Self contained water-to-water heat pump

Abstract

A self-contained water-to-water heat transfer system is provided that mixes hot water produced by a heat exchange with cold output fluid expelled from the heat pump to make source fluid. More specifically, in order to reduce the fluid flow rate required within a heat pump and substantially prevent freezing of evaporator coils within the heat pump, source water fed into the heat pump is taken from a mixture of the output hot water that was generated in the heat pump and the cool water exiting the heat pump. The system alleviates the need to employ an ground loop outside of a structure that is required by traditional geothermal heating systems.

1 . A self-contained water-to-water heat transfer system comprising:
 a first fluid input conduit in communication with a heat pump;   a first fluid exit conduit in communication with said heat pump;   a second fluid input conduit in communication with a heat pump;   a second fluid exit conduit in communication with said heat pump and interconnected to said first fluid input conduit, and wherein thermal energy from said first fluid input conduit is transferred to said second fluid exit conduit;   a bypass conduit interconnecting said first fluid exit conduit and said first fluid input conduit thereby reducing the temperature of fluid in said second fluid exit conduit.