Hey everyone I bought a new in the box earthlinked dx 3.5 ton unit for my 1800sq foot colonial. Picked it up for a good deal from someone who never installed it and gave up on their project. I have a half acre pond 12 - 15 ft deep fed by an arteisian well that is supposedly 70 gallons a min. It looks a lot less than that to me coming out of the pipe. More like an open ended garden hose on full blast. How do I test this? Just use a bucket and a stop watch? Should I make a pond loop with this dx pump? Or maybe divert the artesian well water into a home made heat exchanger?? Need to come up with a plan here soon as I am 50 miles north of Detroit. Also what kind of copper and soldier can I use?

wow this definately sounds like you are not up to the job. Perhaps someone on here can help you but I am pretty sure if you have a DX heat pump its made for a DX application which means that you can't use it like you intend...definately you are in over your head regardless I would hire a pro to do it but they may tell you you have the wrong unit for what you intend to do

One can take a DX heat pump and use a water loop. It requires getting a water to refrigerant heat exchanger, pumps, and controls.

As far as the amount of water, your bucket and stopwatch are probably the best easy way to get a decent idea...maybe there are better easy ways, too, though...

I vote for bucket and stopwatch - K.I.S.S.

I have no doubt a creative tech could marry your DX unit to your well or pond. There are enough technical issues (handling refrigerant, system charge, freeze protection, ensuring pressures, current and temperature stay in bounds, etc) to call for a real pro.

Ok some new info-

I just recently bought this place (forclosure) and was figuring out the well and all the goodies in the basement.  There is a second line coming in that I have determined that comes from the artesian well and was used to run a geo A/C unit.  It has a little gorman rupp 1/20 hp pump that is burned up.  I removed the pump and opened the ball valve and i have a pretty good artesian flow.  I will have to measure the open flow but I think I can get more with a larger pipe as they necked it down almost half after it comes into the basement.  The artesian well is between the house and pond and it tees off to both the house and pond, so shutting it off at the house is no problem.  When I let it flow into the house it barely slows the flow to the pond.  So if I use a pump I can get more to the house if need be.

So now new plan is to make a heat exchanger in the basement and control system.

Any Ideas on where to get info to do this?

I am thinking a 100' loop of copper in a 55 gallon plastic barrel with the artesian well water flowing through it and dump it back into the pond.

It it a problem if there is too much flow of well water through the homemade heat exchanger??

Also, how should I plum the copper coil in the barrel? Liquid side going into the bottom of the barrel and vapor out the top or vise-versa?  How and where along the path do I make the transition between 1/2 copper and 3/4 copper?

Oh boy - McGyver lives on.

I rigged something similar for a 3 ton Carrier AS heat pump I inherited and converted to water source by pushing 50' of 1/2" copper refrigeration tubing into 50' of 1" ID black rubber hose and counterflowed refrigerant thru the copper and water through the hose surrounding the copper. I controllled water with $10 HomeDepot lawn sprinkler valve wired to the low voltage signal firing the contactor. It worked well on 5-10 psi of artesian well pressure and an additional elegant feature was that if it froze up, the water hose didn't rupture as a copper outer shell would have - reverse the system for 5-10 minutes until water flow resumes and all is well.

Needless to say, the usual McGyver disclaimers apply: YMMV, and lethal voltages and pressures lurk therein. It is big time illegal to handle refrigerant w/o EPA cert and following their rules. I have no idea if and how a similar setup would work in your situation.

Keep us informed!

Check out the ARI standard for rating DX heat pumps - I don't know how much detail is in it, but if I recall correctly the way the ARI tests DX systems is almost exactly as you describe above.

You might ask Earthlinked if they have details on someone doing it.

You might want to sell your dx pump and buy a water source heat pump.

I agree that a water source heat pump should save you some trouble. I don't think you'll find Earthlinked interested in assissting a H/O install. Nor are they obliged to warranty anything. Hope you didn't spend much.
Good Luck,
Joe

By the way 3.5 ton could be oversized for the job...
j