Using drying out tidal estuary as a heat source for Geothermal Heat pump.

Buddyboy

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This is something I've been kicking around in my head for a while, so any ideas/thoughts/experience welcome.

I live next to a tidal estuary which has a muddy bottom when the tide is not in. It is at the bottom of my garden, i.e. my garden ends and the foreshore begins.

At some point my oil fired central heating is going to be replaced and I may replace it with a heat pump. One of my options is a ground source heat pump.

The ground source heat pump can't be a long trench type as I don't have the land area to lay it. It could possibly be a bored well type, but I wonder if I would ever recoup the outlay.

As I live by the estuary, what are peoples thoughts of sinking a loop of pipe into the mud (It will sink itself) and use that as the loop? It would sink a foot or so into the mud. I presume the (salt) water temperature is fairly constant, but I'll have to check the comparison between it and a normal trench laid pipe.

As you can see, I am kicking around the idea, and haven't run any numbers yet. Just looking to see if anybody has come across it before.
 
I'd imagine the biggest hurdle here would be getting permission. Check out if there are additional environmental protections as well, could make it impractical.

You can look at current and historical coastal water temperatures here.

Many of the new builds I've seen recently are using air to water heat pumps. Much simpler to install, but you'll need the building to be well insulated.
 
Yeah, Leo, permission would be the stumbling block, as the issue of pipe failure, discharging antifreeze into the area would be a no-no. It is also a bird sanctuary/area of special protection so I'd say permission is impossible (and rightly so I suppose).

Air to water may be the way to go.
 
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