A geothermal heat pump — also called a ground-source heat pump — heats and cools your home by moving heat between the house and the ground. A loop of pipe buried in your yard carries water (often mixed with antifreeze) that picks up heat from the ground in winter and gives heat back to the ground in summer.

Why the ground matters

Outdoor air in Hampton Roads swings from freezing nights to humid 95-degree afternoons. A few feet down, the ground stays far steadier. The U.S. Department of Energy notes that ground temperatures stay relatively constant year-round, which is why a geothermal heat pump does not have to work as hard as an air-source system in extreme weather.

Two halves of one system

Think of geothermal in two parts. The loop side is the buried pipe, the pump that moves fluid through it, and the connections at the heat pump. The air side is everything you would recognize from a normal system: the blower, the coil, the filter and the ductwork. Problems can show up on either side, and good service checks both.

What we measure

On the loop side we look at flow, pressure, and the temperature of the fluid entering and leaving the heat pump. On the air side we measure airflow, static pressure and supply and return temperatures. Those numbers tell us whether the heat pump is actually exchanging heat the way it should — and they give you a baseline to compare against next year.

Repair or replace?

The buried loop is built to outlast the indoor heat pump by a wide margin. So when the indoor unit gets old, the question is usually whether to replace the heat pump and keep the loop — not whether to start over. We check the loop before recommending anything, size any new heat pump with a Manual J load calculation, and give you the repair and replacement numbers side by side.

If you just bought a geothermal home

Look for the heat pump’s model and serial number, any loop paperwork, and service records. If you have none, that is common. A first visit to identify the system and record its performance gives you a starting point.

Questions about your system? Call K&A Mechanical at (757) 630-2069.