WHY IS A GEOTHERMAL HEAT PUMP BETTER?
Water stores tremendous quantities of heat. In nature, few substances have a higher specific heat (one BTU per pound) than does water, making it an ideal heat storage medium for both natural and man-made phenomena. Air, on the other hand has a very low specific heat (.018 BTU per cubic foot). There is 3472 times more heat stored in a cubic foot of water (62.5 BTU per degree F) as in a cubic foot of air . In other words it would be necessary to move 3472 cubic feet of air through a heat exchanger in an air-to-air heat pump in order to expose that heat exchanger to the same quantity of heat stored in a cubic foot of water (7 1/2 gallons) that is moved thru a geothermal heat pump. This cube represents one cubic foot of water This cube represents 3472 cubic feet of air Furthermore, Enviroteq geothermal heat pump units have such low resistance to water flow (pressure drop) that about two cubic feet per minute (15 gallons) is the average water flow through an Enviroteq geothermal heat pump u
