OK I'm confused AGAIN...what is a water-to-air heat pump.

[doglips]

OK I'm confused AGAIN...what is a water-to-air heat pump.

I did a web search and got the basic Idea...condenser coils are cooled with ground water as opposed to air (I think) and they claim to be super duper efficient. Makes sense water absorbs more heat from the coil than air, especially when its 95F outside.

IF IF IF They are so efficient then why are they not a common thing?

[spotts]

there aint no water. Aaaaand they're expensive to install.

[Green Mountain]

Originally posted by doglips
OK I'm confused AGAIN...what is a water-to-air heat pump.

I did a web search and got the basic Idea...condenser coils are cooled with ground water as opposed to air (I think) and they claim to be super duper efficient. Makes sense water absorbs more heat from the coil than air, especially when its 95F outside.

IF IF IF They are so efficient then why are they not a common thing?

We are currently installing 32 of them in a State Office Building. Around here ground water is plentiful. Therefore you have a limited market area as Spotts attest to.

On a very cold day you have to pump a LOT of water to meet the demand of our northeast winters. Pumping is expensive in as much as they duoble our electric rates in the winter.
Most times you have to augment the heat to the water in order to maintain temperature in the building.

The inital cost of installation is the biggest factor as to why they haven't caught on. Somebody like the State government can crunch the numbers and make it worthwhile but for the average small business or home owner the cost savings is hard to justify.

[rowe25]

Biggest advantage is ground water is constant temp regardless of ambient air temps.

[Shophound]

There's also water source heat pumps...they don't use ground water but rather a cooling tower. I've seen them in office buildings and hi-rise condos/apartments. The condo jobs can be a bear to work on because they're often crammed in a closet and the office buildings are often over the t-bar. Nothing beats changing out a 5 ton compressor working over t-bar!

[hvac_czar]

Shophound gets the gold star... WSHPs have been around for many, many years in the form that he mentioned... over half of my accounts have them above the ceiling or in a closet, condenser loop temp is maintained by a heat source in conjunction with an open or closed cooling tower. Office buildings, condos, hotels, schools, you name it.

[Roscoe]

They are a great source of income !!.

It use to be PTHP 's were the most efficient way to heat and cool a building with the Mechanical Engineers.

Now it is the Water Source Heat Pump.

With the way the building contracts go to the lowest bidder.

And how the low balling installing contractors screw up the installs, weeeeeoooooooo doggieee
[and they do screw up the installs !!! big time!!

Water Source is a great money maker for the Service Contractor, Our company would never be able to compete with the installation bid, cause we want to do it right but we clean up fixing their screw ups. yowzaaa

It's not like pull one out put one in like the PTHP's.

I asked an Mechanical Engenieer once what he preferred and he responded "A two pipe system with a Chiller and a Boiler" I thought damn there go's One smart M/F'er

But we don't mind playing CLEAN UP



[Edited by pjs on 08-17-2005 at 08:08 PM]

[Green Mountain]

Originally posted by shophound
There's also water source heat pumps...they don't use ground water but rather a cooling tower. I've seen them in office buildings and hi-rise condos/apartments. The condo jobs can be a bear to work on because they're often crammed in a closet and the office buildings are often over the t-bar. Nothing beats changing out a 5 ton compressor working over t-bar!

Wow! We never do that. We service a medical office building set up this way. Any major work and that puppy is coming out of ceiling.

That's all we would have to do is set off a fire alarm or drop a vaccuum pump on a doctor's head.

[Shophound]

Wow! We never do that. We service a medical office building set up this way. Any major work and that puppy is coming out of ceiling.

This job I did was years ago out in San Diego area, at a plastic surgeon's office. Property management wanted compressor changed vs. entire unit. Here I was working off a stepladder with all my various paraphenilia scattered around the foot of the ladder in the middle of a plastic surgeon suite...there was some nice eye candy to observe but others had me back over the t-bar cussing the audacity of an engineer to come up with the brilliant idea of cramming a compressor in a tight-ass little corner of the unit where one's hand must mimic the talents of a contortionist to reach the mounting bolts.

The crowning glory of that job was when a chunk of ceiling tile lodged within one of my eyes...it felt more like a boulder! A mad dash to the men's room sink and tons of water did little to relieve the burning sensation a chunk of acoustic tile affects upon one's cornea.

I'm glad that was the first and last comp change-out I ever did on a WSHP. IMO if the mech engineer's gonna go through all the trouble to spec a cooling tower and all the piping necessary for the water source loop, why not ditch the WSHP's and go with a chiller and boiler?

[Swampfox]

Originally posted by shophound
There's also water source heat pumps...they don't use ground water but rather a cooling tower.

Water source heat pumps can be used with ground water or a buried closed loop system also, not just a cooling tower

[Roscoe]

Quote;
I'm glad that was the first and last comp change-out I ever did on a WSHP. IMO if the mech engineer's gonna go through all the trouble to spec a cooling tower and all the piping necessary for the water source loop, why not ditch the WSHP's and go with a chiller and boiler?

Yeh

That's what we are both are saying.

But ya gotta love the WSHP from a Service stand point dollar wise, when you include all of the components, cooling towers boilers leaking DX air coils, systems that were not started up properly, sludge in the koax coils manufacture F.. ups contractor F..ups. What it comes down to is we[Service people] get paid either way

[oogene]

believe they are known as geothermal heat pumps, constant water temp despite ambient is the big plus water holds a lot of available BTU's per volume ???

[cg2]

With just a 2 pipe system, one person can heat while another cools, no changeover. A building we've serviced for 25 years have them installed in closet-like enclosures and maintenance guys can change them out on nights and weekends while we service them during regular hours on a bench. And yes, they are a steady source of profit. Only problem,the original Singer units were fairly reliable, some 25 year old units still running, but recent replacements have not been so reliable.