Was a Manual J heat gain/loss calculation done to calculate what size equipment was needed?

Please supply as much detail as possible about your house & geothermal system, make model # particularly your ground heat exchanger. Do you have a visible flow meter indicating how many gallons per minute are flowing? Are there any gauges, meters or lights (LEDs); what do they indicate? Can you measure the air temp at the return plenum & supply plenum?

THIS IS NOT NORMAL! You should NOT need a dehumidifier! Did this system EVER work properly?

Do you have an ÂAs Built Book that can with your geothermal installation? This is a log of all the start-up parameters and data at the time of installation. It serves as a Âbaseline for future reference incase something goes wrong. That way any competent technician can walk in and figure out whatÂs gone wrong by comparing the data he has now with the original data when (hopefully) the system was running properly (kind of like a cardiologist).

Your Âair exchanger may be doing more harm than good. Is it an ERV or HRV? Please provide as much detail about this part of the system as possible. Is it a totally separate system or is it integrated into the ductwork?

You should have a lower temperature of the air coming out of the registers. Is there any water coming out of the condensate drain pipe?

Does the compressor come on? Are the flow center pumps working? Is the breaker for the backup off?

Have you tried switching the breaker off for a short while & the switching it back on to see if that Âresets the whole system? When the breaker is off, if you feel competent enough, you can remove some panels on the heat pump to see if there is any condensate (water) coming off the air heat exchanger. You can also check to see if the air heat exchanger is frozen or whether the drainpipe at the bottom of the air heat exchanger is obstructed. Check the air filter. Only reset the main breaker for the HP when all the panels are in place.

When a tech visits, you must have in writing AT THE LEAST  entering & leaving air temperatures at the plenums, entering & leaving water temperatures from the ground loops, flow rate in GPM & pressure drop measured in feet of head. They should flush the ground loop system at a rate of 2-ft/sec. (if itÂs closed loop). They should verify the refrigerant charge. If they donÂt  you take notes of everything & pictures as well of all their gauges & readings!

(IÂm rambling a bit, tired I guessÂ)

SR

Just to clarify - the 65-70 was a humidity not a temp - from what it looks like.

I have no idee what is wrong but it seems like there is a leak and what you are getting is a humidifier when you run the a/c. Do you have a humidifier (for winter) that could be stuck on?

Of course - where you live is a good place to start. What is the outdoor humidity?

Hope this helps. We also built new with very good insulation and a pretty good size basement/foundation. We also have geothermal-which I believe may be beside the point. Our builder told us that the concrete and other factors of building materials in the new house put off their own moisture as they are drying out and getting settled. We also ran a dehumidifier in the basement and upstairs for about the first 6 months/year. After that , we have never had a problem with humidity.

We are so tired, too. We have been up well past midnight for the past two nights trying to deal with this problem trying to come up with some answers, but we aren't real knowledgeable about the subject and out installer......please forgive me for saying this, but he is a jerk. We have loved everything that everyone did in building this home, except for this one man, who thinks the problem is in our head. He comes and makes adjustments, but the problem never goes away, so we THANK YOU for your response.
My dear husband read your post and is in the basement, now and I hear him unscrewing things....I will post more answers for you tomorrow. The air has a strange odor to it, ...I am so afraid that we have screwed uo our new place and do thank you for any help.
Until tomorrow.
Air is blowing through the register registering 81 on the humidistat.
The water is not going out of the heat pump.

This is from my husband:
My husband checked and there was no water coming out of the condensate drain of the heat pump. He also turned off the whole house air exchanger. Still the air was being sucked through the whole house air exchanger. He tested this by holding a piece of paper up to outside vent and the paper was sucked onto the vent.

Since the humidity outside has been running between 60-75%, it has been pulling all this humid air through the entire house and nothing is going back out through the condensate drain. All this humid air is staying in the house.

We have two dehumidifiers running full steam, that are pulling about 10-11 gallons of water out of the house per day, still the humidity won't go below 50%.

What we did (on our own) was to turn the air exchanger off and tape the vents so that no air could be pulled in. We then called the technician and explained all of this to him.

The technician came today. Before he came, we un-taped the vent. He checked the freon. It looked ok, but he added just a tiny bit, for good measure. He pulled the cover off the air handler and there was NO water coming off the coils into the condensation pan. The temperatures on the heat pump while running were normal. He says he is coming back tomorrow and is going to put a damper on the air exchanger so it will only open when the air exchanger comes on.Until then he suggested that we tape the vent to the air exchanger closed, so as not to allow any air to come into the house.

The technician never said why water was not condensing into the drain pan. My husband did ask him, but he evaded the answer, possibly because he didn't know, but my husband feels like he will come back with an answer tomorrow.

The air temperature setting in our home, which is 69 degrees, has served to keep the house @ 69 degrees.

My husband's theory is that possibly the air in our home is not warm enough to condense on the coils, thus it just passes on though to our house because the fan speed is blowing so hard and fast.

My husband raised the temperature on our thermostats (we have three zones) to 72 degrees. With the two humidifiers going (one in the basement and one on the second level) and no humid air being brought through the air exchanger, it is his hope that we will be able to bring our humidity down.

This is what my husband who, honestly is not expert here, has figured on his own and if it quite possible that he is onto something. MY thinking is that we paid over 24,000 for this and we should be having NO problems. And I would like your opinions.

My husband feels that after doing what he did, which included taking one humidifier from the basement to the upstairs, that he has possibly stabilized the air to 50%.

I feel like something much worse is wrong with the system that we should not have to be doing this stuff.

Please submit opinions, and God bless you for all your responses. The people we have dealt with are such jerks,the owner hanging up on my husband when he tries t discuss something with him, scheduling us for appointments and then never showing to help us with this problem...It has truly been a nightmare. Also a question from me....does this mean that we will never be able to have our temps set below 72 again? I suffocate at temps over 70.

Is there any water inside the HP? Is the compressor running? Do you have any type of thermometer that can measure the Entering & leaving water temperature at the heat pump? Even if the thermometer is not the greatest just so that you can measure the temperature differential between the two (called 'Delta T' between EWT & LWT).

Is there any indication that the compressor may be locked out?

Use the link below to find a competent installer in your area or contact the manufacturer for assistance.

SR

The compressor is coming on as needed and we don't know where to check the temperature. My husband decided to go with a 74 temperature setting and the house temp on Second floor is 74. It is 73 here, on the main level and I'm not sure in the basement.
He said that it should be ready to go on here in a minute and that will tell the story. He also is wondering if the house is cooling so quickly that condensation doesn't have a chance to appear. The coil gets wet, but it doesn't drip.
We have a very tight house, run by solar energy.

We were ahead of the game in the solar department, but now that this problem has developed,and we are having to use these dehumidifiers, the power usage ate all the extra that we had made plus more. :-( Now will have at least a 100.00 bill. but that's small potatoes compared to solving this problem.

Thanks for the link. We have have to call in a second opinion.

OK, It is now showing that the unit is going into stage 2,but the compressor is NOT coming on.

Any ideas?

If it's reaching the set point very quickly, it could be that the system is over sized and not getting a chance to dehumidify before it shuts off. You should have long run times to dehumidify.

Maybe you have to wait a few minutes before 2nd stage kicks in...

What is the make & model of your heat pump?

SR

Just came across this thread and wondered what ever happened regarding your geo thermal unit?