Air conditioning can be added to most forced air heating systems. In general, most furnaces, and electric furnaces already have air conditioning controls built right in. A Mitchell Mechanical certified technician simply modifies the ductwork to accomodate an air conditioning system, and it can be up an running in as little as 6 hours from the time your technician arrives.

You can visit the site at:

www.mitchellgeothermal.com

And as always our regular site is www.mitchell-mechanical.com

Thanks for your continued support!

The Mitchell Mechanical Team-

Mark Potensky- President
(206) 972-8191

Josh Mitchell- Chief Operations Officer
(206) 972-8189

Larry Mayotte- Division Manager and Senior Project Manager
(206) 384-2486

Mitchell Mechanical, Inc.
Office: (206) 658-8189
Fax: (206) 658-8190
5531A Airport Way South
Seattle, WA 98108

The title today reflects a growing game in the new World of search engine optimization (SEO) for short. More and more-people are throwing away the traditional methods of searching for service related businesses (ie the yellow pages) and instead turn to Google, Yahoo or MSN and ‘search’ on key words they are interested in. These search engines rely on certain code based on relevancy to try and return the best search results pertaining to what you are looking for. Often they fail miserably and the trend continues to get worse. Making matters even more difficult is the business of ‘paid search’ which is essentially what businesses must do to survive in this ‘marketplace.’

Paid serach is when a company like us purchases key words from the likes of Google. For instance: “Seattle Radiant Heat Contractor, Seattle Geothermal, Seattle HVAC Contractor, Radiant Seattle, Solar Seattle” etc. When someone types those key words together–Mitchell Mechanical is likely to come up on the very top or on the side bar of your web browser (in the sponsored section). Over 80% of people ignore these–knowing through past experience that they are often not nearly as relevant to their search as the ‘organic’ listings. Often times the reason the ‘paid search’ isn’t as relevant is because the companies that show up there have nothing whatsoever to do with the search word criteria. They are simply buying words they know you will type so that they come up and might catch your interest.

There is organic search and paid search. Organic search I think you will find is usually much more relevant than paid search however it too has flaws. The main flaw is that many small businesses with small marketing budgets can’t get to the top of these lists even though they likely are the MOST relevant to what you are searching for. There are people and businesses now that literally specialize in SEO to ensure that the businesses they represent soar to the top of search engine results. This can be quite costly yet it is the new game in marketing. Small businesses that are very likely the most relavent to your search are usually buried on page 5 or deeper of the search results. Who goes that far? Nobody.

When people search the last thing they want to do is click on page 10 of the search results to find Mitchell Mechanical or any other business that might help them with what they are searching. At best they will go to page 2 to look at relevant search results. It is unfortunate that only the big companies with deep pockets can really play this game effectively. As a small company–we can’t compete on budget with the likes of Greenwood Heating, Blue Flame, Cardinal Heating, Evergreen Heating, Northwest Mechanical, Advanced Radiant Systems etc. These companies have a dedicated person or company working on their SEO. While I applaud them for being smart in this arena–it is a fact that they must pay for this marketing. How do they do it–I guess through volume and marking up their product to account for it. We too are considering the investment but we would be kidding you and ourselves if we said this investment didn’t need to be accounted for on the bottom line.

‘Search’ is extremely important to the life of service business and will almost surely be the lifeline of any service business that wishes to interest with everyday people. Mitchell Mechanical recognizes we have to play the game with the limited resources we have. This blog is free–and one of the resources to play this same game. We aren’t bashing these other companies–in fact we are jealous of their marketing budget because we would like nothing more than to be at the top of the organic listing of your search request when you type in “Seattle Radiant Heat Contractor, Seattle Geothermal Heating Contractor, Seattle Solar Thermal Contractor, Seattle HVAC Contractor…….etc.

Forgive me as I just used what resources I had to try and attract your attention. Actually I tried to first attract the attention of the Google, Yahoo, MSN etc bots that look for relevant information regarding your search. I’m hopeful that now that I have you get something ‘relevant’ to what you were looking for. If not I’m sorry!

Cheers and have a great night!

Geoff McBride
Director of Business Development

So what air temperature is comfortable to you? Before you answer that, I have to admit, it’s a trick question. Most of the time, we design an HVAC system to provide an indoor air temperature of 70 degrees on the coldest day of the year. 70 degrees is what most people would agree is the ideal indoor air temperature. But 70 degrees can also be very uncomfortable, say if you’re standing in the freezer isle at the grocery store. It’s true, the air temperature in the freezer isle is actually 70 degrees, don’t believe me, take a thermometer with you next time. But it’s so cold in the freezer isle, how can it be 70 degrees? It is because the freezers are excellerating the heat loss from your body by stealing heat. The same thing happens when you sit next to a window on a cold day. The window is colder than your body and because heat moves toward colder objects, that window starts stealing your heat.

