Learn on GSHP systems
Ground-source systems reward careful design and, just as quietly, punish guesswork, for thirty years and more after a field goes into the ground. Over years of teaching and practice, the same practical questions keep coming back: not the derivations in the textbooks, but the decisions that actually determine whether a system delivers the savings it promised. This blog is where I try to answer them plainly, one design decision at a time, with the physics that matters, the trade-offs, and the judgment that separates a sound choice from a costly one.
The aim behind it is simple. Ground-source heat pumps are among the most effective tools we have for cutting building emissions, but only when they are designed well and actually perform as intended. If these articles help a few systems be sized more sharply, built more carefully, and run closer to their promise, and help a few more get built at all, then geothermal does a little more of what it can for the climate. That, ultimately, is why I write these.
Standing Column Wells: A Complementary Ground Heat Exchanger for Dense Urban Sites
The closed-loop borehole field is the reference ground heat exchanger, but it needs land, the one thing a dense, already-built city rarely has. A standing column well carries a large building from...
Antifreeze: Getting the Concentration Right — and the Cost of Getting It Wrong
Antifreeze keeps a geothermal loop operating through the cold, but over-concentrating it thickens the fluid, raises convective resistance and quietly enlarges the borehole field. Fluid and concentration deserve deliberate selection.
Cutting Borehole Thermal Resistance: Grout, Spacing and Flow Regime
Effective borehole thermal resistance is one of the few design levers under direct control, and thermally enhanced grout alone can shorten a field by 20–40%. The gains lie in grout, pipe spacing...
From Sizing to Simulation: Using the Sizing Result as a Starting Point
The sizing equation is the simulation equation reduced to three thermal pulses, arranged so the total borehole length can be isolated directly. That makes it a fast, transparent starting point — one...
How to reduce the cost of GSHP systems?
GHE Analysis software helps optimize ground-source heat pump systems, reducing costs and energy consumption by improving ground loop efficiency and system sizing.
A neural network model to analyze interupted TRTs
For the interpretation of interrupted thermal response tests, TRT Analysis uses a fast and accurate neural network model.
What is a thermal response test?
TRT Analysis can interpret interrupted, pulsed or oscillating TRTs, or TRTs during which the heating power has varied significantly.
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