Residents noticed -– and heard –- the large truck boring into the front yard of a Main Street house in Cold Spring this past week. But despite the lettering on the vehicle’s side, the project underway does not involve extraction of fuel from underground shale. Rather, according to Cold Spring village officials, the owner of the home, located next to the church lawn, is installing a hydro-thermal heating/well-based HVAC system.
Photo courtesy of Kelly House
This is my project, so I want to add that the correct name for the technology is geothermal. Water (“hydro”) is not involved. The well drillers simply bored two holes in the ground and ran tubing down them. The tubing forms a loop that goes into the house. The earth is a constant 50 degrees below the surface. A fluid will circulate through the tubing and get warm in the earth. When the fluid passes into the house, a heat pump will extract the heat energy. The energy will provide heat, hot water, and cooling. The finished system will be silent and invisible from outside. I’ll no longer burn any fuel and will remove the outside air conditioner. Any neighbors interested in this technology are welcome to stop by for a demonstration.