Keep on soaking and keep us advised.

I'll wait for a separate thread to address preheat tank sizing so as to not dilute this one.

We are finding the the best soaking method appears to be using a 1/2 inch pipe six foot long attached to a water hose.  Soil is so loose that the pipe can readily be inserted to the bottom of the trench.  I use the water pressure to collapse the soil as I work the pipe to the surface.  I am seeing a 6" to 18"+ drop in the soil level.  Hopefully I am doing something right.  It is slow work.  I have only done about 250-300 feet out of the 1500.   I intend to do 200' of each of the five trenches and then backfill that.  Then start the last 100' of each trench, then backfill the remaining portions of the five trenches.  Based on comments received, as I backfill,  I intend to wet the soil as it is placed in layers.  We saw our first rain in months.  Really had no impact on soil compaction.  Did cool off the 100+ to the high 90's.  We are seeing the incoming water temperatures dropping.  Can't say if it is related to the compaction work so far or just related to a change in weather. 
We are taking readings sevral times a day. Once I complete the compaction in the five trenches, I will post our temperature readings.  Thanks again for the comments. 

We're going in the right direction, sounds like a lot of work. You might want to contact the contractor about sending a helper over to do some of that work or comp. you some other way. Don't wait 'till you've logged a hundred hours and then hand him a bill.

George,

It sounds like you are making real progress. When we do this, we just stick the soaker rod in the trench and come back in a few hours and move the rod down the trench to where the dirt hasn't settled yet.

Our contractor is supposedly sending someone out today to take some readings.  However, I have learned that he is on a two week vacation and likely doesn't know what we have found and the work we are doing to fix it.  Since we are getting very good advice, I will continue and discuss with the contractor when he returns. At the time I talked with the contractor all I knew was that the system was not running efficiently.  Frankly I thought it might be some type of equipment failure i.e. the Stage 1/ Stage 2 phases were not working or set properly.  I expect contractor's worker check everything on the equipment.   However based on the advice and comments received, it is most likely a compaction issue.

What is the temp of the water you're using to hydro-compact? If it's lower than the normal earth temp, I would expect EWT during the compaction phase to be joyfully lower. It would be interesting to get the current water temp and compare the EWTs after the soil is compacted and the loop is in contact with normal earth temps. Dave

Your power level is about 1.7 KW for 1st stage, assuming you have 1 water pump, and that the professional's 8.98 A measurement included the pump.  If so, then this 1.7 KW matches up nicely to 100°F EWT.  And that's probably an improvement from what I'm guessing was about a 1.9 KW level at the 110° initial EWT.

The 99.1° EWT measurement corresponds to about a 3 EER improvement, going from 13 to 16 EER.  And if the 99.1° EWT measurement was done at about the same time of day as the 110° EWT measurement, than you've got good reason to conclude the water loop is performing a lot better.

If you can get the EWT down to 90°, then your power level should decline some more, to around 1.5 KW, and you should see another EER improvement, going from 16 to 19 EER.

The above is 'ballpark' as I'm interpretting between WaterFurnace and ClimateMaster specs, all assuming 3 ton, 1st stage cooling.

If your delta pressure is 5 psi at 100° EWT, then I'm very roughly guessing your flow is about 12 gpm, assuming your ClimateMaster internal heat exchanger is of coaxial type.

And at 12 gpm, 99.1 EWT, 103.6 LWT, you're pumping heat out of your house at about 27 KBTU per hour.  And with the 1.7 KW running level (sans water pump), that calculates to about 16 EER, further affirming that this is probably the 'ballpark' EER you're running at at the moment.

So, it looks to me that the hard work right now is paying off.  You've got quantitative numbers now showing two things:

(1) Your ClimateMaster GSHP unit, the equipment itself, appears to be running fine, and to its specs.

(2) You've improved your EER from about 13 to 16 so far.  Get the EWT down to 90° and you'll run at about 19 EER.  And when you get the EWT down to 80° you'll be up to about 23 EER, probably about what you need to be at to experience the significant cost savings you were expecting.

One comment on the refrigerant pressure numbers: I'd discourage someone hooking up gages to your GSHP unless there's something to indicate that there's a problem with the equipment.  In this case, I believe the professional could have affirmed the equipment is working well/fine, without hooking up gages, and thus without unnecessary removal of some amount of refrigerant via hooking up the gages.

Hope all of this helps further affirm to you that your hard work is paying off, and that your GSHP unit itself appears to be working well.

Best regards,

Bill

Bill,

here is a link to the Climate Master Specs.

Maybe you can confirm your calculations.

We are all learning a lot here.

I think it's reasonable to assume that rain or compaction improvement are more responsible for the lower operating temps as your soaker only impacts a small fraction of the loops with cooler water temps.

