BEHIND the

WALLSbtwTHE HOMES

OF THE FUTURE MINIMUM COST MEETS MAXIMUM EFFICIENCY

POWER FIGURETHE MAN MAKING GEOTHERMAL ENERGY A GLOBAL REALITY

BUILDING A GREEN COMMUNITY AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

a new frontier

inside

Fall 2013

call your local geo professional at Briggs Mechanical.

www.briggsmechanical.com

For more information:

www.SmartHomze.com or call 802-254-3435 to speak with a SmartHomze representative.

first affordable net zero energy homes

the smarthomze Collection eliminates the second largest cost of owning a home —

your electric, heating and cooling costs!

this collection of five home designs range in size from 560, 750, 900, 1280 and 1700

square feet and include all material for floors, walls, roof, windows, doors, siding, porch,

heating and cooling unit and a fresh air exchanger. the homeowner is responsible for

kit construction, interior partitions, and finishes.

total estimated cost of kit, installation, interior partitions and finishes is about $150/

sqft. that is 25% -40% less than most “green homes” being built today!

inside6/editor’s letter8/publisher’s letter

14/cause célèbreThese days, Hollywood is rife with stars claiming to be lean, mean green machines. But which are actually walking the walk and living that life at home?

18/repurposing with purposeOne homeowner’s trash is another one’s stylish treasure. Do it right, and your abode will boast more character than ever.

24/building the futureForget McMansions: The next wave in housing may just be super-efficient living spaces that are as comfy as they are healthy—and have zero energy bills. Welcome to the SmartHomze Collection, a series of kit houses coming soon to a building site near you.

30/power dynamicSome of the coolest (and hottest) cities on the planet have harnessed their natural geothermal energy to run homes as seamlessly as they do efficiently. But as this groundbreaking new proj-ect proves, you don’t need to live near a geyser to get in on the action.

featured

homefront

34/breaking new groundThe leadership of one man has geothermal energy getting hotter by the minute.

last words

Old Heating System? You may qualify through MassSave for up to $4,000 if you replace it! Sometimes procrastination pays. If your heating equipment is more than 30 years old, the state will reimburse you up to $4,000 to replace it with a new high efficiency system.

But don’t procrastinate too long, as this incentive ends October 31, 2013!

Take advantage of current rebates and tax credits, and then get an additional $500 off!

For readers of this magazine,

Pann Home Services & Remodeling* will give you an additional 10% off the cost

of a new Navien hot water tank or boiler —

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*Just tell Michael Pann, “BTW … Behind the Walls” to receive your discount.

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Pann Home Services is a family-owned and operated business providing homeowners reliable service — 24/7 — for over fifty years.

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t

green party

FROM THE EDITOR

Welcome to B.T.W.—or Behind the Walls—your source for ideas, conversation, and celebration of the rapidly changing world of environmentally sound and smart homes and living.

The change we at B.T.W. see has come not only in the rapid advancement of technologies at our fingertips—we now have more options and resources to make our homes

healthy and viably sustainable than ever before—but also in the philosophical realm. The biggest and most promising phenomenon happening right now is in how and what we as a community think about living our lives in a sustainable, healthy way.

In short, green has gone glam. What used to stereotypically be considered the purview of only crunchy ex-hippies and tree-huggers is now widely embraced by far, far more of us. The widespread rise in our collective understanding of how much better it feels to fill our days with habits, objects, and experiences that are good for us, good for our world, and are as style-conscious as they are eco-conscious.

We know now that eating sustainably raised food isn’t just better for the earth and our bodies, it’s also far more delicious. We know that driving eco-friendly cars can get us around as stylishly as the big guzzlers. Organic and fair trade clothes are being designed by some of the globe’s most revered and high-end designers—and are every bit as beautiful and cutting-edge as their conventional alternatives.

The same thing has happened in the home industry: We finally know the benefits of living in a place that’s as healthy, cost-effective, and responsible as it is pretty. This magazine was created to delight in, to explore, and bolster that new mind-set, and to spur its evolution toward even greater places. Happy reading, building, and living!

