Review of: Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Andrew B
02/22/2024
Verified Buyer
Great intro to a topic that I knew very little about....Am I suddenly and expert?....No, but I think I can at least speak a little intelligently on the subject.
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Review of: Geothermal Heating and Cooling
05/06/2023
Verified Buyer
Good course that provides the fundamentals of Geothermal Heating and Cooling.
1 of 1 customers found this helpful.
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Review of: Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Marcia Wilhelm Ostendorff
12/22/2021
Verified Buyer
Nice review of fundamentals
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Review of: Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Justin Smith
02/10/2021
Verified Buyer
Great content overall. There were a couple of points of uncertainty with respect to the sentence beginning with "Add the heat to compressor and heat of earth..." and the idea of operating a trencher at the bottom of a 5-ft trench.
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Miguel Restrepo
05/05/2020
Verified Buyer
Good class, full of information and ideas.
1 of 1 customers found this helpful.
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
This course is not written very well and it is difficult to follow some of the statements. While I have a better understanding of geothermal heating and cooling, I clearly could not design a system after taking this course in spite of the following quote from the subject matter. "Those who pass this Suncam Course should be qualified to design and oversee construction of a small building's new or retrofit system". I am an HVAC design engineer with many years of experience and don't agree.
2 of 2 customers found this helpful.
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Richard Melling
12/27/2019
Verified Buyer
This is an excellent course! The information was very interesting and easy to understand. The test questions were written very well.
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Steven Buger
11/22/2019
Verified Buyer
Great introduction to trench design Geothermal...but the text content jumped around and lacked topical headings. Not a lot of attention is given to the design equations. In fact the variables are not all defined so it is was good to know the GSHP society publishes design manuals that can be referenced if we do in deed want to study this further.
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Ken Stevens
11/04/2019
Verified Buyer
Good introduction to Geothermal heating and cooling. Would be great if there was an example all the way for a specific location.
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Rick
09/24/2019
Verified Buyer
I really enjoyed this course. Besides quadrupling my knowledge of ground source systems, I also found it challenging; more like a college course than a hunt for the answers course. I even researched several questions on-line to make sure my gut (engineering common sense) reactions were correct. Kudos and thanks for the interesting stuff. I already told my neighbor all about how we should go geo.
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Steve Swartz
07/21/2019
Verified Buyer
Very concise and comprehensive. Excellent course.
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Frank Miller, PE
06/29/2019
Excellent source of information for anyone interested in geothermal heating systems.
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Robert roop
04/26/2019
Verified Buyer
OK for beginners
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Michael Miller
12/28/2018
Verified Buyer
Powerserve Technologies Inc
I found many of the questions in the test document not explicitly covered in the course document. While this is valid to test the experience of the engineer, the questions seem unfair in that an inexperienced opinion may not match with the authors.
1 of 1 customers found this helpful.
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Angelo da Silva
12/28/2018
Verified Buyer
Beacon Consulting Engineers
Valuable information in this course.
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Ryan Stanton
12/25/2018
Verified Buyer
I enjoyed the subject matter. As a side note, I wished the verbiage was edited better because awkward sentences detracted from the learning experience. I had hoped to see discussion about possible long-term of effects and mitigation strategies of thermal accumulation.
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Herbert Donner
09/29/2018
Verified Buyer
The information was concise and clearly presented. It now represents information with a need for a place to use it.
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Jose Meruelo
08/23/2018
Verified Buyer
An area that was not quite familiar with but still very educative and interesting
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Miguel I. Payano
08/01/2018
Verified Buyer
Very concise and informative course!
2 of 3 customers found this helpful.
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Richard Job
07/10/2018
Verified Buyer
The course content is very good. Your exam questions are splitting hairs ie.
# 3 . . .
#4 . . .
#15 . . .
Portions of the review have been removed because they disclosed answer to test questions.
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Claude Henderson
07/07/2018
Verified Buyer
Overall good introduction to Geothermal Heating and Cooling. Presentation not as well organized made it difficult to follow at times.
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Richard Clarke
07/07/2018
Verified Buyer
Great course. I may install this system in the future.
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Curt Wasko
07/06/2018
Verified Buyer
Content organization wanders a bit. But overall a good introduction to the topic.
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Bertram Heuckeroth
07/06/2018
Verified Buyer
Enjoyed the course, learned lots of valuable information!
