The Elephant in the Crawl Space: HVAC

A couple of things to know: first, the crawl space is actually about 7’ high, nice and dry, and thanks to some pretty leaky ducts, it stays nice and warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Way too much of a good thing according to the experts.

Second thing to keep in mind: sometime in the mid-1960s the home had an addition put on, and it got its own HVAC system. Great, double the maintenance, separate ductwork, etc.

At GreenBuild, an industry tradeshow I visited in late 2009 looking for green HVAC products, I stopped and checked out ClimateMaster geothermal products. And I was impressed. I have known about geothermal heating/cooling for a long time, and several friends have them in their homes, so I was more than interested to learn that it came along with a very generous government rebate.

I contacted the local ClimateMaster distributor and got the name of several contractors, that I called to have them check things out and give me a quote. Along the way the contractors further educated me about the ins and outs of geothermal.

One contractor, Mike Duckworth of Aire-Serv, used my room-by-room measurements to do a thorough analysis of the heating/cooling capacity that would be required to keep the home at a proper temperature. And he planned to remove the smaller furnace and combine the ductwork so we’d only have one system.

This all sounds great, and as we got further into February, the drilling contractor he recommended came out to calculate the location he’d have to drill. Then, all we needed was for the ground to freeze, so his very heavy rig wouldn’t sink into the mud.

Six weeks later, we’re still waiting…but now it’s for the rain to stop so the ground can dry out. Indiana in April and May can be pretty wet, so this may have to wait a while. Very frustrating.

In the meantime, I’m working with Mike to spec out the air filtration system that I will get from Roger Clearman, owner of Air & Energy Products in Atlanta, GA (see earlier blogs about Roger). And Mike is also setting up the geothermal specs to include hot water, with a natural gas assist to get the water from 100-degrees to the 125-degrees we usually set it on.

So, for now, all we can do is wait for the ground to dry out so we can drill the ground loops. In the meantime, I’ll tackle another task on the list: finishing the insulation.