how does snow affect geo?  i was told to plow the snow off my pond so the sun shines in, do you think that will help? then i was thinking about frost, this year we have very little frost because of the early snow, so you would think that no frost would be better than 3 feet or does the snow reflect the sun from absorbing into the earth or dont it if it is froze?  just curious because my loop temp is coming in a 32 and out at 26, so is the ground down by the loops freezing,  thanks

If your loops are near the bottom but not buried, then the surrounding water should be 39F. Any water colder or warmer would rise.

I don't know, but seems like there is thicker ice on the ponds here when there is no snow.

If you can plow off the ice it must be pretty thick and cold and if it is that cold leaving a blanket of snow will actually kept the ground warmer. We always had the thickest ice when there was no snow and if it snowed a lot the ice was usually thinner because the snow kept the cold air from freeing the top layer of water quicker.

So I would think leave the snow on it.

Leave the snow on the ice. It acts as an insulator as Brock said. 20 years of ice fishing on the lakes of MN will back that up!

this is why i wonder about my installers knowledge

Unless the ice happened to freeze during calm atmospheric conditions and is unusually clear, it generally reflects a significant portion of the solar radiation; thus removing the snow cover will not significantly increase the solar gain. A pond loop EWT of 32 F points to a possible short loop or poor loop configuration where a slinky mat or spacers were not used.

-Adam

they put in 5 coils of 400 ft each, each coil stands 1 1/2 ft tall, 2-3ft dia. they did mention about adding more this spring when it thaws, would it loose much heat from the pond to the house 200ft away 6 ft deep, my house has a spring under it and drains to the pond in the same trench as the loop pipes, the drain starts 9 ft down out of the basement to o ft at pond so it should be soaking down to the loops

I wouldn't expect significant effect by the 200' run 6' down.

I'm not particularly alarmed by 32 EWT. Best case the water surrounding the pond loop is 39F, so that's a 7 deg delta pond to loop water. Designed properly, system should accommodate 32 EWT.

That said, I don't believe pond loops should be clumped in a coil - I agree mat or spacers should be used (I do not have personal experience with pond loops, though)