Geothermal Heating And Cooling Works In Florida. Here’s How
If you are looking for an energy-efficient, environmentally friendly way to keep your Florida home or pool at a comfortable temperature, a geothermal heating and cooling system may be the way to go. Geothermal heating and cooling systems, also known as heat pumps, have been named by Energy Star as one of most efficient, and comfortable, heating and cooling technologies on the market. And they work using something Florida has a lot of: water.
Heat pumps earn their name because they essentially pump heat from one place to another. They can pump heat into a home or pool to warm it, and pump heat out in order to cool it. Moving heat requires a lot less energy than creating heat, which is one reason heat pumps are so efficient.
Geothermal heating and cooling systems transfer heat to and from the earth itself, through a process you can see diagrammed here. The temperature below ground (or deep underwater) stays rather constant year-round, at a level pretty close to room temperature. Heat pumps access this underground temperature by circulating water through the ground. There are four main types of systems for doing so:
- Horizontal loops circulate water through loops of pipe buried a few feet underground.
- Vertical loops work the same as horizontal loops, except the loops of pipe are sunk vertically in the ground, to a much deeper depth.
- Pond or lake loops involve submerging the loops of pipe underwater.
- Open loops are simpler; instead of running water through a system of pipes, they simply draw up groundwater from a well (or a lake or canal) and return the water through another well.
Because of the lengths of pipe and the digging involved, most loop systems can be somewhat expensive to install. This is where Florida has a big advantage. With more usable groundwater than any other state, we can more often use the much less expensive open loop system.
To learn more about how you can use a geothermal heating and cooling system for your Florida pool or home, contact the experts at Symbiont Service Corp. We would be happy to answer your questions.
Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information, click here to download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
Symbiont Service Corp. serves Englewood, Florida and the surrounding areas. To get started, check out our website.
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