[Interested1204]

3 ft trenches out to the wells. I was getting 74.5 degrees where it enters the house, then maybe 75.5/76 where it hits the unit.

This morning however, I'm getting 73 degrees entering the unit, running.

 

[pecmsg]

How many wells
How deep
What size tubing
???

 

[Interested1204]

1in pipe in the wells, drilled to 280, 280, 260, 245 ft (4 wells). Approximately 60 ft of 1.25 inch pipe to the house, in the trench 36 inched down. Then another 40 ft up a wall and though unconditioned attic, then another 10 ft though conditioned attic to the unit.

I don't know if its standard practice for any of that to be insulated, but none of it is.

 

[pecmsg]

How are you getting 70+°F water from almost 300'?

 

[Interested1204]

Your guess is probably better than mine!

 

[pecmsg]

Ask the installers how that's possible?

 

[Interested1204]

I called the driller last night to ask what temps I should see and he advised mid 70s.

 

[Interested1204]

Today its overcast and we are getting 71.6 incoming water temp at the unit.

 

[pecmsg]

Today its overcast and we are getting 71.6 incoming water temp at the unit.

Then why was it up to 80+*?

 

[BNME8EZ]

Wow!

The increase in size is a lot of your problem. In order for the WSHP to provide hot water it has to run. Running for 6 minute cycles is not enough for it to gain water temp. From Dans # 3 T or less would be good, from your # you could have gotten by with 2 T. A 2 T unit on 3 T duct work would have been a good thing, a 4 T unit on adjusted 3T duct is not.

I am no loop expert but from my understanding your bore hole tubes should have been 3/4" not 1". The reason is that you get more turbulence from 3/4" so you get better heat transfer. With the larger tube the water gets a more laminar flow where the water inside the pipe moves and the water against the outside of the tube moves very little insulating the pipe from the moving water to an extent. Also the trenches should have been at least 4' down. Ground temperature changes with sun and air temperature. The lower you go the less change down to about 29' where it stabilizes. All the tube at 3' is picking up heat in the summer and cold in the winter reducing efficiency of the system.

How deep is the water in your area. At 200' I would think your loops would be in water, which should be cooling the loops keeping the temps down in summer and up in the winter. Part of your loop issues may just be because of being new where the ground has not made good contact with the loop yet. In this part of the country they have to grout the bore holes so the grout creates this contact.

 

[Interested1204]

The reason they could only get only get the one well at 245 was because there was so much water and sand at that level that it was overpowering the very large air compressor they brought with them. Wow, it almost sounds like literally everything that could have gone wrong with this install did. Too large of unit, trench not deep enough, borehole piping too big. Whats everyones opinion? I haven't had a conversation with them yet because I was wanting to see what's realistic, but now I'm starting to wonder if the whole 30k was wasted.

They did grout the boreholes though.

 

[Interested1204]

We're out in a more rural area, so no building department to get a copy of the manualJ from. Is it unreasonable to ask him to provide the one they did? What would be reasonable to expect from the contractor? Correctly sized unit? Insulation for the pipes coming in through the unconditioned space?

 

[comfortdoc]

We're out in a more rural area, so no building department to get a copy of the manualJ from. Is it unreasonable to ask him to provide the one they did? What would be reasonable to expect from the contractor? Correctly sized unit? Insulation for the pipes coming in through the unconditioned space?

Yes to both these questions. They should be able to defend their choice in size. Insulation to me is minimum install standard. And costs almost nothing while the pipes are being installed.

 

[Makeitcold]

If your out in the country then they have to get their permits and do paperwork thru the county. Call your county permit dept and ask what would the contractor need to do where your located. All those things you've listed I would expect a contractor to do, but this whole site is pretty much about contractors and techs not doing what you thought you paid for, so....

 

[Interested1204]

I emailed him to let him know that during the day the unit cycles around every 6/7 minutes, and that there isn't much difference between EWT and LWT. He asked if it was maintaining temperature, and advised they may have to come out and take a look. I've got it connected for temperature runtime monitoring, and it does maintain by running its 7 minutes about twice an hour.

 

[Interested1204]

Ok everyone, here is what the unit did today. I know that MakeItCold suggested no setbacks, but I haven't gotten around to clearing the schedule (and the family is spoiled to sleeping cool). I guess it kicked up to stage 2 around 9a to stop it from getting so warm? I would have figured it would have to at least try stage 1 first.

Schedule is 71 degrees from 5:30a to 7pm, 69 degrees from 7p to 5:30a

Sorry about the yellow for the outside temp, the graphing software doesn't have a selection for choosing that.

Also, the AC Unit 55 = unit off, 60 is stage 1, and 65 is stage 2.

 

[BNME8EZ]

That graph is classic for a oversized system. Notice how the room temp dropped over night but the system kept cycling at about the same rate. The stat was running the unit similar to being on a timer not by the needs of the house.

The other thing is how is it that the stat is set at 71, the house gets up to 73 but he unit still isn't running all the time at about 5 in the afternoon, the heat of the day? At 96° outside it should be running constant.

 

[Interested1204]

Update: Got word back from contractor, he was defensive and told me that no ManualJ was done on my house, wants to send a tech out but "doesn't think he can control the energy usage of a 4 ton unit". Meanwhile this unit is still cranking away about 60 times a day, surely that can't be good for it. I'm going to let the tech come out, but what would ya'll suggest as a next step.

 

[hvacvegas]

Something Im a bit concerned with is the lack of uninsulated piping.
No so much efficiency, but more so for sweating.

When that loop gets cold in winter, and is exposed to a 70 degree attic, it's gonna sweat.

 

[Interested1204]

Well, tech has come and gone. Says the system is functioning correctly, which I agree it will cool the heck outta here. I guess the next step would be to ask for a manual J to be performed?