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January 15, 2008
Geothermal heating/cooling
Has anyone looked into installing a geothermal system in their home in brooklyn? Any advice on cost, good contractors, and general feasibility would be much appreciated.
Comments
Assuming you mean a geothermal heat pump (and not true geothermal heating), it seems that if you are doing a gut renovation (e.g. can easily put in underfloor heating) or already have a conventional heat pump system, then it might be feasible - in Brooklyn the wells don't have to be very deep. It's expensive though, so it might only make sense for large residential/commercial buildings, not relatively small residences.
http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/ddc/html/ddcgreen/geotherm.html
has a lot of information, if you're willing to dig.
I'm also interested to hear if anyone on this blog has successfully installed a system like this.
Posted by: Heatherie at January 15, 2008 3:47 PM
I know someone called Steve Fontas, who I met once (he's a boiler/ heating guy) was talking about entering into this area next. I do not have his contact info, but will look for it.
Posted by: ohiise at January 15, 2008 3:58 PM
Heatherie - why don't you have to dig down that far in Brooklyn?
Posted by: guest at January 16, 2008 1:58 PM
I was reading that it's because Brooklyn is typically more sandy and has loose rock. You hit water and have productive wells at much shallower depths. It seems that in places like Manhattan and the Bronx, they have to drill down through stone/bedrock and typically have to drill a much deeper well to have enough water production for the system to work.
Posted by: Heatherie at January 16, 2008 4:33 PM
I forgot to say that "not deep" means 150 ft or so, and "deep" would mean 500 ft or more.
150 still seems pretty deep to me . . .
Posted by: Heatherie at January 16, 2008 4:34 PM
Link above doesn't work. Here's one that does:
http://home2.nyc.gov/html/ddc/html/ddcgreen/geotherm.html
Posted by: johnife at May 21, 2008 12:11 AM
Link changed yet again:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/ddc/html/design/sustainable_home.shtml
Posted by: guest at July 8, 2008 11:12 PM
a friend of mine in Australia has been doing this for a few years, primarily commercial but also residential - pretty cool concept if you ask me.
I also noticed this in the Curbed the other day
http://curbed.com/archives/2008/08/11/on_ues_there_will_be_drilling_and_noise.php
Seems like it's going to be a new trend.
Cheers,
Dean
Posted by: deanc at August 20, 2008 5:40 PM
I'm doing some research about going geothermal. The reason I'm told that it's not so prevalent in Brooklyn is because you need a decent sized cleared lot in order to bring in the equipment needed to drill a well -for which you need a DOB permit, which they won't give you if your lot is too small.
Posted by: justme123 at February 27, 2009 11:35 AM
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