TECH House I horizontal coil ground coupled heat pump: 1983 cooling season performance

Technical Report · Tue May 01 04:00:00 EDT 1984

OSTI ID:6924794

Johnson, S; McGraw, B A; Baugh, R N; Wix, S; Conlin, F

Performance of the ground-coupled heat pump system in TECH House I at the Tennessee Energy Conservation in Housing Facility is reported for the summer of 1983. The overall seasonal performance factor (SPF) was 1.11 with the system located within the conditioned space. If the system had been outside the conditioned space, an SPF of 1.31 would have been realized. This low performance level, below that of a conventional air-to-air heat pump, is primarily due to poor performance of the ground heat exchanger. Degraded soil heat transfer characteristics due to drying and the occurrence of voids around the pipe in the trench backfill were primary reasons for poor performance. In addition, it appears that the underground coil length needs to be increased in order to match the peak cooling loads of the house. The sensible load on the house was met by the system only for ambient temperature below 98/sup 0/F. The latent load was often not met because the inside coil temperature was not sufficiently below the dew point temperature of the inside air.

• Research Organization: Tennessee Univ., Knoxville (USA). Energy, Environment and Resources Center
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-84OR21400
• OSTI ID: 6924794
• Report Number(s): ORNL/Sub-81-7685/2and92; ON: DE84012042
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
320101* -- Energy Conservation
Consumption
& Utilization-- Residential Buildings-- (-1987)
BUILDINGS
COOLING LOAD
ENERGY TRANSFER
GROUND SOURCE HEAT PUMPS
HEAT EXCHANGERS
HEAT PUMPS
HEAT TRANSFER
HOUSES
PERFORMANCE
RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS
SEASONAL VARIATIONS
SOILS
VARIATIONS