[AT] OOOPS - Do as I say not as I do - now rambling off topic

[Al Walker]

Roger Welsch wrote:

>Sorry, but no.  That was almost 20 years ago and I can hardly remember what
>my name was back then.  I do recall a guy down the road had one and built a
>huge pond for all the discard water.  The gallonage per hour did seem huge.
>His pond never got wet.  I have an old bathtub sunk at the end of the yard
>for ours and there is a small wet seep.  It's amazing how little water it
>uses.  It is about the size of a small furnace and we have a huge, 3-story,
>seive-like, 9-room house.  We have a back-up electric coil that comes on if
>the heat exchanger can't keep up but the only time it has ever come on is
>when we turn up the thermostat beyond a point and it needs to crank out the
>heat.  I'd never do anything else now.
>
>  
>
<snip>

When we built this house two years ago, we wanted to use a ground source 
heat pump. However, the system would have cost an additional $14,000.  
We looked at "pump and dump" but with our below freezing winter weather, 
it causes problems, not the least of which is erosion.  I don't remember 
the amount now but the gallonage was quite significant, since we need a 
lot of heat in winter. An option to that is to bury hundreds  of feet of 
coiled plastic pipe below frost level and circulate an anti-freeze 
solution through that. Not cheap to do either.  Elected to use off-peak 
electrically heated radiant heat in the floor, with an LP gas forced-air 
furnace as back up. Plan to add an outdoor corn burner in the future. We 
added an electric central air unit to that for internal climate control. 
We also have an air exchange system that uses the heat from the 
out-going air to warm the incoming air to reduce total heat loss from 
that system. It helps control the humidity and keeps fresh air in the 
house.  Oh, and there is a gas fire place for my dearly beloved.,
Al in beautiful northwest Minnesota.