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Just right
1 of 1 customers found this helpful.
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
George W Rodgers Jr
07/01/2018
Verified Buyer
Exceptional course. I am in the process of having a geothermal system installed and i have a much better understanding of the system as the result of completing this course.
1 of 1 customers found this helpful.
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
John Phillips
05/17/2018
Verified Buyer
I really enjoyed the course. Taking it was a good experience in learning. Easy to work thru, read and follow.
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Thomas Kenna
12/26/2017
Verified Buyer
Good Course, liked the content. Some of the test questions are a bit mysterious, but I did OK. I will take the author's other two courses on geothermal topics.
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Joel Gordon
11/07/2017
Verified Buyer
Information was very useful being a Mechanical HVAC engineer. I have designed some geothermal projects in the past. However, worked with a geothermal engineer, so he did the outside design and I did the interior design. Now I have a better understanding of what he does.
I thought some of the questions were somewhat tricky and hard to follow within the course material.
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Mackey Keith
08/12/2017
Verified Buyer
The course material was written okay. I thought the web links for further references and guides were helpful for one to pursue further information
Course material discussion on pages 14 and 15 need to be improved because they provide some information for questions 10 and 11. Figure 2 is not very clear about where Stillwater OK is in relation to the contour lines. I tried to go to www. Geo4va.vt.edu/A1/A1.htm and it resulted in “Object Not found” and error 404. I thought the web site might be helpful since the Figure 2 is so small that it is difficult to interpolate so one has to guess. Figure 3 does not indicate which region of the country it is drawn for. How would the reader know what region of the country is represented in the chart – North Carolina???? Not clear at all.
Question 11 refers to figures 9 and 10. In the course material here are NO figures identified beyond Figure 3. There is NO Figure 9 and there is NO Figure 10.
.
Not sure what the title and discussion is about on page 36 near bottom.
It appears to be a title, “Heat Fuel Comparison Calculator” and then a table below it with just the column headings. Maybe it is an example of what is seen on the Department of Energy website for cost comparison calculator, but not clear at all what this section is meant to convey.
The problems that you experienced were not the fault of the author and have now been corrected. SunCam failed to upload the updated course document that the author submitted. Please accept our apologies.
Followup: The reviewer has offered to increase the rating to 5 stars.
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Paul
03/15/2017
Verified Buyer
Great class on GSHP, very much enjoyed the presentation and practical application.
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Randy Weatherspoon
02/24/2017
Verified Buyer
There is no page 39 in course material as noted in answer
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
very good
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029-Geothermal Heating and Cooling
This is a good course. It provides some detail that isn't available is many geothermal articles.
The test includes a couple of tricky questions that are not directly answered in the material. Since this is an educational course, the important information should be clearly spelled out.
I would recommend this course.
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Educational intro to GSHP
Chris
02/21/2016
Verified Buyer
Concise & organized presentation with illustrative examples and benchmarking info
4 of 5 customers found this helpful.
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Review of SunCam Course 029 - Geothermal Heating & Cooling
An interesting presentation tho cannot agree that passing this course puts one in a position of being competent enough to design even simple geothermal systems under the implied aegis of one's being a PE.
Many explanations are difficult if not impossible to understand. Grammar, syntax, and sentence construction errors often make the immediate point difficult or impossible to grasp.
More detailed examples needed to demonstrate the attempted verbal explanations.
Many good web based links and references to other related SunCam course resources.
Annotated screen shots that follow the problem solving processes in each web link would be helpful as many of the web link processes are obscure at the level of explanation provided in this course.
2 of 2 customers found this helpful.
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Geo Heat And Cool - A Good Informational Course
Anonymous reviewer
12/26/2015
This is a good informational course. I was disappointed in the wording of a test question that dealt with a desuperheater. The question needs to be clarified. The answer determined correct is not applicable.
1 of 1 customers found this helpful.
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(no title provided)
anonymous
08/26/2015
Verified Buyer
Very informative. Lots of good information.
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(no title provided)
This course describes fundamental installation and project concept information in a way that is readable and very understandable. The course doesn't include discussion of design/performance information that would be needed by Engineer in selecting and sizing equipment to meet the space heating and cooling loads; but, it provides a great overview of the practical knowledge needed for defining methods and materials, especially as related to geographic area and local barriers to installation.
