Armand Jurs (left) and Randy Ballard, both with contracting firm Air-Flo, installed the geothermal system at Fayette High School with Casey Grissom (not pictured). Here, they are heat-fusing polyethylene pipe and fittings together for the ground loop heat exchanger.
POCAHONTAS, Ark. — Mike Jones doesn’t mean anything disparaging when he refers to some things as being “Arkansas simple.” What he describes might also be called elegant simplicity, or just something that has not been over-engineered.

Jones is the owner of HVAC contracting firm Air-Flo and a managing partner of Hydro-Temp Corp., both in Pocahontas.

Hydro-Temp manufactures Geoexchange heat pumps, specializing in applications where every penny counts, such as schools. On some jobs, Air-Flo installs them.

“I was raised poor,” Jones explains. Therefore, when he designs a system, “I always act like this money is mine.”

This photo shows the space-conserving fit of the Corner Console inside the school.
Hydro-Temp’s latest design has been executed with schools in mind. The triangular Corner Console takes up less space than other through-the-wall heat pumps, while offering sufficient room for customer-requested design items, such as energy recovery and UV lights.

A school constructed last year in Fayette, Mo., may have resulted in an application of this type with the lowest documented school energy consumption per square foot. The company is checking the record books, but it’s safe to say that Fayette High School’s 2.3- to 2.4-kWh/square-foot usage — which includes cooling, heating, and hot water heating — is breaking some records.

There is a corner unit in every classroom, plus units in the cafeteria and library. “The gym has four big horizontal loops, 15 or 20 tons,” says Barry Ferguson, a design engineer with BDS Energy Inc., Cabot, Ark. It is not always air conditioned, he explains, but the capacity is there for special events such as graduation.

Armand Jurs (left) and Randy Ballard work on the headers at the ground loop field outside of Fayette High School, which was constructed last year in Fayette, Mo. Geothermal heat pump manufacturer Hydro-Temp and the Geothermal Heat Pump Consortium are checking the record books to see if the school’s energy usage — 2.3- to 2.4-kWh/square-foot usage for cooling, heating, and water heating — is breaking as many records as they suspect.

Critical Elements

Jones is the first to state, “The results were achieved due to a close working relationship with the design architect [ACI-Boland], construction manager, and the Hydro-Temp design team. The use of the ... Corner Console units and a well-insulated building made for a terrific performance combination.”

The insulation itself was important to Jones. “Walls were a brick/block combination with three inches of Styrofoam®, along with three inches on the roof and double-pane windows.”

Ferguson says, “We’re a stickler on insulation and high-efficiency windows. You worry about the air conditioning after you look at the wall and roof insulation and the windows.”

Ferguson has been working with Jones on geothermal systems for six or seven years. He frequently has requested design modifications to the systems, and Jones has added these innovations whenever possible. Like some air-handling units, Jones’ geothermal heat pumps are built to spec for any particular job, with a variety of options available.

This is a close-up of the purge pit. Contractors need training and experience in order to properly perform system purges and work on reverse-header systems.
Unlike air handlers, they are not installed on the roof or in other hard-to-access spaces. This is a great advantage for service and maintenance staff, as well as for the building itself. “If you can go through the wall, go through the wall,” says Ferguson. Roof penetrations can lead to a multitude of problems later on. Wall units are also less likely to suffer from bird droppings and other types of fouling.

Ferguson says he was in a school one day and was looking at corners; they generally were not used, and amounted to wasted space. He and Jones “took the idea home to the office.” (Jones also recalls a brainstorm around 5 a.m. one morning that paid off.) One of Hydro-Temp’s engineers, Henry Gross, and Jones worked to put together a unit that fits in corners, taking up about 4-1/2 square feet of floor space. The unit fits through standard doorways.

“You can get a corner system and loop put in for a little more than the cost of split systems with ductwork,” says Ferguson. There is a reduced operational cost, Jones explains, because the systems are designed so that pumps are not oversized and there is no duct loss because duct use is limited.

“The savings of geothermal are real,” Jones says.

A motorized fresh air damper works in conjunction with a CO2 sensor to bring appropriate amounts of fresh air into the classroom. At Fayette, it was programmed to run for 10 minutes whenever the unit itself had not run for an hour. During the school year, the units automatically draw in fresh air without interruption after 1:00 or 1:30 p.m.

Air Quality Considerations

The geothermal heat pumps at Fayette H.S. can bring in up to 400 cfm of fresh air and include a CO2 sensor. After 1:00 or 1:30 p.m. during the school year, Jones says, the units automatically draw in fresh air without interruption.

Ferguson points out that although the units meet outdoor air requirements, the air available is not necessarily of good quality. That’s why he and Jones have looked at preconditioning, using multistage compressors for applications of 3 tons and up. He acknowledges the importance of “finding a manufacturer that is not cookie-cutter in its approach.”

Summer vacation operation is another concern for school systems. “We recommend never to set back to more than 84 degrees F,” says Ferguson. “We prefer 82 degrees.” This is due to the mass load created by the heating of elements within the room. Ferguson compares it to stones around a campfire: “You may put out the fire, but it takes eight hours before those rocks cool down.”

Latent load is another factor. “If the unit has not run for an hour,” he says, “it will automatically run for 10 minutes.”

Jones said the unit’s corner placement gives it extra sound distribution benefits, although the reason for this has not yet been determined.
Jones points out that the company also oversizes its heat pumps’ stainless steel, brazed-plate heat exchangers and uses GE ECM motors. As a result of all these factors, the Fayette classrooms measured 35 to 45 percent humidity during the cooling season.

“It’s proven,” Jones says. “It’s not over-engineered. What we do is not rocket science. If it was, I wouldn’t be able to do it.”

Ferguson adds, “If we keep it simple, we have it better in the long run.” For one thing, it is easier for building operations to maintain and run.

Hydro-Temp offers a two-day school that is recommended for maintenance and operations staff. “I would say that 99 percent of our customers send their people,” Ferguson says. “I also have contractors that go to the school.”

The Corner Console’s components were designed to be easily accessible for servicing.

Networking

It may take schooling through the company, as well as working on a couple of smaller jobs, before Ferguson will let a contractor work on one of his projects. “I’ve been doing this seven or eight years,” he says. “My first few jobs were nightmares; the contractor didn’t know how to purge or do reverse-header systems.”

According to Jones, “We go after a specific type of dealer that wants the best he can get.”

Once your foot is in the door, these companies believe in building on existing relationships to do new projects. “Why not go home with the girl you took to dinner?” says Ferguson.

He and Jones have found several cases where the building owners and school districts were interested in installing a geothermal system, but the HVAC firms they first contacted either didn’t understand geothermal themselves, or they felt that their customers really didn’t understand it. What these firms don’t seem to grasp, says Jones, is that “These customers are intelligent people! They understand the concept.”

Howard Electric Cooperative Corp. has metered Fayette High School’s HVAC and hot water energy consumption; manager Richard Fowler has provided metering and documentation. The co-op is helping compare the school’s energy consumption figures with those from the Geothermal Heat Pump Consortium (GHPC). So far the lowest is 10 kWh/square foot/year for heating and cooling, Jones says, noting that Fayette High School’s results “are not an isolated case. They can be repeated anywhere.”

Jones states, “The Hydro-Temp design team will work with any architect or engineer to help achieve similar results, like others have all over the country. The earlier in the design process this all begins, the better the end results will be. There’s no miracles in our business. We have to earn everything we do.”

Publication date: 08/18/2003