Ground Source Heating: How It Works
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by: SamuelBennett | Total views: 54 | Word Count: 616
What ground source heating refers to is heat pumps that use the heat from the ground to provide you with hot water. These are called ground source heat pumps. In this article we will explain how they work, and the financial benefits you can expect to get from them.
Ground Source Heat Pumps
The deeper down you go underground, the hotter it gets. However deep you go though, there will always be some latent heat present. It is this fact which ground source heating takes advantage of in order to heat the water for you home.
It's not going to be effective to simply pump water underground though and expect it to extract a significant amount of heat. That's why, instead, refrigerants are used. They are much better at extracting heat.
The place that we are more familiar with refrigerants being used is in our refrigerators. In that case though, what is being taken advantage of is the fact that they extract heat from an area, making that area cold. So that is how effective they are at extracting heat from an environment.
As you can see then, refrigerants are good at extracting latent heat even from the air (something which is taken advantage of with air source heat pumps). In order to increase the temperature even more though, when it comes back to the house it goes through a compressor which turns it into a gas. The effect of this is that the temperature is even further increased.
In terms of what it can be used for, you can have the water to come out of your hot water taps heated. Any additional heating required will be taken care of by your normal boiler. You can also use it for central heating, and it's particularly good for underfloor heating since not so much heat is required for that kind.
Efficiency Of Heat Pumps
The important point about using heat pumps is that they are so energy efficient. In fact, in comparison to a normal boiler they would be 300-500% efficient. Of course this is physically impossible, as nothing can be more than 100% efficient. However because they take the heat from natural sources, that is a proper comparison.
What this means is that for every unit of energy that the heat pump requires to work, 3-5 units of energy are generated. The energy input comes from the electricity which is necessary to keep the pumps working. The energy that comes out of course is heat energy.
You can therefore expect to make significant savings on your energy bills. And at the same time of course you are going to be cutting your carbon footprint. So you can save money as well as help the environment. Although you also have to take in to account the installation cost when thinking about the financial benefits.
Heat Pump Installation
There are two kinds of heat pump installations that you can get with ground source heating. In one case you will require a lot of space in which to have trenches dug where the coiled pipes can be laid horizontally. In the other case, a deep hole is dug and the pipes are laid vertically.
Since you get more heat from the ground the deeper down you go, the deep hole will provide you with more heat. If you don't have much space available, then that is going to be your only option anyway. If you have the space and you want the cheaper installation though, then you'll want a horizontal installation.
This gives a general overview of ground source heat pumps, and if you want to know more about the specific efficiency and financial implications for an installation on your property you should get in touch with a company which offers installations.
About the Author
To find out details regarding heat pumps, author Ethan Cox has written more on the issue at ground source heating. Find out additional information about the way the system functions, for example how much money it's possible to save, and get a free quote for an installation.
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