i want to install a geo system near high springs/fort white florida -- can anyone reccomend a contractor with expeience - what kind of cooling can i expect - how deep will i have to go for a horizontal loop - best system for price - etc - any help will be great - thanks - pete

You are fairly close to me (Green Cove Springs). I can vouch for the competence and integrity of the Waterfurnace distributor based in Daytona, although he favors verticals, I believe mostly because many customers (beach front, commercial) have limited land. He should be able to point you at a decent dealer.

I'm an engineer working toward a Florida HVAC license to partner with my home builder. He builds custom 'green' ICF homes with geo systems but has had bad experience with local (Jacksonville) HVAC contractors. I designed mine, it went well, so we are working together on future projects. Florida home building is real slow, so I'm keeping my day job, but we're moving along. In a nutshell, virtually no one does geo near JAX. My builder has had to use a driller from Panama City (5 hours away) so you can imagine the expense and logistic nightmares.

At any rate, if you are serious about a geo system I'd appreciate the opportunity to assist you since you are so nearby.

To answer a couple of your questions:

"what kind of cooling can i expect" - You should expect a system able to quietly meet your comfort needs, temperature and humidity, at a low cost of operation. Good design and a proper installation gets you there.

"best system for price" - better question would be "best installer..." There are several good brands of essentially similar equipment available - Waterfurnace, Climate Master, Florida Heat Pump, and Hydron Module, to name a few. Design and installation details trump brand.

I'm not sure about horizontal loop depth needed here - we don't have a frost problem, but need to be deep enough to tap ground temperatures without undue surface influence, perhaps 4-6 feet depending on loop configuration.

Pete,
I would suggest that for the preliminaries you secure a manual j load and operating cost comparisons. I may not get kudos from all my peers here, but in cooling dominated environs air source equipment can be quite efficient (when you factor in installation cost differences). The ability to go horizontal does give you an advantage however and once you throw in a 2K tax credit......
It sounds like Engineer would make himself available to help, why don't you contract him through the load process (btu requirements are necessary to secure any bids) and go from there.
To give you an idea, my last contract load and cost comparison (for a viability study) was about the same as the cost of residential software to perform same.
Keep us posted,
Joe

Joe is correct to raise the issue of economic operation in our heavy cooling climate. Cooling equipment efficiency, whether air or ground sourced, is highly dependent upon the temperature the equipment is 'pushing' the heat into. Compared with, say, Tucson or Las Vegas, Florida's summer air temps are a fairly 'mild' 93 or so. That means that for closed loop geo to be more efficient in summer special attention must be paid to keeping entering water temperature as low as possible. Deep earth temp is approximately 71, so the window of opportunity is tight - getting the loop right is crucial.

One can't completely discount heating costs here, though. Winter design temp is about 30, and for my house, heating and cooling load on design worked out almost equal, and that has been confirmed during actual operation. We are headed for 20s again this weekend, and geo has a clear advantage meeting that load.

Calculating building load is the first step.

Just took a trip to FL. actualy there now

1 thing I can say is while ROI is much higher when heating , The volume of AC is huge here I ran mine in the hotel last night and its Jan!!

The best AC SEER is the Maytag IQ at 23 next is Carrer Infiniaty at 21 neither system is a heat pump (yet) and neither is close to expected geo preformance. And while either would be cheaper then a GSHP there not cheap 8-15K

What I am saying is coastal virginia probubly has a worse ROI then Floridia ( from what Ive seen ) because while they almost never heat , They sure can clock some hours on an ac unit