Heat pump shared ground loop

photodgm

Family member is looking to buy a new build with a heat pump and shared ground loop. Borehole array is in garden to the right, there is a pipe across her garden to the garden to the left. Each house has its own 'flow and return' and its own heatpump. All pipework is contained within the 3 gardens. The current information provided seems to be more appropriate to a network heating system including a possible contract with an energy supplier, consequently there are a number of enquiries being passed on through the conveyancer. However we suspect that the conveyancer will not be expert in this field and nor are we. Are there any known issues with this type of system or specific questions that need to be asked. Thanks to anyone who can help.

lohr500

Assuming the system has been specified, configured and installed correctly (on which I can't offer any advice), my main concern would be over the ongoing shared access, maintenance and long term replacement costs across the three properties.

I would have thought it essential that such issues are fully covered in the deeds and covenants on all properties sharing the system.

There are plenty of horror stories over shared access driveways, septic tanks, etc where neighbours fall out or can't agree on who should pay what for maintenance, repair or replacement. 

Ectophile

If the system hasn't been specified, configured and installed correctly, then the three neighbours will be competing with each other as to who gets the heat, until it eventually runs out and they all end up paying a fortune for conventional electric heating.

photodgm

Ectophile said:

If the system hasn't been specified, configured and installed correctly, then the three neighbours will be competing with each other as to who gets the heat, until it eventually runs out and they all end up paying a fortune for conventional electric heating.

Are there specific questions that could be asked to determine if everything has been done correctly? None of the houses are currently occupied.

QrizB

photodgm said:

Ectophile said:

If the system hasn't been specified, configured and installed correctly, then the three neighbours will be competing with each other as to who gets the heat, until it eventually runs out and they all end up paying a fortune for conventional electric heating.

Are there specific questions that could be asked to determine if everything has been done correctly? None of the houses are currently occupied.

If this wasn't a new build, I imagine you'd be arranging a surveyor's report, an electrical safety check, and some sort of expert report on the ground-source heat pump (GSHP). I'm not sure exactly where you stand with a new-build, how much you need to provide vs. what the builder already has. Is the builder providing eg. the design details and a commissioning report?

photodgm

QrizB said:

Is the builder providing eg. the design details and a commissioning report?

Not as far as I know. The information I have seen seemed much more appropriate to some form of network heating system. Questions have been asked through the conveyancer but when so little is understood it is difficult to be sure that the most important questions are being asked.

Reed_Richards

Ground Source Heat Pumps typically collect their heat either from a long length of pipe buried just below the surface and this is called a "ground loop".  Alternatively the collector pipe goes down one or more boreholes to collect the heat.  You mention both a "ground loop" and a "borehole array" but I think it should be one thing or the other.

Boreholes are hugely expensive to drill so if it is genuinely feasible to share boreholes between several properties it makes good economic sense. 

markin

Who would own the bore hole, is it in the deeds, contracts? Would this company own it, Or do you, And the fee is just a maintenance/servicing charge that you could end and find someone else to service it.