1 of 1 customers found this helpful.
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Much useful information, but documents need grammatical corrections
Considerable useful information was presented. I had to work very hard to understand the instructor because he used incomplete and run-on sentences, or improperly punctuated sentences. The instructor may be English challenged, but tried to share considerable knowledge.
Does anyone in Suncam peer review these courses or provide quality control?
Please use complete sentences as much as possible. Do not start sentences with "and". Run-on sentences with incorrect punctuation may be incorrectly interpreted. Please try to avoid this situation. We are creative engineers.
The instructor did provide much good information, defined most acronyms, and and obviously had hands-on experience.
2 of 2 customers found this helpful.
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(no title provided)
Charles Allred
01/26/2015
Good introduction to Geothermal Heating and Cooling. Very light in design content but this is expected for an introductory course. I hope the subsequent courses have more actual design content.
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(no title provided)
Andrew Ivester
01/16/2015
Very good course. Lots of practical information. Lots of valuable references. Significantly increased confidence to do a project with this technology.
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COURSE 029
Robert Salsbury
11/16/2014
Writing style is a bit hard to sift through in places but it is understandable and you will get the content that you are looking for.
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(no title provided)
This is a very good introductory course. I recommend this course to anyone considering Geothermal systems.
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(no title provided)
Valmore A Gauthier
08/15/2014
I found this to be a good refresher course with a lot detailed information that i was missing from the past. This a good general start for anyone considering a GSHP System. I'm going to recommend this course to a lot of people who want a better understanding of what is involved in the process of GSHP System
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(no title provided)
The course content is highly informative, but needs improvement in composition, organization of subjects and more clarity in presentation of graphs.
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(no title provided)
There are several grammar errors and the organization or topics made the course difficult to follow. The examples are very poorly presented as well.
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(no title provided)
Very good class. Tougher and more complex than many others I have taken in past few years. Forced me to read ALL of the course material really study the topic.
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(no title provided)
The course materials were informative, but the writing needs improvement.
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Good Introduction to Ground Source Heat Pump Systems
I found the course content generally useful and informative.
I found the section on calculating and adjusting the annual, seasonal, and average ground temperatures confusing and ambiguous in its application. A better explanation would be helpful.
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Informative
The study material was a good review of a subject of which I had some previous knowledge; very informatiove.
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(no title provided)
There are some confusing parts, but overall, this was a good introduction to geothermal systems.
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SunCam Geothermal H & C Course Review
No problems. This was all kinda new to me, but the material was clear and straight forward - interesting. It did take some work to get through the materials and workup the test, but it was all worth while. May get a chance to do a simple system like those covered one of these days. This course is a good place to start.
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(no title provided)
Nice introduction to the basics. Would have liked more detail as to design and cost for the various aspects.
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mg1
Michael Graham
01/08/2014
The course material was easy to follow and corresponded well to the test questions.
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Nice course
Michael Eisenbise
12/31/2013
Learn a great deal from this course.
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(no title provided)
Michael Newtown
12/16/2013
I found the reading material to be very detailed and informative.
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(no title provided)
Study guide is hard to follow, especially the discussion on ground temperatures at depths. There is insufficient information on how to use figure 3 and how to extrapolate to another temperature for another part of the Country. Even the explanation to my missed question does not make sense.
I already knew something about this topic because I installed a system with a lake coil about 2 years ago. Had I not worked with this in the past the study guide would have been very difficult to understand.
SunCam Comment: A portion of this review was deleted because it reveled the answer to a test question.
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(no title provided)
The course content was very good and informative. However an engineer is supposed to consider the total cost of energy including the installed cost of the energy systems and the cost of energy after the system is installed for some period of time...say system expected life before major repair and significant maintenance. This course orientation was toward energy cost saving without much in the way of total life cost. That is a dis-service to the student and the potential purchaser of such a system. I would have given the course a 5 if total cost comparisons were made. These systems also show greatest benefit when electricity is used for space and water heating.
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(no title provided)
good course very informative priced right
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(no title provided)
Larry D. Harrell
09/14/2013
Very good course.
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(no title provided)
Overall, the material was presented in an okay fashion.
However, it was difficult (who said tests should be easy) to relate many of the test questions to the course material.
Question 26, for example asks about three zones - there is no mention of more than two zones in the material.