Alexandra HallEditor, B.T.W.

When it’s time to buy, sell, or renovate your home,

take advantage of Bruce Irving’s 25-year experience with houses —

17 of them as producer of This Old House.

Find out what he can do for you at www.bruceirving.biz.

617 719 2196 bruce@bruceirving.biz

978-771-0623www.earthtechsystems.com

design partner

What a long, strange trip it has been.... And to think it all started in my own home.

My road to B.T.W. began by looking behind the walls of my fam-ily’s new house. My wife and I had bought a dilapidated 1890 Queen Anne Victorian that was in complete disrepair, and would need serious renovation before it would be a safe place to raise our young children.

But we jumped in headfirst anyway. At the time, building an environmentally friendly home or an energy-efficient one didn’t even cross our minds; our main goal was to create a healthy home for our family.

But pretty quickly, it became clear that if we built in an environ-mentally friendly manner, healthfulness would follow. Similarly, it

became clear that some choices made far more economic sense if you just gave them enough time to pay off. Return on invest-ment, payback period, NPV: these were terms my MBA-trained brain knew and was comfort-able using to weigh every building decision. So it was going to take three

years for the high-efficiency hot-water tank to pay for itself ? No problem. For me, these were easy choices.

What wasn’t easy, though, was finding the information I needed to actually make those choices: Foam insulation or cellulose? On-demand hot-water tank or storage tank? The options were endless, and there were no great resources to help decide between them—until now.

Our mission in creating B.T.W. and our companion website 360Chestnut, is to educate homeowners who are struggling with the question of how to make their home more healthy, energy ef-ficient and sustainable. Our goal is to help you find the best con-tractor who can do the work for you the right way, and then maybe even help you pay for it by using the myriad tax credits, rebates, and incentives that are there to pay for some of this work, but generally go untapped.

And ultimately, we want to help you create the home that you want, so you can be—much like my family and I were in the end—as proud of what’s behind your walls as what’s in front of them. Enjoy!

a new homecoming

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Harold SimanskyB.T.W. Publisher and CEO of 360Chestnut

Looking to make your home healthier

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Want to save money on energy bills?

Install a new heating or cooling system?

Design a new home that is sustainable?

Upgrade an existing home?

Trusted Service ProvidersConnect with one of 360Chestnut’s

Partners who represent the most

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360Chestnut’s Partners Network

Lockwood Construction

Pann Home Services & Remodeling

Resynergy

Next Step Living

A&A Services

Anderson Insulation

Sustainable Energy Analytics

EarthTech Systems

New England Renewable Energy Systems

EnergySmart Alternatives

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S+H Construction

Bruce Irving Renovation & Real Estate

GF Rhode Construction

Boehm Architecture

Flavin Architects

Meridian Associates

Boston Green Realty

Eck | MacNeely Architects, Inc.

ZeroEnergy Design

[in Massachusetts]

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We have spent the last 60 years helping homeowners make

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14

Why she went green: Roberts told Life & Style magazine “Moth-

erhood is the big reason I started thinking more critically about the environment and global warming.”

Just how green is it? Roberts spent a reported $20 million to create her green sanctuary. This includes three roofs of solar panels, floor-to-ceiling recycled tiling, green building materi-als like wood harvested from sustain-able forests, and over $1 million worth of energy-saving home appliances.

Why he went green: Depp made exception-al advances to retain his island’s natural

lushness, and to keep his own carbon footprint to a minimum.

Just how green is it? Depp enlisted the help of trailblazing environmental leader and project developer Mike Strizki to turn his private paradise into a self-sustaining habitat running on solar-hydrogen. The system works by converting sunlight to electricity, which is used to meet the energy needs of the home. The cost to convert his hideaway to solar power: $500,000.

By CAROLINE EGAN

It’s no secret which celebrities drive a Prius, but which ones have taken their enthusiasm for eco-friendliness home with them? Following are the stars of the eco-home world, as well as of the world in general:

célèbre

JULIA ROBERTS

size of home

6,000 SQ. FT.

