hi Joe:
Nice site !

Just wanted to know DX cold winter Northern states, NY OH PA
if I am burning 9000 kwh in
Cooling with 100% HW reclaim and On-Demand and PRIORITY-Instant...
with
Cooling alone,
and Heating,
metered,
High Eff GT 3-staging Dual compressor averaging COP 4.0 + Annual utilization:::

What would I save with a 4-TON COMPRESSOR INSIDE a DX ?

Anyone?

52-deg damp-clay soil 7ft deep,
GT LOOP stays above 35 deg, 18%-20% Meth,
ONE PUMP on a 4-ton compressor, 5x 3/4 loops x ~ 500 ft each in a single 4ft wide ditch ~480

I think you would find a DX system costs about as much to operate as a WTA
j

I'll bump this once on the off chance any DXer wants to respond.

About a month ago I was contacted by a DX dealer who promised to get some feed-back from manufacturers...........

I think it would cost more to operate. I have installed 8 DX systems in Michigan and now abandoned the technology as I measured the COP in water heating applications and the best I got was 2.35 with one under 2 . I measured COP on a climateaster TMW with the exact same load pump,piping size, tank and water temperatures and it was above 4. My problem with the systems is the higher cost, tedious refrigeration piping assembly often in a pit of mud and inconsistent quality and performance. The earliest forced air installs or 5 or 6 sears ago have been dead reliable and the homeowners very happy but the lastest 6 ton units had serious issues of leaking loops that turned out to be a manufacturing defect and in fact a replacement loop for a leaking one also leaked once put down the borehole and i pulled it up by hand to get the ubend to send back. 80MFD run capacitors go out of range and destroy the compressor or if lucky just wont run. Wires to the caps have burned off and piping in a unit cracked and wasted 35LBs of 407C an flooded the floor in oil.They will trip the high pressure switch with a very long run time and the highest water temperatue I can keep a unit from locking out at is 115. I have always follow the install manual to the T and find that operating conditions during startup are always inconsistent with what the manual says they should be. I just cant risk more problems but I find climatemaster and Bosch and Hydron Module also have many manufacturing defects.

So if you installed these in MI which falls under the MMC, how many refrigerant detectors did you need? Did you not hit the requirement or were your inspectors ignorant.

Honestly I and the inspectors in 4 counties were ignorant of the requirement. One looked at my 80 gallon bock geostor with 4 -1/14" pipes and a grunfos alpha and 12 zone valves and thought it was domestic hot water. Northern Mi is a little more crude than you may have where you work.

Brian the requirement is based on amount of refrigerant and size of home. Its not automatic, so it may or may not have applied to you. Where abouts are you located?

Kewadin in Antrim county

Yes you are up there a ways.
Tell me were your DX systems generally horizontal or vertical/diagonal.
I've noticed pros in MI tend to use larger loop systems as we approach or cross the bridge, I wonder if DX systems get a little out of their sweet spot in some zones. Hmmm (though there is a Canadian mfr).
On machinary room requirements (FYI) tabl3 1103.1 of the 2009 MMC tells us we can have up 17lbs/1,000ft3 where R-22 was 13. So it sounds like no big deal until the language in 1104.4.1 and 1104.4.2 That define volume calculations as the smallest noncommunicating space "where the refrigerant containing parts of a system are located.......in space that does not commmunicate through permenant openings or...ducts.....the volume of the smallest occupied space shall be used to determine.....quanity....." or where an evaporator or condenser is located in an air duct system the smallest enclosed occupied space.....". DX hydronic systems may be most likely to trigger the requirement and it's important to know as inspector ignorance does not protect us from liability.

1 diagonal, 3 vertical 4 pit style horizontal. DX requires a specific loop dimension for a given type of loopfield. No adding loop to account for dry sand and gravel. The area used is relativly small and equipment must be sized to a bigger portion of the load to ensure shorter run times to allow the earth temperature to recover. This alone makes DX cost more as automatically its going to be 1 or 2 sizes larger than a water source system. The system is affected more by soil conditions than water source and each loopfield type has got its own performance charts but none take into account soil type that varies a lot here. Pit type fields in clay and saturated ground perform well. vertical bores at 100' per ton in dry sand gravel wont work well even with the $30. per bag supergrout. With water source I could put in however much loop I want to ensure plenty of loop in the ground to compensate for the conditions. Not possible with DX. A major drawback there and the loops are very delicate in the environment of a drilling site. The UP of michigan in many places less loop is needed as the soil is often saturated and they get so much snow so fast the ground is insulated by it and never freezes despite extreme cold air.

"The UP of michigan in many places less loop is needed as the soil is often saturated and they get so much snow so fast the ground is insulated by it and never freezes despite extreme cold air."

Gotcha. As I think about it it is likely dry sandy soil conditions of upper LP that cause the requirements I mentioned.

