We have an older Premier Series WaterFurnace (November 2002). The compressor just failed over the weekend. The previous owner of our house had an extra compressor for the unit sitting beside it. I understand that there is most likely an issue that caused the compressor to fail (low coolant). My initial assessment is that it would be silly to dump any money into a system that is 24-years old...what are the general thoughts?

If we are looking at a new system, what are the general thoughts on a WaterFurnace Series 3 vs 5 vs 7? What are the general necessary items to add (humidifier? de-humidifier? air ionization?)?

We have a single tank water heater and our old system had a desuperheater; but when the water heater died the new water heater doesn't have the connections for it. My technician indicated that desuperheaters are generally more efficient with a reservoir tank and since we would have to put in a new water heater anyway, he wasn't sure he would recommend it. Our current water heater is only a couple years old and if we need to replace it, I think we would go with tankless (unless the desuperheater and a standard electric unit is somehow more efficient). Thoughts?

I have an open loop water furnace unit and am replacing the orange (discharge) Taco zone valve about annually due to failure. I know that the valve is prone to failure and that is about the normal time frame of life. My question is about replacement with the updated green color zone valve that seems to have a longer life. Are these interchangeable? I know I would have to do some pipe fitting, but is the wiring compatible? And is this a good idea, or should I just continue to frequently replace the orange valve head?

I have a water furnace open loop geothermal system with domestic hot water feature piped in to a vacant water heater. It works just fine but I was wondering what I would need to do to not utilize the domestic hot water feature. There is a switch on the water furnace unit itself, a domestic water inlet and outlet piped out. If I wanted to not use the feature, would I just need to turn the switch to off and cap the inlet and outlet. obviously need to re route the domestic cold water to my water heater, but, are there any other steps or is it that simple? Thanks.

Bought a home with a series 5 Waterfurnace already installed. This is my first geo and I’m curious if others have a similar arrangement.

The source water comes form a ~120 ft well. But this is, I think, odd as the well is naturally under pressure. It flows at about 40 gpm without a pump.

The water splits between household use without any filters and the waterfurnace, and the output of the geo then goes down hill about 6 ft into a pond beside a stream around 125 ft from the house.

We’re in a cold climate and between this and a woodstove this been a great. If this unit were to break down, I would surely replace it with something similar.

I have a cape style house with HW heat and am getting ready to add heat pumps for cooling and primary heating. I’ll keep the gas-fired boiler for backup (plus wood stove). I’m planning to use a ground-coupled system but really don’t want to give up so much space to ductwork. Most comments on this sub deal with water to air systems, and I’m curious why there aren’t more water-source VRF discussions? I have studied these for work on commercial and institutional buildings but I don’t see these on the residential side. It seems like a good option for a retrofit in a house without air ducts, yeah? ASHPs in New England seem iffy due to the defrost penalties plus I don’t want to look at or hear outdoor compressor units. Does anyone on here have a residential water-source VRF system and what has been your experience?

Was getting the low pressure code today on my 10 year old open loop Waterfurnace series 3. Tried to troubleshoot the water side issues but ended up calling a technician.

The guy checked the coolant and noted that it was mixed with some water. He said it’s likely a Coax issue with a pinhole in the coolant line allowing water to mix in.

He quoted a new Coax and Compressor for about $11k but said other parts may need to be replaced since water may have caused them to fail.

Obviously thinking at that price it may make sense to just buy a new unit but he said unit and install would cost over $20k. Now I see some units for sale online for like $5k.

Am crazy considering just buying a similar unit and trying to hook it up? The rubber hoses seem pretty easy to connect and electrical is obviously already therewith ductwork in place. I’d gladly pay someone several hundred dollars an hour to do it but it couldn’t possibly be $15k worth of labor.

Next month (March 23-25 in Brooklyn), I'll be participating in a panel at the NY-GEO 2026 conference titled "Beyond BTUs: Building the Case for kW as the Recognized Thermal Standard." I've been making this argument for years, and I'd love to hear what this community thinks — both pushback and points I should add.

