Hi all, I am thinking of installing a DX system with a vertical ground exchanger, and I have been wondering: how do manufacturers manage to insert a insert a fluid-tight U-bend copper tube in a 100ft hole?? How do they mange to make it U-shaped, and does it not kink when inserted? Thanks and regards, Fabien

They drill a hole, drop a prefabricated utube ( 2 close paralell pipes with a u fitting at the bottom) into it and inject grout from the bottom up. If it were to kink it would be the above ground side of the bore.
J

That's what I thought they did with PE tubes, but I didn't know it was possible with copper? Are there suppliers of long-enough U-bended copper tubing and how do they unroll it in the borehole??
F

Just like PE the U is a fitting on the bottom of 2 paralell tubes, not a bent pc of pipe. generally tube would be on a spool that well boom could support and pipe is lowered into bore. Other ways are possible.

Ask all the sundries you like here, but when you are shopping for a heat pump for real, focus on things in the shoppers list.
j

Are any commercial DX systems using 100' vertical bores? I would think it impossible to recover oil from that kind of installation. All that I have seen use several smaller loops and horizontal or slanted loops.

Earthlinked uses 100' and Noridc uses up to 120' vertical bores.

-Adam

Posted By Down2Earth Geothermal on 24 Mar 2010 03:47 PM
Earthlinked uses 100' and Noridc uses up to 120' vertical bores.

-Adam

Nordic took a pause from the DX business waiting for afordability of more reliable electric XV's

We have 5 commercial buildings in Utah using EarthLinked systems. Each heat pump has its own INDEPENDENT ground loop. We look at it as a multiple zoned system. Each zone usually gets its own heat pump (as does a water source system...), but we don't link the ground loops. That way, we don't have all our eggs in one basket--there's no chance of the entire building going down if the loop has problems...

2 are LDS church meeting houses
1 is a 14,400 sq. ft. truck shop
1 is a Dialysis center
1 is a T-shirt/hat, etc printing shop and flower store.

The connection on the end of an EarthLinked vertical loop is made in a 7/8" copper tube piece, with a rounded/spun copper end. Hope that makes sense.