The third six-unit seniors housing building will have geothermal heating, just like the other two.
All three buildings use heat from deep in the ground to heat up the buildings. A pipe filled with an anti-freeze liquid goes 100 feet into the ground and gets warmed up by residual heat there, coming out at around 41 C.
“It's cheaper, it's environmentally very positive,” Houston Retirement Housing Society Amonson president said. “And it's in the [ground], it's
really, I guess, almost perpetual.”
“We don't have to fix anything. The only thing we have to change sometimes is there's some pumps might break or something, but it's all small things.”
The water is channelled into a compressor, which Amonson explains takes the heat out of the water and puts it into the room.
The installation of this cost $150,000 for seven units.
“People in here, for all their electrical use, most of them don't pay more than $35 a month, average,” Amonson said.
Amonson estimated this figure for a suite of 800 square feet.
“The only thing that they have to buy here is hydro, telephone and television,” Amonson said.
Each unit has its own thermostat and a compressor. Pipes run below the flooring and heats the room up.