Geothermal System Considerations w/ Michael Housh
HVAC School - For Techs, By Techs
Bryan Orr
4.9 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 19 September 2019
⏱️ 68 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this podcast, Michael Housh joins us to discuss his years of experience with geothermal heat pumps and their special considerations.
"Geothermal" is a rather generic term, similar to how people say "Freon" to refer to any kind of refrigerant. Those heat pumps don't necessarily have to be underground; you can have water-source heat pumps in ponds or wells, and there are also ground-source heat pumps. The ground provides a steady temperature under many conditions, which helps heat pumps work effectively in cold climates. Like other heat pump systems, geothermal pumps come in split or package types. The pump may be either integrated with the equipment or separated from it. When the equipment is separate, multiple units can use the same loop (for example, a 10-ton loop can have five 2-ton units attached).
Michael designs geothermal systems. He uses software to design systems, particularly closed-loop systems, and load calculations play an important part in informing his designs. Many contractors use rules of thumb to help size the loops, but the only way to know what you're doing is to take load calculations, especially on water-source pumps. Undersizing loops can severely reduce the system capacity and make it hard to maintain temperature.
To keep performance up, we also need to flush heat exchangers as part of regular maintenance. However, restrictions and contamination tend to be relatively uncommon except in pump-and-dump systems. As with any type of equipment, be sure to follow the manufacturer's recommendations.
Michael and Bryan also discuss:
- Patience and caring about outcomes of jobs
- Water temperature and quality effects on system operation
- Environmental concerns
- Maximizing efficiency in geothermal systems
- Geothermal sales and economic trends
- Return configuration
- Sharing loops
- Figuring out gallons per minute and delta T
- Pump-and-dump configuration
- Clogged heat exchanger symptoms
- Identifying problem areas
- Loop temperature variations
Learn more about Refrigeration Technologies HERE.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | and This episode of the HVAC School Podcast is made possible by our great sponsors. |
| 0:20.8 | And those sponsors are at carrier and carrier.com. |
| 0:23.0 | Speed Clean and Speed Clean.com. |
| 0:25.0 | They make coil shot, which is a system for cleaning coils without the need for liquid cleaners, |
| 0:31.0 | and coil jet, which is a system for bringing... need for |
| 0:34.0 | bringing water and cleaner to places that it's hard to get water and |
| 0:38.0 | electricity. You're gonna like both of them. |
| 0:40.0 | If you don't know about them, then the place to go to find out more is Speed Clean. |
| 0:43.2 | and you can purchase them from your local supply house or if you want to get them now you can go |
| 0:47.6 | to truetech tools.com TRU tech tools.com using the offer code get schooled for a great |
| 0:52.4 | discount at |
| 0:52.8 | check out also got to thank field piece field piece is a great partner with us |
| 0:56.0 | they've been very very helpful in so many ways use their tools for years and one of |
| 1:00.0 | their tools that I'm going to suggest taking a look at is the MR. 45 I did a |
| 1:05.6 | video for True Tech Tools that you can check out of their YouTube channel about the |
| 1:09.6 | MR 45 great recovery machine I think you're gonna like. We got a bunch of them at Kailos. |
| 1:13.0 | They have a nice DC compressor in them that helps to make them so quiet and reliable and light. |
| 1:19.0 | They have great vapor recovery speed as well as a digital display right on the recovery machine that is the MR45 from field piece fieldpiece fieldpiece.com also refrigeration technologies refrigeration technologies makes a lot of great things but if you have not tried their Viper |
| 1:33.0 | HD cleaner in the one-gallon jug I think you're going to want to take a look |
| 1:38.1 | at it. It is a very mild cleaner does a great job nice foaming action but |
| 1:41.8 | without the danger of hurting technicians and damaging |
| 1:45.8 | coils, we use it for a lot of different applications. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Bryan Orr, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Bryan Orr and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.