Taking the heat: Energy revolutionaries go underground

Living in the country, close to the land, Andrew and Shirley Bartle know where all the rabbits, moles and groundhogs go in the winter: they burrow underground to keep warm. In their own way, the Bartles have done much the same. They have installed a geothermal system and no, they are not sitting on top of a volcano.

They live in Limehouse in Southern Ontario on a country estate where the large lot made it easier and cheaper to install a geothermal ground source heat pump than in the city, where it is necessary to drill deep into the ground.

Still, "it was quite a shock to see my backyard dug up," says Andrew, looking back three years ago when he and his wife decided to "go geo."

Geothermal is based on the Earth's ability to store heat. In fact, almost half of the sun's energy that reaches Earth is absorbed into the ground, providing an infinite supply of warmth. On the Bartles' property, nearly a half mile of plastic piping filled with water and ethanol was laid out in an "S" shaped pattern in their backyard. Buried five feet down, just below the frost line, the fluid in the plastic piping draws heat from the ground where the temperature ranges between 55 to 65 F degrees and pumps the heat back into the house to a heat exchange furnace. Andrew's heat exchanger is a six tonne unit, not much bigger than the furnace he used to have. The heat is distributed by forced air throughout the house. In summer, the system works in reverse, extracting the heat from the home and moving it to either the hot water tank or outside into the loop pipes.

"Our energy consumption has flipped," explains Andrew. In the winter, because the temperature underground is not high enough, the geothermal heat is occasionally supplemented with hydro to raise the temperature of the house. But in the summer, no energy is required to cool it, eliminating the need for air conditioning. In both seasons, their consumption of fossil fuels is reduced. So is the couple's carbon footprint.

And so is their energy bill. They can't say exactly how much they are ahead financially - it all depends on the price of fossil fuels – but as prices go up, the more the Bartles save. They anticipate recovering their initial capital cost of $20,000 to install the geothermal system in 10 years, maybe even sooner if oil prices keep hitting record highs.

Cost, as well as the consequences of global warming, was the initial reason the Bartles decided to go geo. Like their rural neighbours, they previously heated their home with propane but its price just kept increasing.

The Bartles would like to get off the grid completely and plan to erect wind turbines and solar panels in the future. They are watching as these technologies mature and prices fall as demand rises.

"When we first looked at geo, solar did not make sense," says Andrew, "but in the last few years solar panels have gotten thinner and thinner and prices are coming down." Meanwhile, he had no trouble finding a local company to install the ground source heat pump and Andrew is very satisfied. He is also really comfortable.

There are no cold spots, he says. The house warms up quickly and the heat is better distributed. There is no condensation on the windows and "that was kinda nice."  In the summer "it's wonderfully cool," and he can open his windows without feeling guilty because he is not using the air conditioner.

The Bartles say that tapping into geothermal energy was their first major step towards going green, but they are wrong. For years they have been supporting Greenpeace, glad to have people focus on protecting the environment. Putting into practice what we preach about renewable energy puts them in the vanguard of an energy revolution.