Geothermal heating..

[JustGav]

Doing some research into alternative energies. Something that a friend mentioned to me was geothermal power.

Did some looking around, and apparently they can be horizontal systems as well, which means I could in theory put one under the garden I'm busy laying.

My understanding of these systems is that use a similar principle to aircon systems. So I guess this is more aim at anyone who is an aircon specialist.

Would it be possible to lay around 100m of 8mm copper pipe under the patio, and then connect it up to some sort of aircon compressor. The geothermal systems appear to run on R410A. The compressor I suppose would have to be a small commercial unit but I would have thought it wouldn't be difficult to find one.

http://www.geothermalint.co.uk/images/designandinstall_merchan.gif

[MrRalphMan]

Does it not have to be quite deep? Not just a few inches?

[Havard]

I thought about 20 feet is the minimum for ground source heat.

H.

[tbourner]

Didn't they start doing this in NZ or somewhere? But when there were more than a few houses with it they actually noticed a drop in the temperature of the Earth in that area!!! :faint:
I think whatever so called 'renewable' energy we use will impact the planet if EVERYONE starts using it!
Stritzki house might be one that doesn't, although even solar may result in a colder planet if the energy is being used to make electricity?

[Terry S]

We do them @ work Gav, most of the major players have ground source heat pumps available now, with suitable boilers.

http://www.worcester-bosch.co.uk/index.php?fuseaction=product.range&con_id=190297

The capital expenditure is very high though at present, so you really need to be "Green" as it will take a long while to get any proper payback from the system.

[Scoboblio]

I was thinking about this the other day, sorry for a bit of a :hijack:, but I honestly can't understand why modern kitchens don't have some kind of heat pipe built into them which transfers all the kitchen's heat to your living room.... After 30 mins of cooking our kitchen is always sweltering but the other rooms in the house are still cold. :conf:

[ozz]

I think the initial outlay would be very high so you should talk to a specialist company really to get an idea of what heat output you could expect. I thought you needed a much bigger area than 100m to generate decent heat and as open an aspect as possible. I've not seen it used with aircon, only with underfloor heating due to its low heat output.

Most of that is based on reading building magazines and watching Grand Designs - not tried it myself!

[b'have]

Woodburner is the key to cheap heat, installed mine a few years ago (12kw) only problem is transfering heat to cold areas of the house. My ground floor is mostly open plan and is constantly 24c when the woodburner is alight.
I installed a hot air ducting system to the bedrooms, but not very efficient. What I'd like to do, is link it to my ch rad system but its not as simple as you would think.
(my gas bill last quarter was £62 )

[tbourner]

I was thinking about this the other day, sorry for a bit of a :hijack:, but I honestly can't understand why modern kitchens don't have some kind of heat pipe built into them which transfers all the kitchen's heat to your living room.... After 30 mins of cooking our kitchen is always sweltering but the other rooms in the house are still cold. :conf:

Could fit some kind of heat exchanger system I suppose, but like the rest of these ideas the initial cost would probably take too long to regain.

[colsoop]

Is there no sort of government grant available to make this a worthwhile change ?

[stevie_b]

The grants probably cover things like decent loft insulation and cavity wall insulation, but probably wouldn't eat into the cost of installing anything more radical than solar panels. (just my impression, I haven't researched this).

[Rob]

The garden type are Ground Source Heat Recovery pumps and work more or less as has been described, reclaiming stored heat from the ground. The Royal Festival Hall had one waaayy back in 1951.
Geo-Thermal energy is proper power station stuff and requires 2 deep shafts 100s of metres down into the crust. A small charge is set off to fracture the rock, then water is pumped down one and comes back up the other as steam for turbines. I think Iceland has one. (the country, not the shop in the high street)

What JustGav has drawn is the vertical version of teh first option, to be used where garden space is too small for the horizontal type.

[JustGav]

What JustGav has drawn is the vertical version of teh first option, to be used where garden space is too small for the horizontal type.

hahaha, yeah I'm looking at the small option... not planning on generating gigawatts of leccy :p

[Ark]

I think Iceland has one. (the country, not the shop in the high street)


Yep, the whole country is powered geothermally, and electricity is free because it's so cheap to produce. It's just a shame you have to live on a volcano to be able to mass produce power like this, economically.

[Terry S]

Geo-Thermal energy is proper power station stuff and requires 2 deep shafts 100s of metres down into the crust. A small charge is set off to fracture the rock, then water is pumped down one and comes back up the other as steam for turbines.



The last proper Geo-Thermal we priced up was a House (very big house, M&E came to over £1M). Just the Bore holes for the Geo-Thermal came to £60K.