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Whether you have a greenhouse or indoor grow operation, whether for medical marijuana, recreational cannabis, or micro greens for restaurants, proper climate control is as vital as knowing how to grow your crop. The levels of heating and cooling and dehumidification are from 4 to 10 times higher in a greenhouse or grow room than in a residential home application. This means some serious climate control equipment and design is required. Greenhouses typically use fans and vents for cooling. This means all that heat energy is expelled and wasted only to be bought back at night for heating from your local utility. This energy can be saved and reused. Forget about humidity control and co2, gone with the wind via the fans. In a closed grow room the lights do more than enough heating and the room needs to be cooled. When the lights go out the temp falls quickly…

The high cost of geo systems, a must read! Hello — Glad to hear you’re busy – thanks for answering — I installed my own ground loop & 4-ton Command Air in 1988. After a burn-out in 1998, I put in a new 4-ton Command Air w/scroll compressor. All the time hooked into my original loop, consisting of 4-each 500′ loops hooked in parallel, with two Grundfos pumps in series, giving me aprox 12 gpm. the compressor typically locks-out a few times in January, but this year it had been a plague, with me having to reset at least once a day — have been considering putting a 1 hour time delay triggered by the lockout relay. I sent for a digital temperature probe. So I need to take some accurate temp and pressure drop measurements. After I get that done, I may need some serious advice as to how…

A reader sent pics and a description of his failed 6 ton open well, forced air geo system: The GeoGuy responds… I finally had a chance to get to this and don’t really have a good answer… The workmanship from what I can see is bordering criminal and you should notify Climatemaster to have this jerks dealer status revoked. It’s so sad that there are no licensing requirements for residential hvac in most areas. Your mech room is very small I’m wondering what room we have to add some components… You will need to add a closed loop to protect the HP from the skanky well water you have. This will take up some space. Is there a zoning module installed? In other words you simply cannot open and close air dampers via thermostats on a heat pump without maintaining airflow through the unit. The different brands of thermostats suggest…

Beware of the low bid. In the big league, when the bids come in, usually the lowest bid and the highest bid are tossed out. There is good reason for this. The value of a proposal is clearly not just the price, but what you get for the money. The client expects good value, professional workmanship, and a problem free relationship with the contractor/provider of the service. If there is a problem, it usually costs money to resolve and there goes the savings in choosing the low bid.  Checking out the references and the reputation of the contractor cannot be emphasized enough. QUALIFICATIONS: The qualifications of the geo contractor are very important. In the electrical world permits and licenses are clearly defined. In the plumbing world permits and licenses are clearly defined. In the hvac world it’s the Wild West. What are the qualifications of your low bid geo contractor?…

Making Geothermal Projects Work. The core of the Earth is kept hot by radioactive decay while the surface is kept warm by solar radiation. Geothermal “energy” is extracted from the depths of the Earth while geothermal heating and cooling (now called geoexchange) is extracted from the surface of the Earth. This is why we refer to the Earth as our free solar energy storage system from which we can exchange low level energy at will.

Geothermal Heating and Cooling is clearly visible when we use different eyes. On the left are 2 stacked 5 ton units in a greenhouse. On the right are 2 stacked 4 ton units in a home. The Geo Guy can do energy audits like this infra-red imaging to find where your energy is going. WARNING: IR imaging shows how badly we build things here.

This twin 5 ton HP system performs! Each HP has its own lake loop 1,100ft away using only 2 small circulator pumps for each. It does radiant floor heating for 3 buildings, DHW and a pool.