Are you considering installing a geothermal heating and cooling system in your Dayton area household? Geothermal heat pumps are an excellent energy-efficient solution for many homeowners. Before you commit, here’s a lowdown of how they work and their benefits:
How They Work
While outdoor temperatures fluctuate throughout the year, the temperatures four to six feet underground stay consistent. Geothermal systems capitalize on these consistent temperatures to provide low-cost cooling and heating for homes. They do this through a network of buried earth loops that circulate a water/anti-freeze solution that absorbs and transfers heat. During the winter, this solution absorbs heat from beneath the ground and transfers it into your house. During the summer, the solution reverses and pulls heat from inside to carries it through the earth loops and expels it into the ground.
The main parts:
- Liquid heat-exchange medium. This is the underground loop pipe system that circulates a water/anti-freeze solution to and from an indoor heat pump unit. One of the biggest attractions of geothermal systems is the lack of a noisy outdoor unit. The liquid solution transfers heat back and forth between the ground and the indoor heat pump.
- Heat-pump unit. Located indoors, the heat pump and its refrigerant-filled coils draw heat energy from the inside air and pumps it outside to the underground loop system, for cooling, and does the opposite for efficient indoor heating.
- Ductwork. This is the air delivery system that distributes the cool or warm air from the heat-pump unit to your home’s various indoor areas.
Because a geothermal system utilizes existing moderate temperatures in the ground, they are much more energy efficient than conventional air-source heat pumps that must use a lot more energy to extract and expel heat from/into the air. In fact, geothermal heat pumps can be up to 50 percent more efficient at cooling than conventional air-source heat pumps and air conditioners, and 70 percent more efficient at heating than a conventional furnace or boiler.
To learn more about how geothermal heat pumps work, and other HVAC products and solutions, contact your neighborhood experts at Ace Hardware Home Services, Inc. We provide quality heating and air conditioning service to the Dayton and Springfield areas.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Dayton, Ohio about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).
Credit/Copyright Attribution: “dgbomb/Shutterstock”
