No the issue has not been resolved. I need to get back with the flow hood and blower door to confirm/delete envelope and duct issues.

According to the installer it has not been resolved.
Out of curiosity, why would you avoid the entire "geothermal bandwagon" vs Earthlinked based on the information in this thread? Are no other products offered in your area?
Joe

This was a very very early post.....being new on this forum, like one of my first few post, when I was trying to do as much educating my self as possible on geo....... and hearing that there might be issues with earthlinked (which I was looking at). My bad....... by looking at one example and realizing in general, that these tech forums usually brings out the industry/individual problems and people that has issues ..... they naturally wanting to vent on these issues (now including my self). As others have stated, you do no usually hear much from the satisfied consumers. But, as I have eluded in another post on rebates, I was satisfied with what I have found on earthlinked systems and was ready to purchase and have installed. With a few post later, and the utility unwilling to help subsidize a dx system in the state of Missouri..... if you live in certain electric coops.......I am back to square one. I really think geo is the way to go after doing some due diligent reading, but for me, it probably will now not be economically feasible. I feel a DX system is my only option for me due to location......but back on topic........I think more people needs to jump on the geo bandwagon again after doing some self education on this subject. So I retract the above statement. Geo should be embraced as a renewable source of heating and cooling your home. I do hope the system on this post gets resolved satisfactorily,but sounds like there are many potential issues, sizing, ducting and etc. Keep us updated. Thanks

How 'bout you start a thread describing your situ. and see if we have some thoughts......
Curiously while DX boasts smaller impact installations, IMHO it actually offers less design flexibility.
More than one DX installer offers open loop as well for this very reason.
j

Joe,

The open loop with DX comment is interesting.  Are the installers up your way marrying the Earthlinked compressors with water loops rather than copper loops?  If so, are any of them offering closed water loops with Earthlinked?  I find this idea intriguing because the real meat on the Earthlinked bones is what's inside the box...the refrigerant flow controls.

Soxter,

Are you familiar with the Audit product from Elite Software?  www.elitesoft.com

I installed my DX system back in 2007 and I didn't have any type of incentive from the federal government or a utilty and the projected performance on my DX system was still compelling.  What we did was complete a good Manual J on the house with Elite's RHVAC software then transferred the data to the Audit program and compared a properly sized Earthlinked system to a properly sized water sourced geothermal system, a high efficiency air sourced heat pump with a 90 AFUE natural gas supplmental furnace and a 13 SEER AC with a 90 AFUE gas furnace.  I reran the same numbers and baked in the 30% federal tax credit and it was even more compelling.

With a 30% federal tax on the table, you might consider taking a fresh look at this using the Elite software as a tool to help you understand what is the best choice.   

I do need to start a new thread with my own issues and let everyone get back to drao's original post and his install problems. Need to head to work for now. Hope Drao's earthlinked install finally gets resolved to his satisfaction.

Sorry, mis spoke. Intended to say offers "water source" as well. Classic brain running ahead of my fingers, I had a picture in my minds eye of a city installation (open loop) that discharges into storm drain.
But I have seen DX open loop as well though it begins to lose it's lustre in that application. Can't imagine closed water loop/DX hybrid. It would take a lot of heat exchanger in the basement.
I agree with you that the controls within Earthlinked are the real win by employing lowest refrigerant pressures possible (ergo lowest amp draw). I think they would make sense on a water source system as well.
j

Hi everyone,

                       The issue -ONE AND A HALF YEARS'S WORTH is still not fixed!  It has been a physically and mentally exhausting process.  I had a visit-I'm sure not only for my benefit about 10 days ago from Mike and their engineer.  They are again pointing fingers at the HOLE-frankly I'm tired of this dated song! 

You might be interested to know that my Dec 2009 utility bill with two units(5 and 4 Ton running on gas ) and my 2 ton unfortunately still on Geo(no back up gas on this one) was $685 vs $757 in Dec 2008.  The two who came to visit 10 days ago claim it is because of my utility(gas vs electric) prices or some baloney like that!  Good thing they didn't say it in my presence or I would have laughed out loud. I know that consumers energy isn't doing me any charity. It has also come to my attention that Brian has been approached by another customer with a 10 ton system(6 and 4 ton) in Michigan who has a 3500 sq ft home(oversized system I would think) who got a whopping $1200 utility bill !  I feel his pain.  His yard has been dug up 3 times to fix? the system but no success. 

                     Any layperson can see that a 350% efficient system compared to a 90% efficient system produces high bills, there is something ABSOLUTELY wrong with the system. 

Oh, by the way, my 2Ton unit (without the resistance strips) consumed all of 45 KWH in a day to heat !  I don't use that much electricity daily even to run my home. 
 

