaker hose. Would probably want to interlock with cooling mode only....just throwing out an idea.

I read that one of the DX systems out there now has just such a system (tied to head pressure). I'm thinking of using a DX system in a house I'm remodeling and I wouldn't think of installing it without some soaker hose above the lines. I think it would benefit some closed loop systems as well.

The purpose of a soaker hose is to aide compaction. While it appears to be an attractive "turbo boost" intermittantly, prolonged use could undermine your lawn. One thing that will improve your a/c performance long term is to fix your DSH.
The field described above sounds common for a 5 ton DX of most any type (500sf/ton), however, some systems do not have as long a reach as others (can't recover oil that's too far away) so distance of the feild from appliance as weel as rise are factors. I believe Earthlinked has the longest reach currently (at least with R-22), you may want to do your replacement research sooner than later if refrigerant is a factor (Earthlinked doesn't work well with blends prone to seperation). If Earth Source's Geo direct will work, then a NU-22 unit will answer refrigeration concerns. Best to look sooner than later, before one of your options (R-22) is off the table.
J

Interesting observations.

Would a horizontal DX field be less vulnerable to distant pooled oil than a vertical field?

Looks like I'm doing that homework now! I have a 4 ton unit. I just checked a picture we took of the field install to refresh my aging memory. The field consists of a copper log manifold with 30 100' pieces of 3/8" roll copper laid out like a butterfly wing back into a log manifold. The depth is aproximately 5' down which is slightly above the compressor in the basement. As far as refrigerant is concerned that has been an issue all along as this is an r12  system to the best of my knowlege. So far there has never been a leak. I had the compressor replaced the summer before last. They had to add a miniscule amount of coolant but it was expensive! I don't think the compressor is quite as energy efficient as the original but seems to get more work done. I don't know how else to explain that. The AC which always has been amazingly cold is now even more so. Last summer we had the a coil freeze with condensate for the 1st time ever. My curiosity is now up to measure the condensate flow. Easy enough with a bucket and a watch on a humid day. This thing makes so much water that the air handler has had a hard time channeling it away many times over the years. Resulting in water in the floor. Especially when the sys has been off for a while and we get a heat snap. I have rerouted the drains to aid the flow away from the handler. But have never been impressed with the design of several aspects of the trane air handler. Remember this is a log home and the inside of the house is always trying to match the humidity of the outside air. Much more moisture transport than a conventional home.
I have found a company whose system I like on paper. The are only a couple of hours away from here and have a local contractor in the area. "Great aire comfort system" ECR indusries. Has anyone had any experience with this company or their product? It would probably be a total retrofit except ductwork. The air handler could probably be reused but as stated above I'm not crazy about it. Their engineer says that my field would not support their 4 ton sys. They use 70' taps bored at 30 degree angle into the ground. Still a gsdx type of system. This sys also has the option of desuperheater or on demand hot water from the heat pump(recomended). They have been helpful over the phone and have even offered to help repair my existing desuperheater. I intend to keep what I have until it doesn't work any longer or becomes cost prohibitive to maintain as overall it works well. If it were to fail completely mid winter that would not be a disaster as I can heat my home fine with the woodburner. I have also toyed with installing a second smaller sys that could use my existing field to heat the garage in the winter time occasionally.

Love there product , hate there tech support , They will spend 4 units of energy to blame anything else , rather then 1 unit of energy in assistance . Now thats eff.

Seriously though I do like there product but save the dime if you have issues

ECR is Earthlinked. Before scraping the field check with Geo direct. Your field is one I'm not familiar with, figured it for a 1/4" horizontal, but if no one thinks they can use it then you are starting from scratch and can pick any system. I would point out the obvious, if contractor again can't promise compatibility with a system down the road, no loop system is a bargain.
j

I'm a home owner & I have the Great Aire Comfort System from ECR (5 ton, w/ hot water; retrofit). Been running since October...

Follow some of my posts as I've been having some new owner inquiries, and the guys on this forum have been a great help, if but only entertaining my questions.

Not that it will help you, but I put up a little photo gallery of my installation saga...
http://www.thevinman.net/gallery/Geothermal - Geofan, you'll get a kick out of these. :)

I'd love to hear from other folks who have this system, as well...

BY earthlinked I beleive you mean the same as Ground Source Direct Xchange refrigerant through copper. As opposed to earth coupled water/anti freeze through a field(closed loop). I haven't done alot of reading on this stuff in a long while and there is a lot of new terms and info for me to digest. I guess that's a good thing. there is alot more interest these days. When I put mine in people acted like I had been abducted by aliens now the same folks have been dropping by to ask how it worked out. Our electric rates have doubled in the last year because of supposed deregulation. Another term for stick it to the customer!
Great pics that drill looks like a soviet missle launcher. Don't think compaction is an issue with that thing rolling around the yard. Compared to that spiderweb my install looks pretty neat.  I need to replace my scanner so I can post up some of the old film pics of my system.

ECR Technologies = Earthlinked Technologies, Inc. : http://www.earthlinked.com/

ECR Industries, Inc. = Advanced Geothermal Technology : http://www.advgeo.com/
(These are the guys that make the Great Aire Comfort System...)

The prior changed their name : http://www.ecrtech.com/node/239

Thanks for clearing that up. Yep I'm looking at the sys you have. Any other recommendations for dx companies?

Their web site above has a decent referral list.
J

Regarding soaker hose vs lawn - I was thinking of another thread where it was said that the soaker hose was buried just a bit above the dx lines, not on the surface grass. Seems like good insurance during backfill, but I'd be worried soaker would rot out fairly quickly - the one's I've seen are cheap and weak

Yes my soaker is buried with the coil in the bedding layer of sand seems to get the water out there still. They are made out of ground up car tires which is pretty tuff stuff. Main things that break that down are ozone and UV. I've found old tractor tires in my woods that were decades old that were quite intact. That is one of our big enviornmental problems. Tires out last their usefulness by a few hundred years. They make great seawalls, retaining walls, and green buildings too.
http://www.earthship.net/web/
Soaker hoses are a way to use the recycled rubber. I would bet if dug up it would be fine. Bear in mind this is normally something I do just a couple of times a summer and not normally a regular thing. I think the 3" - 4" sand layer where the coils are probably saturates fairly easily. The soil above and below is heavy with clay and rock. I'm more concerned about the hose having been crushed in some place along its 100+' length then by decay.