What is a ground source heat pump?
A ground-to-water heat pump, sometimes referred to as a ground-to-water heat pump, transfers heat from the ground outside your home to heat your radiators or under floor heating. It can also heat the water stored in the hot water tank for your hot taps and showers. Heat pumps are suitable for almost all homes. Thermal transfer fluid (TTF), a mixture of water and antifreeze (sometimes known as "brine"), flows around a loop of piping buried in your garden or outdoor space. This loop can be either a long or coiled pipe buried in trenches, or a long loop (called a "probe") inserted into a borehole at or around 180 mm in diameter.
Heat from the ground is absorbed into the fluid, which then passes through the heat exchanger to the heat pump. This raises the temperature of the fluid and then transfers this heat to the water. For more information on how a heat pump works, including details on typical savings, system design and management, see our in-depth guide to heat pumps.
Do you have somewhere suitable to put it -
You don't necessarily need a large space, but you will need land near your home suitable for digging trenches or drilling wells.
Ground loop:
The ground will need to be suitable for digging and accessible to machinery from the road. Trees will have to be avoided in the area as the roots will cause problems when digging trenches. The length of the ground loop and trenches depends on the size of your home and the amount of heat you need.
Wells:
If space is limited, it may be possible to drill vertical wells to collect heat. This is usually more expensive than trenching and usually requires expert ground (thermo geological) surveying.
Larger homes may require more than one well. The depth of the well depends on the heat requirements of the facility and the geological bedrock, but is likely to be around 75-200 meters deep.
Inside the house:
Inside the house, you will need space for the indoor heat pump unit, which contains the key components. The indoor unit often includes a hot water tank and is roughly the size of an American-style refrigerator.
Heat pumps are suitable for almost all homes and can also reduce your energy bills depending on the system you are replacing. A heat pump captures heat from outside and transfers it into your home. It uses electricity to do this, but the thermal energy delivered to your home is much more than the electrical energy used to power the system.
Electricity is becoming increasingly low-carbon as more renewable are connected to the electricity grid, replacing existing gas and coal-fired power stations. This makes the heat pump an extremely low-carbon heating option, and more so as our electricity grid continues to decarbonizes.
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