Soils - Step-by-Step DIY Geothermal (Part 1)

Here, I am giving you a step-by-step guide to diy geothermal. In part 1 I am talking about the soils. If you saw my original diy geothermal video and was wondering exactly how to install the geothermal system, this series is for you. While not all aspects of ground source heat pumps are diy, some of it is. Get to know the soils you will be placing your ground loops within. The more information you can find out about your soils, the more accurate your loop lengths will be. DO NOT SCREW THIS UP!!! If you get this wrong, you can waste a whole lot of money!!!

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[StartledPancake]

Ive been looking all over for that soil thermal conductivity chart, it's a game changer. Digging an extra few cm to get close to the groundwater for my clay soil gives almost 4x the thermal conductivity. Thank you!

[kevinhlabs]

I think it'll be cheaper to just do Overkill. I'm using solar so I could care less if I'm using an extra 50 or 100 Watts with a bigger pump. The surveys and time that it'll take to get this done would be ridiculous in my opinion. Drill the hole throw in the pipe have a nice day. If it's too much again I don't care, but if it's too little which is very unlikely then I'll just dig another trench and throw on an extra solar panel if necessary. But I've watched all of your videos and I really do like them. You do an excellent job, so thank you very much. I have subscribed to your channel and have learned a lot.

[josegarcia-thpj]

muchas gracias(thank you very much) all your videos are very useful

[AndrewSpencer]

I'm so excited to see this series! I want to put in a geothermal system this summer, but can't get a specialist to call me back. Looks like I'll be doing it myself!

[laborndcluv]

I was having PE flashbacks when you were discussing moisture content!!😅 Glad I finally passed...lol

[toyotaboyhatman]

I'm interested in doing this someday. Ideally I want a house that's nearly runs off grid. Love the clock in the background.

[raydreamer]

This is just what I wanted ... I stopped my A/C project - an excavation beside our house on the Philippines because I wanted to know what is the best thermal conductive soil to backfill with.. My rock bottom temperature is 21 C or 70 F I will have a combination of a large horizontal non-overlapping coil only 1 foot deep under shaded cement and a dug well ( over a yard across) to hold a Wearhouse received coil of black water pipe( PE) both are only !/2 inch in diameter. Together there will be 300 meters ( 1000 feet ) . My soil is limestone rock most of which must be jackhammered to excavate. Thinking of making the dug well part another meter down to make it 2 and a half meters in total and adding one more 150 meter coil to increase my cooling capacity.
I will also be making available roof drainage water as well at outside tap water to keep the dug well part saturated with water. Your video has helped me to decide to fill my dug well section with a pea type sand gravel to mix with the water. There will be no pipe connections made under the cement slab all connections will be made on the surface side of the house. This will be strictly water to a fan cooled radiator by low volume pump cooling system no refrigerating system..

[Thenaughtyprepper]

Thank you for the videos, we are trying to figure out how to do this on our 6000sqft new build

[colepetro]

Hey! Love your channel.
Just trying to find PEX for my project, and it seems to be super expensive. When I googled HDPE pipe this came up...

[chrissardi]

Awesome content! I’m building a timber from guest house on a 9 acre parcel on a small lake in Wisconsin. Should be wet sand 6 feet down. Considering trenching towards the lake and possibly using lake loop or at least will be able to get major water saturation near the shoreline. Need to further research my local shoreline zoning but seems possible.

[jonathancallender]

If I have dry gravel can’t I just put the loops below my leach field to make it constantly wet gravel?

[makuromakuro]

thanks for series. in heatmode, could i at one moment have hp run furnance then later, switch valve and heat water.

[Dukemeistro]

Can I do geothermal tubes in a ground with high water table?

[repalmore]

7:21 I worked as a certified lab tech doing soil proctors for soil density testing. 24 hours?!?!?!!!! No, when it's dry, it's dry. Any one can see when a soil sample is dry and then touch it (after it's cool) and when it's dry, it's dry. our oven was just a toaster oven and we put the pan just under the heating element. Took about 15 minutes. Our sample size was small. Don't need a shovel full to determine moisture content. As long as your scale is accurate you can us about a cup of soil but I usually used about two cups of soil to make sure I got a good sample. Spread thin.

[stephennowlan]

I will be contacting an old timer contractor that installed a vertical system in my last house in town due to space. He already told me not to go that route in my rural new build because well drilling in my area has tripled over the last 12 years and recommended an air/air system. I'm building on a sloped lot with solid granite only a couple feet below the surface. To grade my lot will require up to 8 feet of fill in areas, making coil loops pretty easy to install, leading me to think ground source could be the way to go. How will close proximity to bed rock affect the performance of the loops and how close to the foundation can you run them? Any reason not to run a loop under the driveway? Will there be issues establishing even flow rates in the loops if they are not all the same elevation? I suppose valves on all the loops could allow optimizing performance by monitoring return temperatures of each loop and balancing the system.

[fordgagnon]

Im curious what kind of soil you encountered at your depths, and did you decide to bring in clean soil for the 6-12 inches on either side of your loops? Also when you say gravel/rocky soil how big of diameter comes to mind. I had to have some profile pits dug for septic soil testing and im sure ill get the results from the lab but just for my understanding. Thanks for the video series and all the good and bad you've encountered, im sure ill be back with more questions.

[bobunleashed.iou]

I live in the Ozarks and on the south side of the hills it is mostly dry clay combined with limestone rock for the first two feet. After that in most place you hit bed rock. Hard limestone. If I dig a horizontal loop in a ditch carved into rock would I maybe use gravel to fill it? Solid rock trenches in limestone... what soil would be best to replace the stone when backfilling a trench in solid limestone?

[wthomas]

I've been looking all over youtube at ground source heat pump videos for a while now Garrett. I have to say, yours is the most informative I've found. Do you have an opinion on manufacturers? I realize you don't put these things in all the time but how was your experience with the folks you went with? Are you happy with the equipment you bought?

[ultrastoat]

I was wondering, does your system have temperature probes for the outlet and inlet of each loop?

[Krazie-Ivan]

another great vid & sounds like an invaluable series, Garrett. here in Phx we're known for caliche, but i got lucky while planting my trees & found great soil about 4ft down. i'm not sure what to expect in NM (where we plan to buy/build), as they've got naturally growing pine & pinion trees but it's also visibly very rocky & dry on top. love the tip to layer clean fill below/above the coils ...think the moisture content & thermal conductivity would remain? or would it potentially dry/harden over time & perform worse? or maybe the goal of that is just to pack tightly around the lines to make the best of a less-than-ideal situation instead of rocky soil that'd have air gaps?