Water furnace operation

[tpodany88]

Just want to know if I see this correctly, Is the earth loop and the potable water mixed? Are you drinking the same water you used to heat/cool your house?

Thanks

[arc8]

No and no!

[kdean1]

Are you drinking the same water you used to heat/cool your house?

I hope not. I read somewhere that the antifreeze solution in the loop isn't good for you.

[waterpirate]

Hi and welcome,

What you have there in your diagram is the "fischer price" diagram that explains how a geothermal closed loop system absorbs and disapates heat. Closed loop being the operative word. A stop by our website for a quick tutorial will save a lot of bandwidth here that could be used to answer specific questions after you get some base line education.
Eric

[SkyHeating]

What you are forgetting is that those pipes dont' all connect each is a seperate system split like this.
Potable water system going to the water heater is JUST potable water and does not go in the ground
Ground loop system is also "usually" a closed loop system that does have antifreeze and is only for transfering heat energy to and from the ground
Inside air system is the air that gets heated or cooled by the geothermal system.
So all in all, each loop that shows red and blue air/water is a seperate system and does not intermix.

[tpodany88]

I realized how dumb of a question that was soon after posting.

Thanks!

[MWenzel]

I hope not. I read somewhere that the antifreeze solution in the loop isn't good for you.

The antifreeze solution we use is Propylene Glycol --Specifically Cryotech -100 -- Supposedly its considered "food grade" and "non-toxic" So i guess you could technically drink it, although I have yet to meet anyone who has!

[MWenzel]

The antifreeze solution we use is Propylene Glycol --Specifically Cryotech -100 -- Supposedly its considered "food grade" and "non-toxic" So i guess you could technically drink it, although I have yet to meet anyone who has!

On another note I wouldn't recommend a taste test of the glycol!

[motoguy128]

I think Propylene Glycol is inert... so it passes through you without any real harm in small quantities. It's also biodegradeabel. In concentration <15%, microbes love to eat it... and create wonderful slime that coats your heat exchangers tubes. If you run low on glycol, plan on watching your approach temps go up and efficiency and capacity go down. It also increases the viscosity of the water, so it's harder to pump and reduces heat transfer.

Oh... and it's pricey. We just bought about 2000 gallons of the stuff to fill a 8000-9000 gallon industrial chilled water loop to 25%. I think it ran us $11/gallon even in 225 gallon totes.