central - east central Minnesota - | seedcleaner - 7/23/2012 07:04 I am going to be installing the outside plumbing soon for a new house. It is most likely going to be between 7 and 9 ton unit with the Bosch indoor equipment, also tied into the water heater. I am debating on digging the horizontal real deep with our track hoe or possibly doing vertical when we dig our deep well. With the drought the midwest is going through, can you give me an idea on how well your geotherm is doing, especially if it is the horizontal loop type. I feel the vertical is better but comes at a cost. What about digging down for the horizontal and laying sand around the pipe so it has better contact when the soil shrinks up in dry conditions? Thanks.
Sand would be a no - no as a "bed" .. .. . it doesn't exchange like clay soils. I've seen a commercial site, that used a mixture of loamy sand/clay - but not sand alone.
If you are dry, now would be a great time to dig down 7-8ft and see what moisture is there . ..
Ideally, if you have a wetland or low area, that's the place to dig the pit for the loop field.
Here, loop fields are generally at least 7ft deep.
The one we did was at 8ft and on the edge of a wet land area (now most is underwater . . . . .
Wells would be ideal (if pipe is in the water zone), but, there are wells drying up in areas also - so how'd that work, if the well was'nt collapased in on the pipe properly (or bentenite used to seal from bottom to top).
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Geothermal horizontal loops in a drought?