MALIBU, CA

JOHNNY DEPP

size of home

35-ACRE PRIVATE ISLAND

BAHAMAS

cause

15

These days, Hollywood is rife with stars claiming to be lean, mean green machines. But which are actually walking the walk and living that life at home?

Why they went green: Bündchen is an eco-mommy, and wanted to create a mecca for envi-ronmentally conscious friends and family to vacation at regularly.

Just how green is it? Bündchen and Brady have outfitted the $20 mil-lion home with as many eco-friendly bells and whistles as possible, includ-ing solar panels as the main source of energy for the home, a rainwater recycling system, and energy-efficient lighting and appliances. Additionally, Bündchen plans to be have a garden featuring herbs, vegetables, and fruits that will reduce her family’s carbon footprint relating to food transport.

Why he went green: Grenier told Nowness.com, “One reason I love New York is that

it’s so primed for green growth. I’ve been lucky enough to have a lot of green around me growing up. I always envision the city having more around: utilizing rooftops, ripping up side-walks, and planting trees.”

Just how green is it? Grenier installed solar panels and walls insulated with recycled denim. With the assistance of a local landscaping company, he turned the adjacent car-riage house into a rooftop garden.

Why she went green: Alicia Silverstone has dedicated her post-Clueless years to an Earth-friendly agenda:

she is a vegan, as well as an environ-mental and animal activist.

Just how green is it? Silverstone and her husband, Christopher Jarecki, have purchased everything in their home to be environmentally sound. This includes energy-saving applianc-es, solar-paneled roofing, and recycling materials from ceiling to floor. The couple installed a well-engineering heating and cooling system, and the home draws half as much power from the grid as it used to.

GISELE BÜNDCHEN AND TOM BRADY

size of home

22,000 SQ. FT.

BRENTWOOD NEIGHBORHOOD OF LOS ANGELES, CA

ADRIAN GRENIER

size of home

3,286 SQ. FT.

CLINTON HILL, BROOKLYN, NY

ALICIA SILVER-STONE

size of home

2,402 SQ. FT.

LOS ANGELES, CA

From the severe cold of Antarctica to the brutal heat of Saharan Africa, Vantem Panels have proven themselves, providing comfort and superior energy efficiency, no matter what climatic forces are thrown at them. With R-values ranging from R15 to R50, using both Urethane and EPS cores, we will supply you with the very highest quality and energy efficient envelope on the market.

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18

repurposingOne homeowner’s trash is another one’s stylish treasure. Do it right, and your abode will boast more character than ever.

Call it whatever you want: upcycling, reclaiming, repurposing—it all adds up to giving new life to old things by creating entirely new pieces out of them. Of course, some products lend themselves to the process better than others. So hit the swap section at your local sal-vage yard (or recycling facility, if your town has one), and keep your eyes peeled for used pieces waiting for pickup on the street; with a little ingenuity, you’ll be on your way to clever new decor.

DOORS

Find an old door with a number on it? Find match-ing doors? Add them to your place; they’ll lend a vintage touch to your home. Need more shelves? This can help.

19

with purpose

WINDOWS

Add legs to an old window and make it into a coffee table. Or make a shelf (or chalk-board, or picture board) out of it.

OLD TRUNK

Add some wheels to it and make it a rolling bar.

OLD FRAMES

Get some chalkboard paint (which you can get in tons of colors and with no VOC), and you’ve got yourself a snazzy message board.

OLD SWEATERS

Cut up the sleeves and use them as coffee cup warmers.

SHUTTERS

Revive one as a bulletin board.

CARD CATALOGS

If you’re lucky enough to stumble on one of these treas-ures, make it into a bar.

LADDERS

Make one into a bookshelf or a clothes ladder.

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the use of fossil fuels currently used in homes.

