Innovative Ways to Heat Your Home with Ground Source Heating
April 30th, 2010 by
Administrator
Ground source heating provides your home with completely clean, green, reliable central heating and save you 40-70 percent over conventional home heaters. Occasionally known as geothermal heating, the supply system taps the warmth trapped within the earth and uses an electric heat pump to circulate it into your house. Because ground source heating cuts the household carbon footprint as much as 50 percent, many people can submit an application for incentives and grants to subsidize installation expenses.Utilizing geothermal activity is really a simple process and has been used in a lot of ways to warm households for many centuries. Many people think ground heat is created by underground tectonic activity, however researchers believe it comes from a combination of solar energy and radioactive decay of minerals.Undoubtedly, the hottest areas are in areas close to tectonic plate boundaries like Japan or Iceland, in addition to locations where the crust is thin and there are lots of hot springs. But even very cold ground contains ample natural heat to keep a home warm as a result of a process referred to as thermal inertia, which basically permits the ground to maintain the solar energy acquired in the summer. The latest developments in thermal heat pumps have made it possible to get heat from just about any place.Depending upon your exact ground conditions along with the space that is available, installers may chose to work with one of three designs. A horizontal ground closed loop system is well suited for large gardens where trenches can be easily dug since 400 to 600 feet of piping is required for every ton of heat produced. Vertical ground closed loop designs are best for restricted space or for areas where it’s difficult to dig, so a single hole will be dug and a U-bend pipe will be put in. Pond closed loop systems are used in areas close to a a lake or pond where slinky shaped pipes are placed underwater in a closed system.In places with a lot of hot springs, the heated water is usually directly pumped into above ground radiators. In desert areas where the ground is very hot and also dried out, devices called earth tubes are set up that work as downhole heat exchangers which are used to collect and deliver the heat.As soon as you realize that even in the best cases a combustion based heater calls for a constant supply of material to work, the benefits of ground source heating become obvious very quickly. The constant supply of geothermal heat demands no replenishing and doesn’t harm the natural environment. A bit of electrical power is required to drive the geothermal heat pump but it is designed to achieve a 4 to 1 ratio, which means you receive 400 % return on the power used.Ground solar heating is an excellent investment that quickly begins to pay for itself considering that there is relatively no maintenance or service required to keep it operating.
Click here for much more info regarding ground sourcing heat pump systems and geothermal heating options
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