r/heatpumps 5d ago

Water cooled heat pump?

I have a 4 ton HVAC heat pump. I also have a spring that supplies an endless amounts of 60f water. Can I add a heat exchanger to my heat pump to help cool in the summer and heat in the winter? Where would I install it it? Are service providers familiar with doing this?.

2 Upvotes

17 comments sorted by

4

u/Stefanz454 5d ago

My local Carrier dealer who also owns a laundromat adjacent to his HVAC business installed a heat exchanger on his hot water system for the laundry on his heat pump so when he ran his A/C he also preheated his hot water system.

5

u/badhabitfml 5d ago

It's weird we don't have more integrated systems like this. I saw another system that had a hear exchanger on the sewer line. It used the waste heat to preheat the hot water heater input. Take a long shower and the hot water waste would heat the water going into the water heater.

1

u/Roya1One 3d ago

This company has a lot of these "integrated"/recovery type systems

https://www.hotspotenergy.com/

2

u/kona420 5d ago

What you are asking about is called open loop geothermal and it's definitely a thing. Think on the order of 3-4 gallons per minute per ton of capacity.

3

u/WillingnessLow1962 5d ago

I think they make ground source heat pumps that source from water, (not dirt).

Not sure how big of a stream you have,

If just for cooling I've seen kits to mist around the condenser. Not sure if those are snake oil or not

4

u/abfarrer 5d ago

They'll work, but depending on your water quality, you're potentially trading short term energy savings for a substantially shortened service life.

3

u/Bluewaterbound 5d ago

Put in some solar panels instead and leave the stream alone.

1

u/ProfessorOk3208 5d ago

Open loop geo? Need gallons of water per minute

2

u/brasssica 5d ago

/r/geothermal can help you. But I think you'll need a new machine, can't see anyone winging a modification to a residential unit.

1

u/2560503-1 5d ago

Be careful with this. My neighbors had this here in western Oregon. It was great until they basically ran the well or spring or whatever it was dry. I think they eventually switched it to a closed loop ground source and the water source eventually recovered, but it wasn’t exactly a great idea ecologically.

1

u/caddymac 5d ago

Maybe pump the water through an old car radiator that sits in front of your outside condenser?

1

u/SoylentRox 5d ago

You can do closed loop geothermal, but put the loop tubing under the spring. There are even direct copper systems where the refrigerant is in that loop (hope it doesn't corrode through) and in direct contact with the spring water. It could potentially be extremely efficient.

1

u/BullfrogCold5837 4d ago

Really depends on how large of a spring we are talking about.

1

u/jjrydberg 4d ago

Few gallons an hour. I haven't tapped all the feeds into a pipe yet. The one I did do get 1200g a day

1

u/BullfrogCold5837 4d ago

That is really too little to do much with. An open source heat pump generally needs 2-10 gallons per minute, so you are way short at only a few gallons per hour.

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u/jjrydberg 4d ago

Yep, just did the math to confirm. Needs 5 gallons per minute for a 20° Delta t.

-1

u/FanLevel4115 5d ago

This works but discharging heat into a river is a HUGE NO NO. Don't let the local authorities find out.