Also, in question 11, the answer requires interpolation of the graph shown in Figure 3 but there is nothing that explains how the graph shown should be read.
I am an engineer and understand hydraulics but question 17 asks about 3/4" loop pipe vs 2" loop pipe whereas the text has no correlation of size vs efficiency.
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Geothermal Energy for Small Commercial and Residential
William Goodfellow
07/15/2013
This course was well developed and presented and provided me with a more optimistic view of society dealing with the current worldwide energy and pollution situations. I feel I learned a great deal and look forward to future courses dealing with this topic.
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(no title provided)
The course is good for designing an effective loop system for geothermal heating and cooling.
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Great Course
Wayne B. Howell
07/01/2013
Overall the course was well organized, presented information in a clear and concise manner. The presenter gave useful external links to valuable information when designing these systems, but didn't bog the course down with requiring external access to solve test questions. Will recommend this course to others. Great course overall.
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Great
Leopoldo D Leon
06/24/2013
I enjoyed this course and plan to continue this series.
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(no title provided)
Course is excellent in that you can do it at home without any traveling expenses. There is a lack of dialogue however, with the instructor. Not sure though if that would help my understanding. I certainly will take other courses for continuing education.
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(no title provided)
I learned a lot from this course and recommend it to others wanting to know more about Geothermal Heating and Cooling.
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(no title provided)
The course gave a good overview of what is required to design and install a geothermal heating and cooling system.
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(no title provided)
Good course!
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(no title provided)
Good course!
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Geothermal Heating and Cooling
James Deliyiannis
06/20/2013
Good course. Although most if not all SunCam courses are available to all types of Engineers (Civil, Electrical, Mechanical, etc..) I thought I wouldn't take this course because I haven't the background in the field. After reading the first three pages of the booklet it was interesting and I took the course and exam. Overall the course booklet is well written. On the downside there were a few test questions that I had difficulty in answering because I couldn't find explicit text in the course booklet.
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(no title provided)
There was a lot of good information presented in the course. I am not in the HVAC line of work and had a little trouble bridging the gap in my knowledge to fully understand what the author was trying to convey in some parts of the course. Otherwise, it was very good and helpful.
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(no title provided)
Robert Trifunovic
06/18/2013
Very informative and helps engineers to design the system .Also to check the site and develop the loop.The photos are informative from construction point of view.
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(no title provided)
Very good course.
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(no title provided)
For thermal field design, new or retrofit buildings.
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(no title provided)
I thought the test questions could have been a little harder than they were or the final test questions could have been different than the sample test. Also there were some typographical errors in the text that should have been edited out
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(no title provided)
Very informative for an engineer unfamiliar with the technology.
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(no title provided)
Good introduction to trenched geothermal heating and cooling
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(no title provided)
Very enjoyable. Planning on continueing with other courses in this area.
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(no title provided)
I think the text could be use some editing. In many places the sentence structure is poor.
The content was interesting, however. I enjoyed reading about the techniques, even though they were explained in a clumbsy fashion at times.
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(no title provided)
Course material was full of very practical information for individuals interested in installing GSHPs either as an onwer or potential installer. It was a good starting point.
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Excellent course
Excellent introduction to Geothermal heating and cooling.
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Excellent Course
This course was informative and pointed the direction for further intrest in the subject. It was a great course
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Another great course from SunCam
I liked the course. I will recommend it to friends.
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(no title provided)
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the course that I just completed. The course had some valuable information related to the heat exchange requirements for external thermal loops, however, I found the literature unorganized. Additionally, the themes were somewhat hard to follow in the presentation. The document could use a re-write to correct the sentence fragments and ambiguous sentence structure throughout. I am typically not so critical in product reviews but I did want to let you know that I expected more our of the class documentation for future students. Thank you.
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(no title provided)
The material was very thorough for the accompanying exam.
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(no title provided)
John A. Wallen, P.E.
06/03/2010
The course was informative from a beginners point of view in Geothermal. There were useful links for more information. I would like to have seen more info or an example calculation of pipe length, but the linked sources may provide that. Overall, I would recommend this course for a beginner in Geothermal design.
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(no title provided)
The course was very informative, easy to comprehend, and will be helpful for future projects. The test format was easy to use.Thanks
1 of 1 customers found this helpful.
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