I would advise anyone considering purchase of Earthlinked to BEWARE!

Utility costs are very important! Based on costs you quoted way back in the thread, your gas is about $12/mmbtu at 85% efficiency and electric was about 10.5c/kwH. Using this as a baseline, you could expect the following:

COP     $/mmbtu   %of gas cost
1       31        260%
2       16.5      130%
2.6     12        100% (break even point)
3       10        86%
3.5     9         75%

So, if your system was running at an AVERAGE COP of 3.5 (350%), your heating costs should be about 25% lower than with gas. The break even point is a COP of about 2.6. So your system could be 260% efficient and still cost you as much as gas.

Can you post your total gas use and total geo electric use for November, December and January?

Along the same lines, if a system is 350% efficient and a person previously used all electric heat (at 100% efficiency), then I would expect the electricity cost for heating to be roughly 28.6% of the original bill (100/350), or a savings of 71.4% (other things being equal).

Hi,
      Here are the reads.  Of course, it must be noted that I have stopped reading meters in November 2009 after talking with Brian and turning off the Geo  4Ton on 11/12/09 and 5 Ton on 11/23/09, switching to gas on the 4 and 5 Ton equipment.  It was an electrical hemorrhage that needed to be stopped!  My 2 ton has no back up and hence still on Geo.  
My home base line electric use is 23kwh -35kwh/day(summer/winter). The electric readings here are totals(Geo plus Baseline electric).  It may be noted that I just read the 2 Ton meter on Jan 11th 2010 and it consumed 45KWH in a 24 hr period (meter does not read resistance strips-only Geo equipment).  
Gas is used for hot water and cooking as well.  In summer (when gas is only used for hot water and cooking -we use about 60 ccf/month-baseline gas) Price per kwh is $0.10 and Gas/ccf is $1.07 per ccf

                                         
                                                     GAS(total)                                    ELECTRIC(total)


Nov 2009 Bill                                115 ccf                                         1631kwh
 
Dec 2009 Bill                                197 ccf                                          1566kwh

Jan 2009  Bill                                429 ccf                                          2229kwh 

Our house is constantly maintained at a temperature of 72degs F.

I hope you have all the data you requested.

drao

Just thought I'd add the latest utility bill info for February 2010.

Please note 4 and 5 ton units running on Gas and 2 Ton still on Geothermal.

         Total Utility Bill in Feb 2010 is $ 804.16 of which gas is $530.67 and electricity is $273.49


         IN CONTRAST when all systems were geothermal,


Total utility Bill in Feb 2009 was $1040.21 , $236.05 more(just between the 4 Ton and 5 Ton) , gas bill was $304.01 and electric $735.20. 

So, everyone
                                WHERE ON EARTH(LINKED) ARE THE SAVINGS?


  All they have ever done is try to cop out by stating poor insulation and bad ductwork.  My duct work and insulation are the same for GEO and GAS.

 

 

Forced air geo needs to move 2-3x the air than required for forced air fossil fired

As a new member to this forum and searching posts for geothermal installations, I realize most satisfied people don't post very often to brag about their savings, or how much they spent on a system.  I was looking for ALL points of view and found yours.

Working with HVAC companies here in Texas, I've found no matter what product or system is employed, it has to be done correctly, tested and verified to ensure the least amount of problems down the road. 

The electric bills you're experiencing sound more like a wiring issue if all other system operations have checked out.  If your geo system is using that many kilowatts, it suggests, it's running constantly under load pulling amps.  Assuming they've checked to make sure all functions are operating normally, then I'd look at the circuits feeding the geo system. 

I suspect Earthlinked may be getting beat up on this project unfairly.  The problem experienced by this homeowner is much more likely due to wiring connections TO the unit(s), not INSIDE the unit(s) and that is the electrician's responsibility, not the HVAC contractor's.  It can be tested very easily and quickly by a competent electrician.  However, I would not recommend using the electrician who wired the home to sort this out.  It's not in this individual's best business interest to expose basic wiring deficiencies on a project that is experiencing problems and the homeowner is not happy.

Since they've been back to troubleshoot previously with no success, sometimes it's more basic aspects of a project that some would take for granted, and not check.

Anyway, gotta look at all possibilities, good luck

 

We are also having some high electric bill issues with the Earthlinked DX systems.  We have 3-tons up and 4-tons down (0.5-tons for basement/conditioned crawl).  All new duct work throughout.  We also had foam insulation added to the foundation walls and underside of the roof.   Our 3800 sq ft (old) house has some energy envelope issues that were known by the contractor during design.  They were probably not readily repairable and inlude large, single pane, historic windows.  Due to long-run cycles, we are wondering if the systems were undersized.  We understand that this has been a very cold winter for our area but we would not have spent $45000 to have monthly electric bills over $400.  We were told the J-manual calculations were in our folder, but the contractor never showed them to us.

