Wired: 156 Reade Street
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 01. 4.07
Jill Fehrenbacher reprises Inhabitat's coverage of 156 Reade Street for Wired's Green House feature. Geothermal heating is becoming common now, but in 2001 it was pretty radical, particularly in New York City. Ground temperature is even all year round, and heat pumps can extract heat in winter or exhaust it in summer. Architect/developer John Petrarca drilled 1100 feet into the rock for the water loop, then transferred the heat through radiant floors. Ground source heat pumps are wonderfully efficient because one is not making heat but moving it, and water moves a lot more calories than an air-to-air heat exchanger like a traditional air conditioner.
Unfortunately this talented developer/architect only got to live in it briefly as he died of lung cancer a year after it was finished. It was put up for sale for 7.835 million dollars. ::Wired not on line yet.
From the Wall Street Journal:
This five-story town house stands in Manhattan's TriBeCa district, a few blocks north of the World Trade Center site. An unusual geothermal energy system provides heating, cooling and hot water. Pipes extend about 1,400 feet into the earth, where the temperature is always about 52 degrees, according to architect Alexander Gorlin, who writes about the home in his book "Creating the New American Townhouse." The pipes transfer energy to the house, where two-layer-thick concrete exterior walls, filled with thermal materials, trap the energy and distribute it, Mr. Gorlin says. (All floors also have radiant heating systems.) The late New York architect and developer John Petrarca designed the property and lived there with his wife, business-journalism professor Sarah Bartlett, until his death from lung cancer in 2003. The project was completed in 2002. The home's interior includes limestone-and-Merbau wood floors.
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1,400 Feet into the soil!?
I wonder why so far? You can do geothermal much, much closer to the surface.
LA: it is actually 1100 feet, but I suspect it may be that they need a specific length of pipe for heat transfer, and it is easier to drill one hole deep for one loop rather than a series of shallower holes for multiple loops. In Toronto where we have about 50 feet of soil until we hit bedrock, they tend to do multiple 50 foot deep holes.