Hello.   I have an Envision 5 ton system with 5 - 250 foot ground wells.   I keep needing to add water to the pump.  There is no water loss in the house.  My geo company suggests that perhaps there is a leak at the manifold that ties all the wells to the unit, but that would mean digging up my yard and I want to exhaust all possibilities before we do that.  

I can't help but wonder if it is possible that I am losing loop water through the hot water system.  I know there is not a direct connection, bit could loop water be leaking through a leak in some sort of heat exchanger with the hot water tank?   The reason I have this suspicion is that we have very hard water here in Oklahoma and the pipe coming from the geothermal to the water softner had to be replaced because of corrosion (since the loop is hard water), but the pipe returning from the tank to the geothermal was fine since is went through a softener.  If the hot water is soft, why was it getting hardened when it went to the geo system for warming?  Sounds a bit strange to me, and I was hoping some expert on here could confirm whether that was even possible?  Thanks, all.

My geo company suggests that perhaps there is a leak at the manifold that ties all the wells to the unit, but that would mean digging up my yard and I want to exhaust all possibilities before we do that.

That sounds troublesome. Hope you don't have to do that.

1. Close the valves on the domestic hot water tank and shut off your desuperheater pump. If it continues to lose water, that is not it. 2. It is way simpler to use a non-pressurized flow center! Regards, Howard J. Ek, PE You can have it with quality; You can have it fast; You can have it cheap. Pick any two.

How much fluid are you losing, and how long does it take? Adding a auto fill with a flow meter would be one solution, adding a non-pressurised flow center would be another. Digging to fix a small leak does not look attractive in ROI.
Eric

Posted By michaeloklahoma on 27 Nov 2012 10:04 PM
  I have an Envision 5 ton systems....   I keep needing to add water to the pump.  There is no water loss in the house.    

I can't help but wonder if it is possible that I am losing loop water through the hot water system.  I know there is not a direct connection, ....

How do you add water to the loop?  are you letting air in?

Do you have pressure gage/s? How do you tell it's low?

What type of flow center do you have?

Is this Geo dealer your WF installer?

Please do tell.

Thanks.

Posted By How on 28 Nov 2012 11:52 AM
1. Close the valves on the domestic hot water tank and shut off your desuperheater pump. If it continues to lose water, that is not it. 2. It is way simpler to use a non-pressurized flow center! Regards, Howard J. Ek, PE You can have it with quality; You can have it fast; You can have it cheap. Pick any two.

Oh golly no!

In addition to what Joe warns about the danger of confining and then heating an incompressible fluid (water), please know two more key points:

1) The potable water loop through the unit's desuper has zero, zip, nada, nothing to do with the ground loop - different fluid, different heat exchanger, completely isolated.

2) The desuper pump is not positive displacement - water moves freely through it whether it is running or not.