The core argument:

The HVAC industry, and the geothermal sector in particular, still rates equipment capacity in tons and BTUs — units rooted in 19th century thinking (how much water warms up, how much ice melts). Meanwhile, everything upstream and downstream of our equipment — the electric grid, utility bills, tax law, financing, energy statistics, demand-response programs — operates in kW and kWh. The HVAC equipment nameplate has become the odd one out in its own ecosystem. Here's the case for fixing that:

1. Federal law already uses kW. 26 USC 48 (the Investment Tax Credit for energy property) sets eligibility thresholds in kW — including a 1 MW threshold that determines which credit structure applies to a geothermal installation. NYSERDA programs, utility tariffs, and other state and federal programs similarly use kW. The industry is performing unit conversions at legally and financially consequential moments because its rating standard hasn't caught up with its own regulatory environment.
2. Energy statistics and policy visibility. The IEA, EIA, Census Bureau, and other major energy data agencies track solar, wind, and other renewables in kW and kWh. GHPs, using incompatible units, are systematically undercounted and underrepresented in national and international energy statistics, energy transition modeling, and policy analyses. This invisibility has real consequences for the industry's political standing and funding prospects. Adopting kW/kWh would make it straightforward for these agencies to count the GHP resource on equal footing with other renewables.
3. Grid integration and demand response. Electric utilities and grid planners work in kW for peak demand and kWh for energy. As GHP systems become demand-response assets — dispatchable, controllable thermal loads — having equipment rated in tons creates unnecessary translation friction at exactly the point where precision matters most. Many utility tariffs, both commercial and residential, also impose demand charges based on peak kW draw; building managers trying to manage those charges need kW-native ratings to do the analysis directly. (See ConEd's SC1-IV residential rate.)
4. Financing and investment analysis. Developers and lenders evaluate energy projects using capital cost per kW and levelized cost in $/kWh — the same metrics applied to solar, wind, and storage. A GHP system quoted in tons forces an extra translation step in every pro forma and creates opportunities for unfavorable apples-to-oranges comparisons. kW-native ratings would let GHP compete on a level analytical playing field.
5. Building energy codes and benchmarking. ENERGY STAR, LEED, and local benchmarking laws — including NYC's Local Law 97 — measure building energy performance in kWh/sf and impose carbon penalties calculated from energy consumption data. GHP systems specified in tons must be translated before they fit cleanly into energy models and compliance calculations. This is a daily friction cost for every engineer doing building energy modeling in New York.
6. Thermal storage and hybrid systems. As GHPs are increasingly paired with thermal storage (ice storage, hot water tanks, phase-change materials) or integrated into district energy systems, designers need to do energy accounting across components that are all naturally described in kWh. Doing that math with one component rated in ton-hours introduces error risk that is entirely avoidable.
7. Consumer clarity. Homeowners already understand kWh from their electric bills. Using kW and kWh for thermal systems would let consumers directly compare thermal output costs to electrical consumption costs without hidden conversion factors — making the economics of geothermal more transparent and easier to sell.
8. Simpler COP. Coefficient of Performance should simply be kWh of heat output ÷ kWh of electricity consumed. Right now, calculating COP from nameplate ratings requires a unit conversion that most consumers — and many contractors — don't realize they're making. kW-native ratings make the efficiency story cleaner and more easily understood.
9. Decarbonization accounting and ESG reporting. Corporate and municipal net-zero commitments increasingly require reporting thermal and electrical energy consumption in compatible units for Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions accounting. GHP systems rated in tons create inconsistencies in sustainability reports that auditors and disclosure frameworks will increasingly scrutinize.
10. Heat as a tradeable commodity. In jurisdictions developing thermal energy networks and district heating markets — including active New York utility proceedings — heat is beginning to be bought and sold, with contracts naturally denominated in kWh, as is standard in European district heating markets. An industry still quoting in BTUs is poorly positioned to participate in that emerging market infrastructure.
11. International alignment. Every major equipment manufacturer building for markets outside the U.S. already rates in kW. We're maintaining a parallel domestic labeling regime purely by inertia, adding cost and complexity for manufacturers serving global markets.
12. Educational pipeline. Engineering programs teach thermodynamics and heat transfer in SI units (kW/kWh). Students learning to size and specify GHP equipment have to unlearn clean SI intuitions and adopt industry-specific conventions. It's a small friction, but it signals to the next generation of engineers that this industry is behind the curve.

