Reply To: Can you plant trees in geothermal well fields?

[Steve Mercer]

Most of those wells are lined with steel well casings I wouldn’t think it would be a problem if that were the case. You would have to check to make sure they were lined. Usually the wells are drilled and lined with steel well casings and then the water pipes are placed inside the well casings they have to run loops of pipe down into the well. They pump the water down in the well and either cool or heat the water depending on the time of the year and the water loops back up from the bottom of the well and is pumped back into the building in insulated lined pipes where the energy is transfered to the buildings HVAC system. The trees generally will not damage the pipes unless there is a water leak in the pipe. If the client has a water leak in this type of installation they have bigger issues than worrying about the damage from the trees.

s.