Well Water used for Air and Heat at Home

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The idea of using cool water to heat a house may seem somewhat strange to most of us. But that's exactly what Willard McFayden of Ellerbe, North Carolina has been doing-and doing quite successfully for years.
The idea of using cool water to heat a house may seem somewhat strange to most of us. But that's exactly what Willard McFayden of Ellerbe, North Carolina has been doing-and doing quite successfully for years.
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A layout of how McFaden's well water heat pump system works.
A layout of how McFaden's well water heat pump system works.

Heat From 60 degree Fahrenheit Water?

Yes, and plenty of it! There’s usable and extractable heat, in fact, in any water … right down to the point (32 degrees Fahrenheit) that it becomes ice.

(For that matter, you can use both ice and water to maintain a comfortable living temperature in a structure. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, for instance, has experimented for the past few years with an “Annual Cycle Energy System” which warms a building during the winter by freezing water into ice … and then cools the structure in the summer by melting the same ice back into water.)

In McFayden’s case, the 60 degree well water that he taps is far more than adequate for his purposes for two reasons: Willard has at least a 10 degree temperature margin working in his favor, since his system was designed to operate quite effectively day in and day out with an input of 50 degree water, and McFayden’s well is capable of delivering a constant flow of 50 gallons of water a minute … while his heating setup needs only eight gallons a minute and needs those eight gallons only sporadically as his home’s regulating thermostat turns the system on and off.

The Secret of the System Is a Heat Pump

  • Published on Mar 1, 1977
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