NORFOLK
Sewells Point Elementary Principal Mary B. Wrushen is the type of person who walks around the school flipping off lights to save electricity.
So she was thrilled to learn that her school would be the first in Norfolk - and among the first in South Hampton Roads - to install an energy-efficient geothermal heating and cooling system.
"This is the future," Wrushen said. "It will be something for the kids - I think they really need to understand."
The Earth-friendly climate-control systems are growing more popular in both residential and commercial buildings as fuel costs soar and engineers refine the technology, said John Dunn, sponsorship chairman of the Hampton Roads Green Building Council.
Geothermal systems use a closed loop of pipe filled with circulating water to transfer heat between a building and the earth, depending on the building's needs.
The greener technology usually costs more: The geothermal system at Sewells Point will cost about $2.2 million, while a conventional system would have cost about $1.9 million, according to a 2006 estimate.
Using the Earth to regulate temperatures can cut energy bills by around 40 percent, Dunn said, because the system doesn't need to fuel chillers, boilers and other equipment.
The York County School Division has seen that kind of savings in six of its 18 school buildings that use geothermal systems, said Jim Wilkins, the division's special assistant for capital plans and projects. The systems will pay for themselves in no more than 12 years, he said.
"We like it," Wilkins said. "Other than a couple of water circulating pumps, there's nothing that needs to be maintained."
In South Hampton Roads, Providence Elementary and Renaissance Academy in Virginia Beach are slated to receive geothermal heat pumps.
Chesapeake officials experimented with such a system at Great Bridge Middle School in the 1990s, but it didn't always work well, said Tom Cupitt, a division spokesman. During a renovation a few years ago, workers switched back to a conventional system.
"It was just a lot of difficulty for the return on it," Cupitt said.
The system at Sewells Point Elementary is more technologically advanced than the one used at Great Bridge Middle, said Stephen W. Smith, a capital projects engineer with the Norfolk school division.
It consists of 12 miles of plastic pipe looped together in 250-foot-deep wells behind the school, and more pipe strung through the ceilings. There are two circulation pumps and 10 units to mix fresh air with heated and cooled air. Each classroom has its own heat pump.
A digital control system allows workers to monitor the school's climate both on campus and off, and it's so finely-tuned that one room can be heated while the room next door is cooled.
Officials expect the system will save the school at least $30,000 a year and will have a life cycle of 50 years - more than twice as long as a conventional system.
That will be an improvement at a school where the temperature-control system often broke down last year.
"For us," Wrushen said, "it's going to be the best thing in the world."
Amy Jeter, (757) 446-2730, amy.jeter@pilotonline.com
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
Residential geothermal heat pumps
I had a geothermal, closed loop heat pump installed in April 2003. My electric bills for the five following years averaged $91.89 per month for a 2,000 square foot home with the thermostat set to cool at 76 degrees or heat at 72 degrees. The installation included a new air handler, compressor, and sealing of the air ducting which reduced air loss from 24 percent to less than 2 percent. My attic is insulated to R-40, and I had top of the line replacement windows installed at the same time as the geothermal system was installed. I estimate my electric bills are $100 to $150 per month lower than comparably sized homes in the area, many of which set their thermostats higher in the summer and lower in the winter than I do. I recommend finding an company who drills the wells as well as installs the system, so if there is a problem (I have had zero) there's no finger pointing.
Shop around
If you priced a unit for your home, and it was a lot more money than you expected, then shop around. I did and found I could recover the cost difference in 5 years saving on my current bills. Actually, shopping around for standard heat pump systems I found that the costs varied widely, too.
Also, look for someone that is very experienced in putting in Geo-thermal. Some companies are "jumping on the bandwagon" but really don't have the training or experience to advise you correctly.
The contractors
Are the ones who make out, these systems are a pain in the butt, water problems, corrosion, pumps, gizmos, gadgets, electronics all to save a few bucks their whacked. Lots of service calls. Why can't they just put in a system that works.
For home..
For home setups, check out the "ice bear." I'm not saying to buy one, but investigate it. Basically a normal home AC setup freezes a large block of ice in what amounts to a cooler. Then during the day the house is cooled by recirculating water through the frozen ice block. I know that some commercial buildings use a similar system. The idea is that you can move the hard hitting load into the middle of the night, and possibly move to a different electrical supply contract with Dominion where you pay really really reduced rates in the middle of the night. Add solar and it might be possible to cut back a huge amount of conventional power bill. www.ice-energy.com has the one system, I was thinking of duplicating it.
MC – agreed – to a point
I will agree the cost of these units for a home is difficult to justify with past electricity cost increases, but the unpredictability of energy lately makes it even more difficult to cost out.
For example, last year we reduced our load by 500kw (for the month of July), but our bill went up 20%. So we might need to recalculate geothermal’s payback.
On the commercial side, the greater footprint, a long term single owner, lower maintenance (I question), and commercial electricity rates, can make the payback happen sooner for the municipalities.
AC in Hades
As the joke goes. The engineers will have Hades air conditioned before I get there.
I've looked at those for home
I've look at those for home but the cost went for $8,000 for a standard high efficiency unit to over $20,000 for a geothermal unit. The cost difference was more than I would ever save in electricity over the life of the unit.
Uh
It's going to cool down the core of the earth which will end life on our planet.
He didn’t really say that?
"Other than a couple of water circulating pumps, there's nothing that needs to be maintained."
This is where most municipalities fail, and cost us even more money. If we held the cities to a higher level of maintenance then the life cycle of their buildings would increase. Instead of being proactive with detailed inspections and maintenance follow through, most cities just react to systems failure, and repair.
These are very good systems (that could save us all a lot of money) and I would hate to see them black listed in the future based on incomplete maintenance and inspections.