Yes DX has some unfortunate limiters yet has worked well in some applications. I have tried to dispassionately ask questions in this thread vs criticize.

Yes but it also has some benefits like the multifunction compressor sections where I can do air heating or cooling plus hydronic or domestic preheating to 115 degrees and with R-22 I went to 125 degrees and it was the sole water heating means. Full capacity of a 6 ton scroll to heat domestic water and if in cooling season in a heat wave the suction pressure is real high so high the unit has a regulating valve to limit it at the compressor. Moves unwanted heat from the air to the earth then from the earth to the domestic hot water. Beautiful its just a scroll humming and various 3 and 4 way valves determining whats the condenser and evaporator. I very much enjoy designing and assembling such systems. Not many can afford what it costs and being a lot of 1 1/8" copper runs the price up fast. easy to work it using an electricians conduit bender. 2 jobs I did each had 2 6 ton units and enough nitrogen brazing to use 2 LBS of sil-fos 15 per job. very labor intensive as well.

You can do all that with WTW geo and hydronic air handler. We have such systems up to 25 tons

Right I do a few WTW units and chilled water cooling. Last 2 climatemaster units TMW 60 and 36 both had contaminated oil clogging screens at FP1 but I changed TXVs as I had them and didnt know until pumping down and opening them. 5 ton was first and got progressivly worse even as it was only a few months old and the 3 ton 6 month old and stopped suddenly in January. suction would go instantly down to 40 PSI. Total time wasted on first one 20 hours 2nd one 12 hours, total help from climatemaster is nothing but parts. I told williams get me 12 hours labor or Ill take out my anger on climatemaster by putting out 6 years worth of detailed photos of problem units and what it took to get them running again. They are by far the biggest piece of crap in all of HVAC right now and I cant afford to install them again. I worry constantly about which one is next to kill 2 days of my time. Bosch is far superior an I put in in a WTW 5 and 6 and so far good performance except 1 minor electrical defect in one. Bosch has been great and even is paying beyond scheduled warranty allowance for repeated motor module programming problems.

As it turned out I just switched from Bosch to CM, because I like Williams (been an Amana dealer since the 90's. Not crazy about the new Bosch dealer. I have had failures with every brand and it is especially tough to spend hours fixing things for us small shops (with only 1 or 2 techs). Remarkably Bard is the only unit I haven't had blower or capacitor trouble on.
I did mention somewhere that with Bosch picking up FHP it would not likely remain the "Chrysler" of the "big three". However Daiken brings big business and international dollars to the McQuay line as well.
I don't see too many smallish/only North American geo manufacturers long term and to bring this thread full circle, I don't see any DX only manufacturers down the road (at least with the current technology.

Bosch is far superior in my opinion for many reasons. Climatemaster will not take back a lemon and they are very common. Once you get it its your problem no matter how bad its built and you can only plan to get the warranty allowance. Pretty good deal for climatemaster, they build a junker but only lose a scheduled amount on it no matter how bad it is. TXV change pay is is 4 hours and ive done enough of them to know you are doing well to do it in 8 hours, but theres often multiple trips to troubleshoot it, order parts, paperwork etc. Next time you have FP1 and low suction put it in cooling and reduce the water flow to drive head pressure up and cause a hi pressure lockout then go back to heating and see the suction back up and FP 1 temp back in the 40s. This process clears the waxy goop out of the screen downstream of the TXV and its fine again until it builds back up. Climatemaster TXV failures or so they think are aboulutly off the charts in volume. The TXVs are not bad the oil is wet and this is from sloppy assembly and ignoring the POE oil companys rules and its obvoius everywhere on every climatemaster unit. Notice the sloppy insulating, wires streched too tight, screws run in at angles, burn marks etc. They prioritize fast production and it shows. They rather spend money on marketing than covering the problems from the low quality assembly. 40 some units for me and I had enough of this as they were getting worse not better. As for Williams I do very little with them after I see they were charging me $75.oo for warranty processing per claim for equipment I bought from them. As soon as Daikin , Mitsubishi or similar have a Geo unit im going to it and never looking back. Those brands are totally reliable and well engineered and assembled. DX is lilkey to always be a fringe product or die out as theres so much copper and to have a warranty you must use their loops, pay $3000 for what you can build for $500. B-Y and Bosch will take back a bad unit locking out at startup if I get one and this is only right. I will not again be replacing TXVs on a 6 month old units for no pay.

Daiken already has geo- see McQuay

http://www.bosch-climate.us/products-bosch-thermotechnology/geothermal-heat-pumps/geothermal-residential-product-offering/greensource.html

Bosch just came out with a completely reengineered unit, a first since they took over FHP. I'll get one and play with it.

I second the poor quality lately for CM, including way too many TXV issues. They claim that if you start up the unit in A/C mode to push the oil/refrigerant the other way, the mesh does not get dirty/plugged. Any thoughts on that?

I always wondered why the manual said to start in coolilng