My husband and I volunteer for our community's historical society. We joined the society soon after moving to Colorado from New York, as we knew it would be a nice way to meet people and also learn about the history in our county and community.
We enjoyed volunteering for many years at a National Historic Cemetery, established in 1838 in Brooklyn, NY, called GreenWood Cemetery, where, along with other volunteers, we helped a historian research the Civil War Project. That project wanted to record the burial sites of veterans of the US Civil War buried in the cemetery. We knew of a few famous soldiers from their grand monuments, and expected to find a few hundred more veterans' graves. Instead, we discovered over 5,200 graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers, many with interesting stories. You can see my posts about this cemetery on this label - there are 19 posts in all!
I know you are thinking: "How nice, but what does this have to do with geothermal heat and cooling?"
Please read on...
As part of our duties in our historical society, we help to maintain a large archival collection that began with the first resident volunteers in our community who formed our historical society in the 1980s. They collected brochures of the home construction in progress at that time, when our area was being converted from a cattle ranch to a residential community.
Since new homes were now being built in our area, I went to collect the new homes' brochures to save for our archives. That is when I learned that one of the builders was installing geothermal heating and cooling in the homes. I was surprised to learn this fact, and very interested to learn more!
The Lennar company announced a partnership that will integrate Dandelion’s geothermal heat pump systems into over 1,500 newly-built homes across 14 Lennar communities in Colorado over the next two years, and the new homes going up in our community are the first!
Geothermal technology taps into the natural heat found below Earth’s surface to provide heating, cooling, and electricity. Geothermal use generally falls into one of three categories: (1) heat pumps, which are shallow geothermal systems that provide heating and cooling; (2) direct use, where natural hot water is applied to tasks that require heat, such as warming buildings or pasteurizing food; and (3) electricity generation. The homes being built in our area will have the first option of heat pumps.
Please click on the photo to enlarge it
The rocks and soils below a building or community act as a heat sink—absorbing excess heat during summer, when surface temperatures are relatively higher—and as a heat source during the winter, when surface temperatures are lower.
Geothermal Heat Pumps (GHP) use the constant temperature of the shallow earth (40–70°F) to provide heating and cooling solutions to buildings wherever the ground can be cost-effectively accessed to depths below seasonal temperature variations.
GHPs increase the efficiency and reduce the energy consumption of heating and cooling systems in residential and commercial buildings. They are currently deployed across all 50 states, and the market is growing as their value becomes better understood.
Learn more about geothermal heat pumps and their potential to reduce the need for new grid transmission infrastructure.
Please click on the photo to enlarge it for easier viewing of the information.
GeoThermal Heat pumps can be used anywhere and come in many sizes, including small heat pumps that can be used to heat and cool homes instead of furnaces and air conditioning units. Heat pumps provide an outstanding opportunity to improve air quality and reduce contributions to climate change. They offer no danger of carbon monoxide, have zero emissions, and add no indoor air pollution.
The drawback is that Geothermal heating and cooling are very efficient but expensive — unless the systems are built into new homes from the start. However, recent state, federal, and local incentives have made geothermal more cost-effective than ever. Some of the incentives are covering up to 50% of installation costs, depending on location.
Because of all the pros and despite some of the cons, Geothermal Heating and Cooling looked very attractive to me, and I hope more builders incorporate it into new construction.
Meanwhile, in life around here, we are still having unusually warm weather for winter and hardly any snow. What little snow we get melts within hours as daytime temperatures rise.
It was intently searching for something under and around the fallen leaves for quite some time.
I hope he was looking for insects to eat, and not nest-building material, thinking it was spring!
Blogs I link with:
Nature Notes, Home Matters Linky Party, Happiness is Homemade, Monday Morning Blog Club, Good Random Fun, Senior Salon Pit Stop, Talk About It Tuesday, The Happy Now Tuesday, Wordless Wednesday, Wordless Wednesday 2, Wordless Wednesday on Comedy Plus, Wednesday My Corner of the World, Wonderful Wednesday, Thankful Thursday, Little Things Thursday, Thursday Favorite Things, Skywatch Friday, Fantastic Friday, Farmhouse Friday, Crazy Little Lovebirds Friday Link Up, Dare to Share, Saturday Sparks, Saturday Critters,
On the one hand, it is interesting to read about voluntary work and, on the other hand, the balancing act with geothermal energy.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to me because my parents had a heat pump installed in their new house over 30 years ago. They were ahead of their time.
Thank you very much for sharing at MosaicMonday ☃️ Greetings by Heidrun
The bluebird is lovely. Happy February.
ReplyDeleteAmalia
xo
When we built our house 20+ years ago we installed geothermal heating/cooling systems (we have 2 of them- a large one in the basement that covers most of the house and a small one on the second floor for the bedrooms) and while it was expensive to put in we knew that the savings on home heating oil and on energy costs would make it worth it in the long run.
ReplyDeleteHello Pat,
ReplyDeleteI have heard a lot about the Geothermal Energy from my son who works for a HVAC company and while visiting Iceland. It is nice that the new community near you is being built with the geothermal systems built in from the start. I can imagine how expensive it is to put in an older home. Happy February!
Take care, have a great day and happy week ahead.
I remember from the early 60's my dad talking about heat pumps etc. Having lived in CA for many years conserving resources was important, and geothermal, now a known term, was beginning to take hold. Visiting from #MMBC
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing info on geothermal heat and cooling. It's very interesting and sounds like a smart move for builders in your area. I love reading about your work in historical societies too. I love history and learning local background info. That cemetery in New York astounds me with the number of Civil War graves and especially, the Confederate soldiers.
ReplyDelete