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24

buildingtheFORGET MCMANSIONS: THE NEXT WAVE IN HOUSING MAY JUST BE SUPER- EFFICIENT LIVING SPACES THAT ARE AS COMFY AS THEY ARE HEALTHY—AND HAVE ZERO ENERGY BILLS. WELCOME TO THE SMARTHOMZE COLLECTION, A SERIES OF KIT HOUSES COMING SOON TO A BUILDING SITE NEAR YOU.By Bruce Irving

26

for democratizing the automobile. The efficiencies of his assembly line and the limited options he offered made Model Ts affordable for the up-and-coming middle class, and the car became integral to American life in a few short decades.

But another essential American necessity—housing, that is—hasn’t enjoyed the same fate. Try as we might, we haven’t yet been able to make manufactured houses ap-pealing or affordable enough to displace what we’ve been doing for hundreds of years: building in the field (and the rain and snow), piece by hand-cut piece. The prefab housing highway is strewn with failed experiments like

the post-WWII Lustron, an enam-eled metal system, and though mobile homes and modular homes still fill a gap, they comprise less than 5 percent of the U.S. housing market.

Dave Gauthier and Roger Berry are aiming to change that—soon, and in a very big way. Gauthier worships in the temple of the structural insulated panel, or SIP, a tried-and-true build-ing technology that’s best described as an ice-cream sandwich, with oriented strand board for the outsides and

foam insulation for the filling. Meanwhile, Berry is a partner at TEM Capital, a Boston-based venture capital firm that invests in, as its name indicates, “transforma-tive energy and materials.” TEM has singled out Gauth-ier’s SIP company, Vantem Panels, as the manufacturer with the best shot at democratizing the American home. And together they’ve formed the SmartHomze Collec-tion, a group of kit houses that may well roll out at the next place many of us call home.

“We’re looking for a big paradigm shift for the middle class,” says Berry, “and we think a net-zero-energy house for around $100,000 is the way to do it.” Net-zero means

Whether you dig his politics or not, you have to hand it to Henry Ford

At right and on previous page: renderings of houses the SmartHomze Collection, which have high-efficiency insulation that makes them incredibly affordable.

28

that, over the course of a year, the house generates enough energy to pay its own way—its electrical, heating, and cooling bills are zero, thus eliminating the second biggest cost (after purchase price) of owning a home. To achieve that, SmartHomze needs to provide a system that holds in warmth, shuts out cold, and uses very little electricity to keep life inside comfortable all year round.

It all starts with SIPs, which form the floor, walls, and roof of the building. Using highly insulated urethane foam panels, a SmartHomze house is built like a Ther-mos bottle, with none of the “thermal bridging” a com-mon, stick-built structure has. Thermal bridging occurs when wooden framing members—wall studs, rim joists, and roof rafters—act like pathways to allow heat and cold to travel from the outside surface to the inside surface of the building, increasing energy transfer and waste. SIPs

don’t have any such cross-sectional elements; when they’re joined together and the seams are sealed well enough, they provide incredibly high-efficiency insulation values: R-38 for the floor and walls, and R-50 for the roof. (Mom always said to put on a good hat, right?) SmartHomze-supplied windows and doors are R-5 or more, which is about twice what’s now considered standard.

What’s more, because SIPs provide both the structure and the insulation, a complete building shell goes up faster than a typical stick-built one, which requires framing, then sheathing, then insulation—think days instead of weeks. They’re strong too: two to four times stronger than stick framing, ac-cording to Oak Ridge National Labora-tory data.

A typical SmartHomze house comes on the back of a flatbed truck:

that means floor beams, SIPs, windows, doors, vinyl siding, precut metal roofing, and prebuilt sections for a six-foot wraparound porch with roof and decking. It’s designed to be assembled on concrete piers, but can also go on a slab or foundation. Gauthier says an average carpentry crew can put one up; the result is a solid box,

NET ZERORefers to any house that generates enough energy to pay its own way; its elec-trical, heating, and cooling bills are zero.

STRUCTURAL INSULATED PANEL [SIP]Each one is cov-ered by oriented strand board on the outsides and urethane insulation foam panels within, so that energy can’t escape.

