Geothermal Heating Discussed at Beachwood Board of Education Meeting

Geothermal heating for the renovated Beachwood High School as discussed at a presentation made to the Beachwood Board of Education Monday night.

Burt Hill, the architects working on the project, were charged with reporting to the board about the feasibility of geothermal heating for the building, which will be renovated beginning this summer.

Chris Panichi, project manager at Burt Hill, told the Board that geothermal "may not be a good choice" for the building right now.

Though geothermal heating, in theory, would save the school money in the long run, its initial cost would be $1.3 million more, said Panichi. It would take 30 years for the school to begin to see the return. Plus, said the representatives from Burt Hill, that is was contingent upon the system needing no repairs.

Burt Hill installed a geothermal system at a North Royalton school, for example, and the repairs required have been more than the schools expected.

Because geothermal heating systems are completely underground, repairs are more costly than for conventional heating.

Burt Hill provided a list of pros and cons for both systems. The geothermal system has a 50-year life and pulls heat from the ground, which would lower the school’s carbon footprint, and there are no moving parts, so repairs are less likely to be needed. But installing the system, which would require digging over 200 500-foot-deep wells on school grounds, would be noisier and less convenient, interrupting recreational field use.

The conventional system the school uses now – a water source pump heat system – is very efficient, said Panichi, like the geothermal system. But repairs are more likely and it uses more natural resources. Also, it will require a 30-foot-high, noisy tower that would cost extra money to hide with landscaping.

Fewer than 25 percent of schools in Northeast Ohio use geothermal heating, said Panichi, and those that the company has worked with installing over the past few years were motivated by federal stimulus grants that are no longer widely available.

The Board of Education did not propose any action at this special meeting.