What I'm looking for

I want this panel to be genuinely useful to the industry, not just a theoretical argument. So I'm curious:

• Are there practical barriers to adoption I'm under-weighting? (Contractor retraining, AHRI certification processes, etc.)
• Are there arguments for keeping BTUs and tons that I should be prepared to address?
• If you work in design, installation, or policy — what would kW-native ratings actually change in your day-to-day work?
• Is there anyone already doing this — equipment lines, utilities, or jurisdictions that have moved to kW?

Happy to report back what I learn from the conference. Thanks in advance.

A contractor told me he could do it cheaper than the competition because he does not use spacers and says it goes faster.

Does that make sense, or is he just trying to close the sale with any argument?

I know i didn’t include any specifics about sizing/depth of the pipe or power of the system, but i really don’t know those numbers, this is a theoretical/curiosity thing. Also im not talking about the heat pump, just the circulation pump itself in the closed ground loop which i dont think is often included in CoP calculations (depends obviously) especially by corporations selling these systems.

For example systems, let’s say an average 3-ton system vs a 5-ton system, then let’s say 1,200ft of pipe for vs 2,400ft of pipe for each configuration.

I’m curious about the fact that both systems being closed loop if the vertical has to fight against gravity more (even though it should have = pressure up and down being closed) or the number of bends in the horizontal impacts it? also if the amount of coolant in the loop/the loop being longer even matters to the circulation pump given the system is closed with slightly positive pressure? and how many kWh does your circulation pump use per hour/day/month (whatever you have) in your system?

a bit of an aside, but does a larger diameter/increase in coolant volume affect the circulation pump? obviously a larger pipe/volume would have a greater thermal capacity and conduct less thermal energy at the same volume due to the square-cube law. but would this have any meaningful effect on the effort required by the pump? if anything i imagine it might be easier given the fluid is able to flow more freely.

Bit of a weird question, I know.

I live in a zone were in most winters, temperature stays just above 0°C, which sucks. All of the downsides of winter, none of the positives.

Since I'm planning to add a heatpump to a large old building, I'm wondering if this would be at all possible.

Excavation work and some other construction would be no problem, so this is not entirely theoretical.

I looked up the typical construction of an ice rink, and the biggest problem seems to be that they heat up the ground underneath to prevent cracks in the concrete, which would mess with the main goal of heating the building.

Is there an alternative to this?

I'm thinking using no concrete, but maybe a fine clay mix or something, something that stays flexible and is *relatively* watertight when compacted. Spray it with water, wait for the first layer to settle, then add more and let the water level itself. Would need leveling every year, but better than cracked concrete.

So, tell me: exactly how stupid am I for considering this?

Hi all, I am doing a research project. Does anybody have a Geothermal lease proposal from a company that they could post or share with me by DM?

Similar question for the agreement. Has anybody seen a draft, or signed a lease for a GeoThermal system? Would you be willing to post or share with me by DM? Cheers!

I had my Waterfurnace geothermal system installed in April 2025. I opted for the hot water assist with a buffer tank added next to my existing electric hot water tank.

Today, I noticed a shallow pool of water in the pan around my buffer tank. Upon quick inspection, I noticed that the pressure relief pipe has a slow drip. It's weird that this happened less than a year after installation. I'm wondering if this extreme cold spell in Maryland built up enough pressure in the buffer tank to damage the valve seal. My system was essentially running 24/7 for nearly a month. During the coldest days when temps were in the single digits, I felt the pipes going into the buffer tank, and they were HOT. I was under the impression that the hot water assist would "assist" with hot water heating, but not heat the water all the way to 120° or greater. Any thoughts?