29

roofed, sided, and ready for mechanical systems and inte-rior finishes. The company provides three crucial pieces of the former: photovoltaic (PV) panels to make elec-tricity, a high-efficiency heat pump to heat and cool the building, and a heat-recovery ventilator to allow fresh air in without jettisoning warmth. As with any project, wir-ing and plumbing require licensed professionals. While the PV system is designed to connect to the electric grid, selling power to the utility when it’s making more than the house needs and drawing from it on cloudy days or at night, off-grid living is possible with the addition of stor-age batteries.

So what’s missing, then? The interior partitions and finishes. That, says Berry, is because they “can’t guess

what every buyer will want. But that’s really not what we’re trying to provide, anyway. We want to apply the practices of the auto industry, minus the custom-ization. The result is a high-quality, af-fordable machine that people can outfit as they like.”

With a prototype up and running in Vermont, the company is poised to begin a cluster development of 16

SmartHomze in the Boston suburb of Hudson, Mas-sachusetts. Three different models are available, at 560, 900, and 1,700 square feet respectively. Gauthier has designed possible floor plans for each, ranging from a second-floor loft in the smallest to a three-bedroom, two-bathroom upstairs layout in the largest. Depending on how a homeowner finishes off his or her house, the team projects $150 per square foot for kit, installation, and interior fit-out. Land cost, site work, and permitting fees are extra.

“We know there are customized kit and modular homes out there, and some of them are even zero-net-energy,” says Berry. “But they come in at a minimum of $250 per square foot. That’s not the market we’re after. We want to help regular folks, with regular incomes, af-ford a healthy, comfortable, state-of-the-art house with no energy bills. We’d like to see them be able to use that money for other things. Like education.” Or, he adds, “maybe even a vacation now and then.” ❚

At left: an interior and exterior view of the paneling on a Smart-Homze model. Below: the floor plan for a net-zero energy home.

30

powerOver the next few years, the owner will turn the home into nine separate houses, all heated by a geothermal heating system underneath the backyard. When completed, it will be the first of its kind in New England.

31

Walk out to the very tip of Provincetown’s West End, and you could easily miss the little-known—and yet monumen-tal—house designed by famed Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius. The curious home perches atop a hill tangled with dune trees, peeping out like a periscope.

Distinctly un-Cape-like in its sleek industrial form, it is, from the outside, a wide, flat box with glass walls. From the inside, a stunning panorama of Provincetown Harbor seems to wrap itself around the house. It’s all part of a design that uses the environment—and in more ways than one.

What makes this property even more extraordinary than it looks is what goes on underneath it. Three hundred feet beneath the backyard lies a geothermal heating system extensive enough to warm nine homes, which is exactly what the current owner plans to develop over the next several years—an entire neighborhood heated and cooled by geothermal energy. When completed, it will be the first of its kind in New England.

The house and grounds, which also includes a historic gatehouse at the entrance, originally belonged to Carl Murchison, a prominent psychologist and publisher of the ’50s. Gropius, who came to the U.S. in 1937 to teach at Harvard University, later left to form The Archi-tect’s Collaborative in Cambridge in 1945, when Murchison hired him to build the home.

Fast-forward to 2008, when it was bought by Cliff Schorer of Stoughton and looked and felt very much like entering a time capsule: The designer furniture and technology from the 1950s were both

SOME OF THE COOLEST (AND HOTTEST) CITIES ON THE PLANET HAVE HARNESSED THEIR NATURAL GEOTHERMAL ENERGY TO RUN HOMES AS SEAM-LESSLY AS THEY DO EFFICIENTLY. BUT AS THIS GROUNDBREAKING NEW PROJECT PROVES, YOU DON’T NEED TO LIVE NEAR A GEYSER TO GET IN ON THE ACTION.

dynamicBy Michelle Nicholasen • Photographs by Matt Thorman

32

untouched. The oil-powered Carrier steam boiler filled a whole room, and the thermostats ran on pneumatic pressure. He even came across the vase and (dead) flowers that had ap-peared in an old 1960s photo.

