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.

The Ductman Cometh

As you know, we are using a standing well open loop geothermal system. Eli will come in with the Water Furnace and Dave from Duct-works is running the ductwork to his machinery. I will post more about this as it is occuring in the coming few weeks.

Dave started yesterday. As those of you who follow LEED stuff know, one of the important things in the Energy & Atmosphere section is sealing your ducts (see taped joints above). He's been tearing through the house at a tremendous pace, making great time. Sam has been in front of him, fattening walls so he can have enough room for his ductwork. Lloyd has been behind him, covering the registers and returns with plywood so dust and dirt (and Luna and I) won't fall down them. We will, of course, flush the ducts before moving in, but there shouldn't be much in there the way these guys have taken care.

With Lombardo Plumbing starting on Wednesday next week, I'm afraid Dave may have a target on his back when Chris Lombardo sees how many chases he's taken, but there you go. First in line gets the best pick.

Taking it down a peg

Eli's guys arrived on the heels of SCPB's guys checking out. Although we had put in a well down to 140 feet for water, we need to take it down to 540 feet, according to Eli, in order to tap the geothermal energy for our heating system.

What's geothermal energy? Like my friend Roger says, it's cave man thinking. Inside a cave, the constant temperature is approximately 55 degrees. Sounds warm on an icy New England winter day, and cool on a blistering humid August one. All we're doing is bringing up water at a constant 55 degrees, adjusting the heat with a heat exchanger to one comfortable to us, and in that way reducing the energy it takes to heat or cool. It's much easier to heat 55 degrees to, say, 70 degrees than it is to heat 1 degree. Similarly, it's easier to cool the same way. When you have geothermal energy, you have both heating and air conditioning at a very modest carrying cost.

We are installing a standing well open loop geothermal system with a 5 ton air system. There are many types of geothermal systems; this was the one we could afford since we already needed a well (to see previous posts on this subject, click on "HVAC"). For this system, we don't get radiant heat (that involves plumbing the floors), but we do get air conditioning.

Excess and energy

Our Fearless Leader, Lloyd, told us we'd be interested in a This Old House series on a timber frame going up near here in Weston by a company called Bensonwood. Flip and I have watched a few, and yes, the beauty of the timber frame is duly explored, as are the benefits of prefabricating. However, it is abundantly clear that these people are EXTREMELY RICH. The amount of extras, fancy "green" touches, and the size of the building, not to mention separate baths for their children, walk-up cupolas, bridges from place to place, are just over the top. Flip asked me if I liked theirs better and I had to say, no. My upbringing screams "excess!" B-wood is doing a great job. It's just not for people who prefer to work with friends, have their children share, and live a life of making choices.

It's too early to know if we'll get our permit today, but I won't predict any more.

What we do know (finally, after weeks of waiting for people to get back to us) is that we can actually afford to do a single loop geothermal air exchange heating system. The numbers are coming in, and it's looking like around $5k per ton for the inside system including ducting and a Water Furnace, plus around $7-9 for the outside stuff like drilling our well deeper and piping. Although it's around $10k more than a standard heating system in our size house, if it works like it should we will pay ourselves back in under 5 years--and have air conditioning. So cheers all around! See www.waterfurnace.com for information on ours, there are other good brands like Climate Master. So maybe we have to be a little richer than we wanted, but I'd sacrifice some hardwood floors never to buy oil or gas again (and I may have to). Another choice.

Closed loop, open loop…

The cost of geothermal varies greatly depending upon whether you plan to plumb your house for radiant heat or use a simple air system with ducts. The way we’re leaning now is to build an open loop, one hole geothermal system (which you can only do if your water quality is Fabulous) which works by digging our water well deeper (to 500 feet). Then, the system drains at the bottom of the hole, while our drinking water is supplied from a depth of 140 feet and ne’er the twain shall meet, I hope.

Using one of the two name brands (ClimateMaster or Water Furnace), we then limit our cost for the geothermal to the well (ours is costing around 8500k including water well for 5000 which we had to get anyway), plus a backup dry well (leaching field), and the interior machinery and ductwork, which goes for about $5000-5500 per ton. In our two story, cathedral ceilinged 2800 sq ft house, we need to move 5 tons of air.

Generally speaking, a standard forced hot air heating system here costs about 15,000. This means the geothermal is roughly double that. However, you won’t be buying fuel every year, so up here in New England that means it pays back at around 2000 a year, net of the increased electric.

Ah, HVAC systems...

While waiting to find out how much geothermal really is, we’re now looking at the Freewatt™ from Climate Energy (www.climate-energy.com), a micro combined heat and power (Micro CHP) system. You start with a high-efficiency propane furnace with appropriate ducting. Then, you add on another piece—a generator that produces power. Sure, not too much (like 1.6 kilowatts) but it’s going in the right direction. (More information on this technology at www.epa.gov/cppd/climatechoice/technology.htm)
The furnace part is around $5,000, then the generator part is more, about $11,000. Plus the ducting, I’m sure. And you won’t have AC, but with an SIP-built home like ours you will have a whole-house fan somewhere, which mostly does the trick up here in New England. And jeez, you can’t have everything, can you?
So we start with the furnace, and maybe next year can graduate to the generator. Since we have no natural gas, just propane, none of the systems is picture perfect.
One thing’s for sure, I’m learning more about HVAC than I ever really wanted to know. Construction financing is next. Can’t wait.