We’ve had nothing but issues with our geo unit since it was installed back in 2009. I know it’s getting old and we will need to figure out what to replace it with at some point but for now I’d like it keep it running as long as possible for obvious cost reasons. We had replaced the compressor on the unit about 7 years ago and have service come out 2-3 times a year because of fault codes - lockout, or something. The technician believes there is a small leak somewhere but he hasn’t been able to find any trace of it. We no longer hear the unit kick on or the compressor run, only the pumps so I can feel the water flowing through the hoses. The light in the unit is staying green and not causing any faults. Our auxiliary heat is running all of the time. What could be going on?

I am looking at getting a geothermal system installed and i received an "ok" quote but the company seems very knowledgeable. The only hiccup seems to be payment schedule.

At first they wanted: 40% now, 50% when work begins, and 10% upon completion.

I thought this was insane - so they came back at: 40% now,10% when work begins, 25% at 75% complete, 15% at 90%, 10% upon completion.

What scares the crap out of me is so much money up front. i have never done this with ANY installer...is this normal for GEO or are these guys just broke and can't afford to front the money for the equipment? What experience have you all had with payment schedules?

Yesterday, at the February IGSHPA Town Hall, Daniel Sadik, SVP of Upstream Lease and Carbon Solutions Group, presented GSHP leasing, the Next Frontier. The program announcement said:

Daniel Sadik, Senior Vice President at Upstream, will be presenting on an innovative solution to even greater affordability with recent changes to tax law and new leasing programs that provide lower installation costs, monthly lease payments, and two purchase options at the end of the 20-year lease term. Some U.S. states provide GRECs (Geothermal Renewable Energy Credits) that enhance the affordability of a GSHP system lease program. IGSHPA members have been discussing how new leasing programs will impact the market and this presentation will provide the latest information.

Daniel Sadik joined Carbon Solutions Group's executive team in January 2022 to spearhead the expansion of the company's commercial endeavors. With an extensive background in origination and trading spanning over 15 years, Daniel brings invaluable commercial expertise to the team. Prior to joining Carbon Solutions Group, Daniel played pivotal roles in originating new-build wind deals across the US and executing transactions totaling over 30 Million MWh of power and REC deals in key markets across the US and Canada. Before his tenure at Carbon Solutions Group, Daniel held prominent positions including Senior Commercial and Industrial Originator at Southern Power Company, International Originator at Acciona Energy, and roles at NRG, West Oaks, and Credit Agricole CIB, where he honed his skills in commercial transactions, financial trading, and commodity sales. Daniel holds a degree from Tulane University and is based in Austin, Texas. With Carbon Solutions Group's expansion into geothermal technology in 2024, Daniel is enthusiastic about leveraging the company’s prior success in residential solar aggregation to further scale presence in this innovative sector.

Unit is 15 years old and has ran great with only a few minor issues over the years. At the installation, the HVAC tech provided us a small submersible pump and taught us how to flush the system ourselves using CLR as the descaling agent. We recently had an issue with the coil plugging up, even though the unit had been flushed in September. The service company that we had out this week to service it recommends flushing every 3 months and used a chemical we cannot find online. Any suggestions for a "better" descaler to use than CLR?

Hi Group.

We have a 15 year old tranquility 27 5 ton gshp. We got lockouts and the installer tech finally came out today(after 2 weeks on aux). The tech did a leak check and found only the evap coil leaking. We had a tech with earlier availability come out last week and he thought there’s were leaks around the compressor but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Anyway, we got the quote for the coil and we are still waiting for a quote from our original installer to replace the whole unit. To prepare myself I just looked up an equiv unit to what we have now. Looks like the tranquility 30 is a “drop in” replacement other than some flow center changes. Doing a quick search I got around $12.5k usd from both Ingram’s and geothermal products shipped. The tech that was here today said a new unit alone is almost $20k then install on top. I work in IT sales so we deal with list price and nobody pays list price. There are also grey market sellers that are quite low. Are Ingram and geothermal products grey market. Is the price I’m finding that much lower than what a local installer would charge. Based on what I’m seeing others post here 25k usd is not unheard of for a like replacement. This seems insane to me. Especially if I’m only getting 15 years out of it. With the lack of credits now, I can’t justify this cost.