BACK WHEN IT WAS BUILT, Murchison and his wife, Dorothea, had wanted a home for entertaining (they were known for throwing cocktail parties by the pool with luminaries from the art and entertainment worlds)—and that spirit still pervades the space. Inside, the living room is centered in the middle of the footprint, completely surrounded by an indoor terrace, so you can walk the perimeter of the building while enjoying breath-taking 270-degree views of the wetlands and harbor.

When he moved in, Schorer found written correspon-dence between Gropius and the Murchisons hashing out their vision for the home. “There were quite a few grumpy letters written to the architect as the cost of the project in-creased,” he says. The original budget of $118,000 had soared to $384,000, an astronomical price in 1956. “It would have bought ten mansions in Wellesley at the time,” says Schorer.

Later, the last heir of the Murchisons, a daughter-in-law, became a recluse in the house for decades, and it fell into dis-repair. When Schorer moved in, he inherited an outrageous monthly utility bill of $6,800, thanks to a group of old air han-dlers that had run continuously without compression fluid for years. He set out to radically overhaul the entire system.

He hired Ed Malloy of New England Renewables, an energy company based in Weymouth and Hyannis, to install a 50-ton geothermal pump room supplying water to Climate Master units for his visionary neighborhood. Thirty-six wells were drilled, with about 20,000 feet of pipe for the under-ground “loop field.” They also had expert help from a mechan-ical engineer who custom-designed the system.

“This is not your average residential installation,” says Malloy. “It was an ambitious project for an owner who clearly had a vision for a whole neighborhood. There’s not much out there like this.” The closest comparison he can make are sev-eral high-rise condo complexes in New York and Ontario that also use geothermal to heat and cool.

The more typical residential installation is a single-family home that uses two wells and about 1,500 feet of coupling underground. Such a project might cost $35,000 after rebates, generate four to five tons of energy (one ton is 12,000 BTUs) and pay itself off in five to seven years. Though the system releases no carbon, the system must use electricity to power the compressor, fans, and pump, which on average bumps an electric bill by roughly 30–42 percent.

To date, Schorer has lived in the 6,000-square-foot Gro-pius house, which he is methodically restoring, for three years. The house stays warm in the winter, cool in the summer, and he insists that it maintains a hot water supply without the support of a backup system. His average monthly utility bill is now $275, coming off the grid. He hopes to install a solar array to completely cover the electricity, creating a zero-carbon neighborhood.

This page, top to bottom: The geothermal heating and cooling system beneath the home; the exterior of the house. Next page, clockwise from top left: The home and grounds are situated on the tip of Provincetown’s West End, originally belonged to psychologist Carl Murchison, and were designed by famed Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius; the airy, clean-lined kitchen; the living room is centered in the middle of the footprint, completely surrounded by an indoor terrace, so you can walk the perimeter of the building while enjoying 270-degree views of the wetlands and harbor.

33

GEOTHERMAL ENERGY has been gaining popularity in residential settings around the country, providing heating and cooling to homes of all sizes. About 50,000 ground-source heat pumps are installed in homes each year, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Some analysts believe the annual mar-ket for growth is 30 percent. According to the GeoExchange Association, the country’s existing 750,000 systems (including commercial and municipal) are equivalent to taking 971,000 cars off the road.

“I often get calls from homeowners who say, ‘My contractor tells me that geothermal doesn’t work in New England,’” says Malloy, whose company will have completed eight to ten new installations by the end of the year. He explains that the sizing of the installation is the key (because mistakes are costly), and it’s critical to treat the entire home as a system. About half of his projects are “retrofits” on existing homes and half new construction.

Contrary to popular assumptions, you don’t need to live near hot springs, geysers, or volcanic activity to take advantage of geothermal energy. The earth absorbs solar energy as heat, and it’s ours for the taking. About ten feet below the surface, the earth

maintains a fairly constant temperature—about 50–55 degrees in New England. Believe it or not, this is heat. A geothermal system simply “collects, concentrates, and distributes” it.

