Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Geothermal

[Nadav Malin (nadav]

Cambridge Cohousing is using a geothermal system. They are also taking
advantage of one of the great hidden potentials for energy savings in
cohousing: district heating. By having one central heating plant serving
the entire community, first costs are reduced, the system is carefully
engineered for optimal performance, and energy costs are much lower than
they would be with independent systems for each unit.

This option is easier at Cambridge than at some others because of the
density (41 units on 1.5 acres), but should be viable for all but the most
spread out sites.

Anyone from Cambridge Coho care to comment? (They're just moving in, so not
much field-performance data yet.)

I'm doing a detailed environmental assessment of this project as part of an
international research effort on Green Buildings. See
http://greenbuilding.ca/GBIC.html for details on this project.

Nadav Malin

At 8:06 AM -0600 3/9/98, Dee Dishon wrote:
>Dear all:
>        I got such a great response from asking for Mediation info that
>here's another request. Our cohousing group is exploring geothermal. Who has
>it? What are advantages and disadvantages? Who decided against it and why?
>        Thanks for getting back to us at Blueberry Hill Cohousing on this!
>        Dee Dishon
>Blueberry Hill Cohousing
>Vienna, VA (DC area)


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