It depends on how long the soaker water remains near / in contact with soaked portion of loop.

Dewayne, thanks.

I looked over the document attachment.  The Tranquility units look like they're very fine units, and look like they're designed to compete directly with WaterFurnace's Envision series.

The TT does have a coaxial water-to-refrigerant heat exchanger.  I also see that the TT has a dehumid port that a humidistat can be connected to, that can allow for some blower slow-down.  Wish my Envision had this too.

Linda's flow too is 'off the chart' - not by a lot, but certainly extrapolation is required.  I tried to roughly guess her flow, without setting up a log-log chart like I did for my Envision.  My guess is flow is about 10 gpm, which, given the EWT and LWT, would roughly be a 1st stage cooling capacity (sensible and latent total) of about 22.5 KBTU per hour.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find specs power consumption to EWT and EER in the document attachment.  Thus, the notes I wrote above, yesterday, are still just rough approximatations.

Best regards,

Bill

Climatemaster.com has a spec doc in pdf that includes performance tables for their system. I consulted those before I decided in favor of Envision. Envision is slightly more efficient, at least under my house's conditions, and the heat exchanger has lower pressure loss, also important in my artesian open loop situation.

I think what's going to also start affecting EWT is Austin weather.

For example, here in the Dallas area, weather in the last week has signficantly cooled.  Outside avg temp has significantly dropped, from 90 to 86°.  You can see this here: http://welserver.com/WEL0043/EnteringWaterTemperatureDailyAvg.gif , and here: http://welserver.com/WEL0043/OutsideWeather2.gif .

While weather changes don't immediately affect soil temperature, it does immediately affect the house's cooling load.  For example, generally, for the past 13 days, the amount of heat being pumped from my residence into the ground has declined each day.  You can see this here: http://welserver.com/WEL0043/DailyGroundLoopHeatTransfer.gif .

And this reducing cooling load will affect EWT, as less heat is being pumped (rejected) into the ground.  Reduced rejected heat will give the soil opportunity to 'catch up' and return to steady state.  For example, my reducing cooling load is giving the soil more opportunity to 'catch up,' and as a result my avg EWT has already dropped from about 82 to 78° - you can see this in the first reference ablve.

I'm going to make an assumption, based on Linda's description of her Austin weather, and based on the fact that I'm only 5 hours North in Dallas, that weather is changing for her too, and that it's no longer just outright blisteringly hot.  Yep, still a 100+° day here and there, but not relentlessly like it has been.  Thus, my guess is the same phenomena may already be at work for her.

In summary, unless Linda can keep the cooling load on her house relatively level (i.e., by lowering the tstat beyond what's normally comfortable, which would be contrary to saving money), she's going to experience lower EWT just due to weather.

My guess is that still, at the moment, her and George's soil compaction effort is the primary reason for improved EWT performance.  And it's certainly needed to try to get the soil down to a high of 80+° EWT.  But soon weather's going to start pushing EWT down pretty significantly, via the reduced cooling load on the house.

Best regards,

Bill

What a great example of cyber-teamwork! And so educational. What remains is for Linda and George to complete hydro-compacting their horizontal loops and evaluating if this results in the steady state system they expected. I have a few questions, but the interest of keeping the current thread on subject, I will start a new thread primarily focused on aspects of heat exchange in a vertical system. Dave

P.S. There seems to be quite a few knights-in-shining-armor in this forum as I note a higher number of responses to threads started by females. This one is up to 50+. For male started threads, it usually takes a highly controversial subject to elicit that many responses. Cheers

Although we did have cooler weather a couple of days ago, when it rained (a high of only 90), the weather has cooled only a degree or two.  The last few days have had temperatures of 100, 101, 102, 103, 90, and 99 and today is on slate to be a 100-degree day.  We are forecast to have rain and much cooler temperatures (90 or perhaps a little less) Sunday and Monday, however. 

Also, whether due to cyber-knight syndrome or otherwise, my husband and I are most appreciative of the help we've received.  Thanks, everyone.  I'm so impressed.

Linda,


I want to believe that most of the lower EWT's you are seeing are a direct result of the water compacting you are getting done.

Ditto Dewayne,
Fair to mention in my area most soil is "damp sand and gravel so compaction rarely an issue (except in winter digs as I mentioned).
Re. cyber knight, as Brad Paisley sings "I'm so cooler on-line." Much better than the long toothed gray bearded in person model.

Dave, earlier this month I started a thread titled "Vertical Loop Performing Properly?" that ended up having a lot of excellent contributions by many of the experts here.  As a result, I learned a lot about how well my borehole field is performing.

Feel free to add on to this already existing thread, or, start a new one.  I'll try to join in with contribution to learning.

Best regards,

Bill

Thanks for the reminder Bill. I'll review it and see if I have any more questions. Dave