Featured Project

Unexpected Benefit

We didn't include this as part of our design, but Joe's Touch Free Car Wash got an unexpected benefit from installing a geothermal system: Free publicity.

Check out the local news reports about the installation.

Joe's Touch Free Car Wash

Sure Temp Co. recently installed a geothermal heating system for Joe's Touch Free Car Wash on Conklin Avenue, Binghamton, a system that cuts the business' energy consumption about 50 percent.

The Econar system we installed draws heat from water drawn from a well and transfers it to a radiant heating system beneath the car wash's floor slab to keep the floor warm and ice-free in winter. Then it returns the water to the ground via another well.

The project will pay for itself in energy savings in five years. Maybe less.

The system incorporates a number of technologies to keep it energy-efficient and less expensive to operate, including:

• A variable-frequency drive on the well pump, so it never draws more water than it needs.
• An automatic trigger to start the system when temperatures are about 35 degrees, when icing could create danger at a car wash.
• A water source heath pump, which uses the heat from the groundwater instead of fossil fuels to heat the water.
• A sensor to let the system maintain the correct surface temperature.

And, like many modern car washes, the Joe's Touch Free incorporates a water-reclamation system, so used water is filtered and recycled to wash the next car.

Washing your car at Joe's uses less water than if you washed it in your driveway. Sometimes, environmentally friendly is easier to do than less-friendly ways.

Facts about Geothermal

• Every 100,000 homes with geothermal systems cuts oil dependence by 2.2 million barrels a year, and electricity consumption nearly 800 million kilowatts a year.
• Geothermal systems generate no on-site carbon emissions, and have the least emissions of any other heating or cooling technology.
• Geothermal systems are an average of 48 percent more efficient than the best gas furnaces, and 75 percent more efficient than oil furnaces. Today's best geoexchange systems outperform the best gas technology too, between 36 and 43 percent better than gas heat pumps.
• About 1 million geothermal systems have been installed in America, saving 5.8 million tons of carbon dioxide a year.
• And the effect of that?
  It's like:
  • Taking 1.3 million cars off the road.
  • Planting 385 million trees.
  • Cutting oil imports by 21.5 million barrels a year.