Geothermal cooling a Grow Room if House is Also Geothermal?

[rrog]

Assuming:

• A new house is being built with geothermal heating / cooling.
• In the basement will be a 10 x 15 grow area, maybe running 4000W HID, CO2, etc.

I was looking at a mini-split for the grow area, but if the whole house is running a geothermal heat pump, I wonder if I should be considering just beefing up the geothermal system to accommodate the grow rooms.

Not sure if that means a second heat pump or just a separate zone on the main system. Not sure if a geothermal system can simultaneously heat a house while cooling a grow. I'm thinking this may require two heat pumps and maybe even two sets of coils in the ground. If that's the case, I'd be better off just sticking with a traditional mini-split for the grow and let the rest of the house run Geo.

Thanks for any insights.

 

[SeaMaiden]

What we have isn't geothermal, but it is a heat pump. It can only do one thing at a time, heat OR cool. When we got our home energy retrofitted last year for solar they replaced the furnace and A/C units with this one unit.

 

[rrog]

I'm thinking the system is all heat or all cool, but to do both may require nearly twice the equipment. Considering I'm going to run hundreds of feet of underground coil, it sure seems a waste not to use the geothermal somehow

 

[justanotherbozo]

I'm thinking the system is all heat or all cool, but to do both may require nearly twice the equipment. Considering I'm going to run hundreds of feet of underground coil, it sure seems a waste not to use the geothermal somehow

what about electrical power? ...is it possible to power a generator with geo-thermal?

bozo

 

[SeaMaiden]

I'm thinking the system is all heat or all cool, but to do both may require nearly twice the equipment. Considering I'm going to run hundreds of feet of underground coil, it sure seems a waste not to use the geothermal somehow

I agree on that! While I know next to nothing about the mechanical and engineering aspects of it, yes, I think you'd need two heat pumps, hooked up to two sets of coils in order to accomplish something like heating the house while cooling the basement.

You're really starting from the ground up, ain't ya?

 

[FlowerFarmer]

Please do continue this thread as you proceed with it.

So how exactly does geothermal work?

Will you be using cold water to cool either a swamp cooler or water cooled AC....heated watering being sent through underground coils until it is cooled down again?

 

[rrog]

Cold water from the buried pipe is brought in and run through a heat pump to make it colder or hotter. Not cheap but I'd already have the rest of the system in place was my thought