Utility update

Here's the poop: netting out what we always paid in electrical bills, and keeping in mind that we run our well pump and our geothermal heat pump electrically, we have paid $60 upcharge to heat the house and supply water in November, $200 in December (holiday bills), $130 in January. We'll see how February goes. Doesn't look as if we'll be paying $3000 to heat this winter, however, and we definitely need no backup heat source. So it works, dudes.

Obstruction

Peter Tartakoff, the building inspector of Holliston, is now showing his animus toward the dual use well on a personal level. In spite of our changing the level of the pump and installing the valve, inspected last Friday, he now says we did not pull an electrical permit to rewire the pump at its new altitude. Lloyd had an electrician up who will, tomorrow morning, both pull a permit and inspect the wiring on the well.

However: in 25 years of doing code electrical work in Holliston, our electrician has "never, ever installed well wiring" and has no knowledge of permits being pulled to do this. It sounds pretty clearly like obstructive behavior on the part of Mr. Tartakoff, who doesn't like being crossed by a little thing like a plumbing variance in favor of a well he doesn't like.

I have, reluctantly, agreed to withhold my ire until after tomorrow. After that, however, all bets are off and I pursue the town for my permit which, in my opinion, the inspector is wilfully withholding based not on code—but on his dislike of our well. I believe the line was crossed several weeks ago when we disconnected the geo due to regulatory conflict and he wouldn't give us an OP because then, "we didn't have heat." Now, gloves off, it's time to fight the good fight. But I promised Lloyd I would wait until after tomorrow, and so I shall. 'Til Thursday?

As promised, conforming...

At the plumbing board meeting, we agreed to two things: 1) to get a backflow valve on the heating system, which everyone (plumber, plumbing inspector, well driller) agreed was pointless, and 2) to reset the well pump to be below the return pipe, which actually has a purpose.

When the pump is at the bottom of the well, and the return pipe with the water that goes through the furnace is at the top, any possible contaminant from the refrigerant that might get into the water (highly unlikely) will bubble up and dissipate before the water falls to the bottom and gets pumped back into the system.

In these shots, you see at top the 500' of pipe needed to drop the pump to the bottom, and at bottom, Mike reconnecting the pump so that it would draw correctly. Ignore the lengths of gutter in the background, they were for the roof. Now, we are in compliance with the plumbing board and the MassDEP and I have filed papers accordingly. But, as it is Friday before Labor Day, we won't know until Tuesday whether we need to do anything else. But we'll have a good weekend anyway!

We won. Here's how.

Mr. Cerutti from MassDEP wrote:
"Congratulations! I spoke to Ken Pelletier and to his knowledge you are
the first persons to seek a variance directly from the state plumbing
board. It really does appear that your efforts have brought us much
closer to having this issue resolved for future applicants. In fairness
to the board, my presentation today was probably the most detailed walk
through of the potential health concerns that has been provided over the
years that this issue has been discussed. "

This morning's meeting was interesting with the plumbing board, but the headline says it all. For those installing this type of system in Massachusetts (dual use well for potable water/standing well open loop geothermal heat pump), follow this procedure:

1. Check with your Board of Health about local requirements for this type of well. Pull whatever permits or obtain what permissions you might need.
2. Drill far enough down to obtain a water test. Test water before proceeding with an open loop, as anything but extra clean water may guide you to using a closed loop.
3. Choose a system with a dual coil refrigerant circuit. Our Water Furnace Envision uses a cupronickel coil surrounded by steel casing. Single coil circuits are not the same, and greater resistance may be found at the regulatory level.
4. Register your well with the MassDEP and get a UIC number. You will be committing to testing of the water 90-120 days after the system is running. Your well driller should do this filing for you.
5. Check with your local plumbing inspector if he is going to run into trouble with code regulations against the use of dual use wells. In our case, the plumbing inspector did not fully understand the system and we simultaneously had a building inspector who defers to the letter of the law over the spirit of the law.
6. Call Dennis Driscoll, Code Compliance Officer at the Massachusetts Gas Fitters and Plumbers Board at (617) 727- 2243 and request a "discussion" place at the plumbing board meeting, which meets the first and last Wednesday of each month.
7. Get all data (specification manual, plot plan with well drawn on, schematic for well, UIC number and all filings and well lab test results). Make 12 copies of everything. Prepare a short statement of your wish to use your well in this way, and why. Attend the meeting, be courteous and prepared, bring your well driller and if he so wishes, your representative from MassDEP. Bring the manual of your furnace that states the type of coils and automatic shut-offs for your system. We also brought the regional rep for the furnace company to answer questions.
8. In our case, after a fairly lengthy discussion, the board voted 8 to 1 in favor of a variance to this code regulation for our dual use well. The one person against was in favor of our "just digging another well."

Hopefully, if enough people do the above steps, we will get permanent regulatory change on the books going forward, if only to stop having to have hearings all the time. As it is, I believe we were the first. Let's not make it the last! Go geo!

One way or the other

This week has been a whirlwind; from Monday's disappointment of no temporary occupancy, to Tuesday's blizzard of phone calls. What's happening now?
Here we go:
September 2nd, we will be meeting with the Massachusetts Board of State Examiners of Plumbers and Gas Fitters (which is to say, the plumbing board) in Boston. There are nine members. Also attending this meeting is the regional director of Water Furnace, our well driller and furnace installer, our representative from the Mass. Dept. of Environmental Protection, the Holliston plumbing inspector, Lloyd, Flip, and me.

Why the excitement?
As Flip says, we have a "walk" and "don't walk" sign going at the same time when it comes to our type of geothermal system, which is, if you've forgotten, a standing well open loop geothermal heat pump, which is operated from our drinking well. The "walk" sign is coming from MassDEP and the federal government, the board of health and environmental research. The "don't walk" sign is coming from the plumbing board, which rules our poor plumbing inspector's license.

According to my sources, this situation has been run into approximately once per year, for a total of four times since MassDEP has been registering these systems. However, as the installation pace is increasing, more and more people like us and plumbing inspectors like Holliston's will be placed in this situation—it's legal, but it's not permitted.

So it looks as if everyone involved is eager to explore our problem and see if there is some way to create criteria for approval. Needless to say, we just want to move in. Watch this space!

Water to heat

This is our new Envision, a geothermal water source heat pump by Water Furnace. Our dual capacity unit is DV064A111INTL. This is an air ducted system which will deliver both heat in the winter and cool air in the summer. This furnace, rated 26.1 EER and 4.7 COP at our level, is so far above any energy and LEED requirements that they'll probably raise the levels. In essence, at an entering water temperature from the ground of 50° (ours should run closer to 55°), the Envision extracts the heat from the water and returns it to the ground. The air, then heated at 50, is boosted by heat coils within the furnace to your desired temperature. The beauty of our open loop system is that it takes water out of the ground, changes it 10 degrees, and returns it to the ground exactly the same as it came in. The water touches nothing that can pollute it.

During the heating cycle, the system uses the loop to extract heat from the well water. As the system pulls heat from the loop it distributes it through a conventional duct system as warm air. In the cooling mode, the system air conditions your home by reversing the heating process. Instead of extracting heat from the ground, it is extracted from your home and either moved back into the earth loop, or used to preheat the water in your hot water tank. And once the heat is removed from the air, it is distributed through the duct system in your home.

The physics are fairly tricky, but the fact of the matter is that it is similar to an air-source heat pump only (especially in the Northeast) hugely more efficient using 50-55 degrees as a starting point rather than the much colder air.