The cheapest DIY ground-source heating is to hang an old Air Conditioner from the floor joists of a popular central room in the house and cut a hole in the floor to connect the hot side of the AC to the room. The cold side remains in the basement air. A 10,000 BTU AC unit becomes a 20,000 BTu heatpump....
This takes heat from the basement air which is ground sourced from the 4 walls and crawl space of the basement and bumps up the BTU to feed the heated area. I ran this for a decade from 9 PM to 7 AM on TOU metering so that not only was it ground sourced, but also ran on 2 cent electricity. No special controls other than an appliance timer. The added heat to the rooms above prevented the whole house thermostat from coming on and kept the oil burner off for a huge savings. Yes, the oil heat was used until 9 PM, but then this kludge kept the house warm and kept the oil from being used at all the rest of the night. And the basement barely got cooler since that is also where waste heat fromthe laundry and oil boiler ended up as well. The 2 cent at night to 10 cent during the day TOU was lost when they deregulated the utility and then it became 9 cents vs 10 cents and hardly worth it. Besides, the AC unit died and it also had to have a complex vane-switch and defronsting coil (old oven elmenet) to take care of de-icing. But dont overlook the huge ground-source potential of all that basement surface if the basement is not inhabited. On Sun, Mar 21, 2021 at 12:33 PM Bobby Keeland via EV <ev@lists.evdl.org> wrote: > Yes Peter VanDerWal (thanks for the reply) I am aware of all that you said. > I was planning on using at least 4 smooth wall tubes that are buried about > 10 feet deep with a downward slope away from the house. The earth tubes > will be about 100 feet long, and the soil here is almost pure clay > (southern Louisiana in the Atchafalaya Basin). > > A little over a year ago we had a heat source mini-split installed so we > got a jump on being more efficient. The earth tube project has not actually > physically started yet. It’s more of a thinking and study real life > experiences at this point. > > Right now I’m more interested in working on the 1951 Chevy pickup (we > actually use pickups as pickups rather than as a manly car). There is a guy > on YouTube who is showing his complete process of moving a 1952 Chevy > pickup onto an S-10 pickup frame. Something like that plus an electric > motor and batteries (not lead acid) is what I have in mind. > > Another possible project is converting a riding lawn mower and Mantis > tiller to battery electric. I watch Jehu Garcia a lot. There is never a > shortage of possible projects. > > Bobby Keeland > Not a lot of money, but I do have time and interest. > > > On Sat, Mar 20, 2021 at 11:52 PM Peter VanDerWal <e...@vanderwal.us> > wrote: > > > Bobby, have you done any research on Earth Tubes? Not just looking up > > testimonials and anecdotes, but looked for actual studies? > > > > I was really yped about earth tubes for a while until I looked into them > > and found a few studies. I found a lot of people claiming that all they > > did was dig 2 foot deep trenchs and burried 30 feet of tube and 'Wow, > what > > a difference' > > But the actual studies with measurements, etc. tell a different story. > > > > First of all you need to go a LOT deeper than 2 feeet, 6-8 foot minimum. > > One study I found was done in India as I recall, they were studying using > > Earth Tubes to cool a green house. > > They used 4 tubes 100 feet long, 8 foot deep spaced 6 feet apart. The fan > > used to drive the air through them consumed 400-450 watts and ran 24 > hours > > a day. It was effective at the begining of summer, but by the middle of > > summer the output air temps had climbed to around 80 degrees, the green > > house temps were closer to 90 degrees. > > > > I also read lots of feedback from individuals that were having problems > > with mold due to condensation in the earth tubes. That is solvable, by > > making sure the tubes angle down, away from the house and you have some > way > > to drain the moisture from them. > > > > My mini-split heat pump on the other hand uses about 1/2 the energy per > > day to cool my house and output air temp is around 50-60 degrees an the > > temp in the house stays below 76. I could get it cooler, but it would > use > > more energy and I'm comfortable at that temp. > > > > So the mini-split is more effective, for less energy and a LOT less work > > to install. If you have to hire someone to dig the trenches, the > > mini-split is probably cheaper. > > > > Sometimes the best solution is NOT the simplest solution. > > > > My PGP public key: https://vanderwal.us/evdl_pgp.key > > > > March 19, 2021 6:05 PM, "Bobby Keeland via EV" <ev@lists.evdl.org> > wrote: > > > > > In a previous posting I said: > > > <Unfortunately I’m still working on my solar > > > <water heater, my battery backup for the solar > > > <panels, earth tubes and many other > > > <projects. > > > > > > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: < > http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20210321/8ecfa3a4/attachment.html > > > _______________________________________________ > UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub > ARCHIVE: http://www.evdl.org/archive/ > LIST INFO: http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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