Residential Geothermal
Because they’re underground, geothermal heat pumps aren’t as noticeable as say, wind turbines and solar panels, and they just don’t get the attention other alternative energy processes get. Skillings & Sons, however, has been giving geothermal heat pump technology quite a bit of attention over the years and can show by their satisfied customers that the process is cost-effective, energy efficient and ecologically friendly.
The water systems company has always been ahead of the curve on geothermal – Skillings & Sons was one of the first to offer geothermal drilling services and installed its first geothermal exchange system in 1986. President Roger Skillings said in an interview with “Energy This Week” last fall that in the past dozen years or so, the company has seen its install rate rise 10 percent each year for the first 10 years and 20 percent for each of the past two years. The company has installed more 100 residential closed-loop exchange systems, including one in Essex, Mass., for “This Old House,” and has worked on quite a few large commercial projects: Phillips Exeter Academy and the Manchester Institute of Art in New Hampshire to name just two. A deep well project Skillings & Sons worked on at a nursing home in Boscawen N.H., is the largest of its type in New England, requiring 16, 1,500-foot boreholes to serve a 249,000-square-foot facility.
Approximately 40 percent of the company’s business is geothermal and Roger Skillings said in an interview that he expects the demand to remain strong as fuel prices rise.
Geothermal exchange is ground source heat pump technology that uses the earth's natural, relatively constant 50-degree thermal temperature to heat, cool and provide hot water. Even at 50 degrees there’s plenty of heat to be “squeezed out” of the cooler air below ground. The geothermal exchange process extracts that heat and the pump transfers it to a structure to provide heat and hot water. In the summer, the house is cooled when the pump pulls the heat from the building and discharges it into the ground.
A US Environmental Protection Agency study found that geothermal heat pumps systems were the most efficient and environmentally friendly heating and cooling systems available and had the lowest annual cost. According to the US Department of Energy, geothermal heat pumps can save homeowners hundreds of dollars a year, with a system paying for itself in eight to 10 years. An added incentive is a 30 percent tax credit from the government for geothermal heat pumps through 2016. That’s 30 percent of the total cost with no upper limit, making retrofitting a home or business to geothermal a project that will more than pay for itself in just a few years.
For more information on geothermal heat pump systems, contact us here or call us at 800-441-6281.
Skillings & Sons, headquartered in Amherst, N.H., serves much of New England and has been in business for 40 years. The company’s services include almost everything to do with water systems, including design and installation, maintenance, drilling, water testing, treatment, consulting, emergency service and hydrofracking for water veins.
Read the article in US Builder Review on Skillings & Sons commercial well drilling and geothermal services.
