Free Hot Water

Welcome to the Twenty-first Century of home building and design. The latest innovative technologies have gone into the Net Zero Project to:

produce energy,

recapture energy,

save energy,

and make money for the homeowner.

Today I want to talk about the Geothermal Heat Pump and its amazing features that end up giving Free Hot Water to the house.

The design team from Informed Energy Solutions chose to install the Boreal Geothermal System in the NNZP. This is one of the most advanced systems available, requiring little or no maintenance over many, many years of operation.

Its main function, in very simplistic terms, is to transfer heat from one place to another.

Glycol solution circulates through flexible piping buried 6 - 8 feet underground around the perimeter of the house, capturing the sun's heat stored in the earth.

After the basement floor was insulated to the level of R14, closed-loop heat-exchang piping was laid down, and then covered with concrete. Cycling an inexhaustible supply of energy found 6 - 8 feet underground, the Boreal heat pump is already supplying radiant in-floor heating to the basement level of the NNZP. The pump moves 3 - 4 times more heat into the building than the energy used to operate it.

When the seasons change and the house is hotter than the ground outside, the process is reversed. Heat is absorbed from inside, circulated out and exchanged for the cooler temperature of the earth 8 feet down. Air conditioning flows through the central duct system. This is accomplished by a simple adjustment of a room thermostat.

And this is where the free hot water comes in.

In the summer, as heated solution is being circulated out of the basement floor mass, heat recovery coils collect the unwanted heat from the house and directs it to the hot water tanks. Even winter operation of the system boosts hot water at a 60 - 75% savings over that of an electric hot water heater alone. The annual savings on the typical electric bill is usually 20 - 30%.

Over all, the geothermal system built into the Net Zero Project house saves carbon emissions equivalent to the output of 5 cars per annum.

Talk about Earth Day!

Every day, all year long!!