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New GSHP idea / concept

RonV. · 2026-10-14T17:20:27Z

Hello from (Eastern) Canada, I'm no HVAC professional, but have been very interested in GSHP systems since the early 2000's. A concept my mind has been playing with (mainly to reduce installation expenses, and maybe increase efficiency is to use underground liquid tanks instead of ground or water loops. My specific idea is (for a 3 Ton pump) to have two ±20,000 liter underground tanks, at a good distance from each other. Instead of using one source for all temperatures, have one designated hot liquid tank, and one cold / ice tank. To further mitigate the risk of everything freezing up, I'm thinking to connect a set of evacuated solar tubes to heat the hot liquid, and connect the hot and cold tank with mixing valves so temp can be kept at ideal temperature. The benefit of this would be that you can freeze the cold tank at the end of winter, and use this energy for cooling in early spring, while hot tanks should be warm enough by then to provide a bit of heat if needed. In the fall the reversed process will be used. I figure you may be able to completely turn the heat pump off for a month or so in the spring and fall ... As said I am no pro, but this idea is stuck in my mind for over a year now ... Am I onto something, or are some of my ideas not realistic? I'm looking forward to your professional opinions, for which big thanks in advance!

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Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHPs)

Last Post by bobflux 3 weeks ago

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bobflux

(@bobflux)

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Joined: 9 months ago

Posts: 205

19/10/2026 9:10 pm

First you need to know how much thermal energy you'll need through the winter.

Then you can get an idea of how much mass will be needed to store it depending on the material you will use.

The idea behind ground loops is that dirt is free, so you want the installation to be made of as much dirt as possible and as little as possible of other stuff you have to purchase 🤣

So first they bulldoze the dirt away, lay down the PEX loops, then bulldoze the dirt back on top. Even then it is expensive unless you own a bulldozer and go DIY. PEX pipes are pretty cheap though.

Regarding solar thermal, it is interesting to compare the cost per kWh produced versus photovoltaics. PV uses more area, but is much cheaper per unit area, so around here (France) it is cheaper to heat water with electricity from PV than to heat it with solar thermal. Also PV means free air conditioning, and has many other uses...

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