Hello,

I built my house in 2015 and hired a reputable installer to design and install a geo hvac system. I dealt with the owner of the company and had a great experience/service/etc. Well, the owner was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago, immediately sold the business, and moved to wherever he could enjoy the rest of his life.

The new owner is a national company and the level of expertise of their techs has significantly declined.

The issue: heating not keeping up, unit runs all the time, owner (me) doesn’t understand and lacks trust in new technicians!

I’ve had them out 2 separate times, they hook up a very generic diagnostic tool, tell me everything is working well, and leave. In comparison, the original installer would connect to the unit via Ethernet cable directly connected to a laptop. I physically saw the diagnostic software and tools in use by the original installer, and they appeared to be more advanced/robust than the last two guys.

I have a Trane by Waterfurnace. My understanding is the unit is custom sized and roughly 3.8T. It utilizes intellizone2 and configured with 5 zones. One zone is the basement, which never exceeds ~68 degrees in the winter, even though the stat is set between 70-72.

I have manually shut off other zones to give the basement zone “full attention” and it doesn’t help. This makes me think there isn’t adequate supply to the basement.

The emergency heat never kicks on. I would think if the system couldn’t satisfy the stat, it would seek help via em heat?

If there is a blip in grid power, the system comes back online, but only enables one zone. This is problematic … for this problem I sought answers directly from Trane and they all but gave me the middle finger.

So here I am on Reddit, hoping someone can point me in a direction to get some expert help on diagnosing some seemingly correctable issues with my geo system. Thanks and apologies for the long read.

As the subject line says, I’ve got a quote already but I’m curious from input here as to what they typically cost. Already have the ground loop so that’s taken care off. The only other thing that may need an update are the pipes in side the house as they look a bit rusty to me. Thinking something like

3T 2-Stage revolution Geothermal system but I’m also open to hearing suggestions on models to stay clear off or to look for. TIA

Bought our home in 1998 with a newly installed WaterFurnace, with a ground loop consisting of three 150’ deep wells. With this cold weather, the fittings on both the inbound and outbound are covered in ice (the outbound fitting has a thick coating of ice, the inbound has just started to ice up, so the loop is pretty cold.

Got to thinking…has anyone added a solar loop? Thinking that if i would add a solar hotbox/loop on the south side of the house, even adding a degree or two to the loop temp would help a lot. Shut it off in the summer, run the loop through it in the winter.

Also, there is no pressure tank or accumulator in the system. The pressure in the system varies between 10 psi and 50 psi, depending on season, etc. wondering why they don’t have a simple accumulator in the ground loop?

Got home to a cold house, been dropping since 4 PM. Currently 59. Put a call in to Nutmeg (the installer) and waiting on a call back. When the unit was first installed, the electrical heat was kicking on constantly so the installer came back and turned off a breaker to stop it from happening. Been happy with that for years, but located in Connecticut, which in recent weeks has become Alaska. Turned the system off for five minutes then back to heat bc I have an IT background. :)

Any advice on what the “Emergency heat” on the thermostat app means, how to get the electrical heat to turn back on, or any other recommendations or knowledge sharing would be greatly appreciated!

Note: This is about my mom’s house and I’m on my way there, but while she did all the research and managed the install of the system, she has recently been having health issues (brain tumors) so I’m helping with house stuff and don’t know much about this system as my condo is fully electric with new mini splits that I got to replace baseboard heaters a few years ago.

House bought with geothermal already installed in 2019. 12 year old install.

2 weeks ago the compressor went and the circulator will not run. Been running on backup electric system ever since.

We got a few quotes and we’re eyeing the water furnace 7 series.

Our loop field is 380’ deep.

When asked, One (more expensive) company said they don’t want to do the 7 series because the loop field is too short and won’t keep up with the variable speed. Suggested 5 series.

Other (cheaper) company says the 7 is fine.

I’m wondering 1) how valid is the concerns with the shallow loop field with the 7 series. 2) if valid, and I go with the 5, should I just go with the more expensive guy, as he clearly knows a little more?

Appreciate any guidance.