One of the compressor units had the O-rings go bad and leaked all the coolant.  We ran for over a month on aux heat strips before realizing there was a problem when we got a bill.  Turns out this was a factory advisory and it was repaired free.  We keep our systems set for 65-67 heating.

Trister - Where are you located?
If you were in my area (Eastern PA) and lived in a 3800 SF old house with single glazed windows, $400/month would be quite inexpensive. Since $100 is probably your basic household electric usage, that's only $300 to heat your home. That's the equivalent of just 100 gallons of fuel oil.

For comparison, I just came from an energy audit I did of a woman in a 1600 SF townhouse with a conventional heat pump and her electric bills around $400.

Just trying to keep it in perspective.

-Ted

Sorry to hear about problems some folks have had with their Earthlinked DX systems. I live in the Maryland suburbs of Washington DC. In Dec 2009 we replaced a 20 year old 4 ton air heat pump with a 4 ton Earthlinked DX system. Four 100' vertical wells in our backyard. Unfortunately the drillers hit a fair amount of water/mud void areas so we ended up sleeving about a third of each well adding to the drilling cost. Our house is 2900 SF and has some passive solar features designed into it from the outset. We ended up doing a three zone system off the one compressor using a new Carrier Infinity airhandler. We also added a desuperheater to our existing 80 gallon Sears domestic hot water heater. The good news is that we have seen about a 55% drop in our heating bills when comparing Jan/Feb/March 2010 to the same period last year. With the 30% Federal Tax Credit and some extra grants from our County and State I am estimating our break-even time for the overall investment to be about 5-6 years. The whole process was fairly time consuming but our contractor was excellent and we have been really happy with the system. I know there are also a lot of satisfied WaterFurnace customers as well but in doing some research early last year I seemed to come across more complaints about WaterFurnace than Earthlinked... especially with regards to corporate support after the systems have been installed if they run into problems. I have to admit I was also turned off toward Water Furnace after watching my parents who live in upstate NY and have an open loop WaterFurnace system struggle for nearly a year to get their system to operate properly....the system kept shutting itself down despite numerous attempted repairs by the contractor who put it in and at least two visits by the regional rep for WaterFurnace. I think having gone through the whole process I would reiterate what I have seen others write when discussing geothermal heat pump systems..... Earthlinked and WaterFurnace are probably both very good systems but arguably the most important decision you have to make is to find an experienced and reputable contractor who will expertly install and tweak the system to make sure everything is working optimally.

Posted By drao on 22 Aug 2009 11:03 AM
  I have 3 units(2 ton ,4 ton and 5ton)-11- 50 ft umbrella loops were installed for my 8600 sq ft home(including basement). I have 4 zones in the house.

I have not attempted to read all the replies, but I wonder if you are getting a feedback effect from one zone to another?  That is, if you were trying to cool the air in one zone that is heated in another zone, it would not help your efficiency.  A lot of the houses are rather "open" these days, without much isolation to prevent air flow from one part to another, so I suppose it is a possibility you could consider if all others are excluded.  I would shut off the units one by one and try to isolate the problem.

We are also having some high electric bill issues with the Earthlinked DX systems. We have 3-tons up and 4-tons down (0.5-tons for basement/conditioned crawl). All new duct work throughout. We also had foam insulation added to the foundation walls and underside of the roof. Our 3800 sq ft (old) house has some energy envelope issues that were known by the contractor during design. They were probably not readily repairable and inlude large, single pane, historic windows. Due to long-run cycles, we are wondering if the systems were undersized. We understand that this has been a very cold winter for our area but we would not have spent $45000 to have monthly electric bills over $400. We were told the J-manual calculations were in our folder, but the contractor never showed them to us.

One of the compressor units had the O-rings go bad and leaked all the coolant. We ran for over a month on aux heat strips before realizing there was a problem when we got a bill. Turns out this was a factory advisory and it was repaired free. We keep our systems set for 65-67 heating.

Your 3800 sq ft (old) home would cost far more were you heating it with oil or propane. My 3000 sq ft Queen Anne Colonial (farmhouse) with foamed attic and basement (nothing could be done with the walls - bubble construction) typically cost about $300 - $400 a month during the heating season. Previously using oil (1800 gallons a year) the cost would be $900 - $1100 during Dec, Jan, Feb. March and about $300 for November.

Paul
www.TotalGreenUS.com