We have had our fair share of problems with the ground source heat pump. At first, it kept tripping out with low pressure alerts. The ground loops were flushed 3 or 4 times and eventually the alerts abated – we have only had one in the past 3 months.
However, there seems to be a leak on the ground loops and the end result is that we lose pressure in the system. This is a bit surprising since we had the ground loops on a pressure test for a few weeks after the ground was back filled – we didn’t lose a drop during this period. However, the larger pipes that connect the manifolds were back filled later and we believe that the joints on these larger (653mm) pipes may have worked loose. In hindsight, we should have made sure that all the joints in the system were accessible from inside the manhole, however, we now have no choice other than to dig them up.
This one was dug by hand. It was decided it was time to order an excavator after this one.
Unfortunately, not all of the joints are accessible via the manholes. This means if you want to check them, then a hole (a big one) has to be dug. This one was dug by hand.
The task here is to dig holes alongside the existing manholes so that we can access the pipework that runs alongside them. The majority of the digging was done by machine. The last 300mm was dug by hand.