Pipes or coupling is placed into the earth at depth to absorb the intrinsic heat. The pipes, filled with either well water or water mixed with liquid refrigerant (in cases of closed loops), circulate their contents through a compressor. In the compres-sor, the well or closed-loop water is concentrated to a higher temperature (much the way an air conditioner or refrigerator works), then moved through an air handler where the heated air is pushed through ducts. In the summer, the process is re-versed, with the pipes absorbing the heat from inside the house and bringing it back down into the well to cool.

Schorer won’t reveal the cost of to execute his vision, and admits he may not make back his investment immediately. His advice to prospective geothermal customers is to find an instal-lation team that has years of experience and expertise. “The industry isn’t at its prime yet,” he says. “But it’s getting there.” And with the fruition of projects like this one (and numerous, less exotic homes) it seems likely that it will get there that much faster. ❚

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GET GEOTHERMALTake control of your heating and cooling costs

In the long and ongoing push to encour-age and embrace renewable energy and to conserve our natural resources, one man has led the charge: Carl Orio. And yet for all the years he’s put into design-ing and promoting geothermal energy sys-tems, his efforts are just beginning to really gain steam, so to speak.

“The thinkers and the doers have under-stood the benefits of geothermal energy for years,” says Orio, who began his involve-ment with geothermal heat pumps in 1974 as founder and president of WESCORP. “Unfortunately, there’s a perception out there that it’s expensive. But it doesn’t have to be—just the opposite.” According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, these systems save homeowners 30 to 70 percent in heating costs, and 30 to 50 percent in cooling costs, compared with conventional systems. They also save money because they require much less maintenance and are highly reliable.

Since he started WESCORP, Orio has manufactured approximately 2,200 geothermal heat pumps and distributed them throughout the northern U.S. and Canada until 1981. He’s also designed the systems and has been involved in more than 14,000 geothermal heat pump installations, both commercial and residential. “The people in the industry who are successful today are so because they know how to work together,” he says, noting the unconven-tional amount of coordination that goes into orchestrating the work of all the players—from plumbers and carpenters to electricians and well drillers, to name but a few. “The industry is still too frag-mented,” Orio explains. Which is where his knack for synergy comes in. “The problems that exist are in the lack of coordination between different systems;

we go in and build packages for deal-ers who work together. Our hallmark is pulling everything together.”

That certainly makes the instal-lation process far less painful for the

average consumer. But how close are people to embrac-ing geothermal systems in the first place? A lot closer than they used to be, says Orio. “Twenty years ago, Good Morning America came to us and said they wanted to do a story on geothermal systems. But then they said later that they wouldn’t do it because the American public

wouldn’t ever understand that form of energy.” Now, he says, people are start-ing to get the simplicity of the systems. “A geothermal heat pump is basically just an overgrown refrigerator. It works the same way. If I were to take a glass of water, put it in the fridge, and come back an hour later, it’s now cold. But where did that heat go? It was concentrated and went to that warm coil under the fridge. So in a sense, the fridge is heat-ing the room with the amount of heat it’s taking away from the food inside it. With a geothermal pump, we just take that heat or cool and store it in the ground instead.” Moreover, its efficiency speaks for itself. “For every unit of electricity, I can use that to drive a heat pump that will then make four more. So you get five units of heat for every one unit of heat,” he adds. “That’s synergy. A geothermal heat pump is a practical renewable energy amplifier.”

Speaking of synergy, Orio’s own family is not only the present face of his company, but arguably its future, too: of his six children, five of them work at Water Energy with him—as do two of his grandchildren. In fact, his youngest daughter, Christina, is the largest stock-holder in the company. “She runs the business,” he chuckles. “And she keeps everyone on an even keel.” ❚

The leadership of one man has geothermal energy getting hotter by the minute.

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Accurate design is critical to a reliable, top performing geothermal heat pump system.Since 1978 Water Energy has been the trusteddesign and equipment provider for over 14,000geothermal systems from Maine to Manhattan.

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Why choose Geothermal Energy?FACT: Geothermal heating and cooling systems offer the

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