True comfort happens when you combine indoor air temperature (what your thermostat says) and mean radiant temperature (what your skin feels). We call this Operative Temperature. Other factors that play into the Operative Temperature are air motion (draft) and humidity. Your Operative Temperature also varies based on what you’re doing, and what you’re wearing. For example, if you go on a jog your home may feel hot when it may feel cold cold if you’re sitting on the couch watching a movie.

We can’t control Operative Temperature because we can’t measure how objects in a room like windows or cold floors effect the human body. We have that thermostat. But, we can try and keep the radiant losses to a minimum. One method is to keep objects in a room from stealing your body’s heat. How do we do this? By making sure they don’t get cold, simple as that.

At this point I had zero experience with ground source heat pumps, but was dumb enough to try anything. That night I took the installation manual home and read it cover to cover. After reading the manual, I found that his system really wasn’t compatible with the heat pump itself. He had a storage tank that was massively oversized, a radiant floor heating system that couldn’t maintain proper flow rates, and the ground outside was freezing. We made a few piping changes and installed a properly sized storage tank. Within one day, his house was maintaining 70 degrees which he claimed hadn’t happened before on a 30 degree day. A big problem was the geothermal field though, after reviewing the as builts, it was clear that the field was undersized according to my rough calculations. We ended up having to increase the size of his backup boiler to maintain a comfortable indoor air temperature, not ideal.

This service call turned into a new passion for me. Before getting my feet wet, Geothermal heating was mysterious and I thought the industry was ‘gimmicky.’ But in the coming months, I found myself troubleshooting Geothermal systems as far as 80 miles away. I came to find that there were allot of folks with pieced together systems that had just a few critical components that if done properly from the start, could have been great systems.

One major theme that seemed to be universal was that I either saw systems that had great ground work but poor indoor heating systems or the converse. One in particular humored me when I happened to be driving by a super ‘green’ house that was giving tours. Upon entering the home, I couldn’t help but go straight for the mechanical room. I saw a very well installed Geothermal heat pump connected to a radiant floor heating system that was, well, not so very well installed. You see, the Geothermal heat pump could deliver water temperatures around 110 degrees reliably. The radiant heating system however required water temperatures of 140 degrees. Uh oh, that meant that the Geothermal heating system could only supply heat to the house if the outdoor temperature was above 45 degrees. Why even go there?

It’s not rocket science, but just like anything new, you have to pay your dues and learn to do it right. Because I’ve been in the hydronic heating and pumping industry my entire adult life, Geothermal came easy, but not without paying my dues. I had to learn about new things that I didn’t anticipate, like soil.

There are many ways to absorb energy from the earth. Geothermal simply means ‘relating to the internal heat of the Earth.’ If you are lucky enough to live be a hot spring, you can simply pipe that hot water into your house and have all the free heat you want. Other than a few hotels, I’m not aware of anyone who so lucky. Most of us use a heat pump which absorbs energy from the earth by circulating a fluid through a series of pipes in the 45-55 degree earth and compresses that energy into a useful form. The compression process uses energy and this energy is measured by COP (coefficient of performance), sounds complicated, but it’s pretty simple. COP is the ratio of the heat output rate from the heat pump divided by the electrical energy input rate to operate the heat pump. For example, it a heat pump has a COP of 3.0, that means that for every watt of electricity you put into it, it will give you 3 watts back.

How does this all translate into energy savings? Well, there are 3 factors as I see it. #1 is the price of electricity compared to any other form of energy that might be cheaper and available, per unit, measure by measure. #2 is the savings from the heat pump, and #3 is the enhancements made to the indoor system to make the Geothermal energy usable. Sounds like allot but let me break it down.

For this example I’m going to use the last house that we installed Geothermal into. The house was heating with Propane, 3300 square feet, and modern construction. The propane operating costs are around $3,200 per year, and the operating costs with Geothermal were around $700 per year for an annual savings of $2,500. In this case the Geothermal system increased the installation cost by $13,000. Without rebates the payback is 5.2 years. However, uncle same chips in another 30% tax credit. So that particular investment only gets better. I don’t want to jade you however, this house has unique factors. In most cases Geothermal has a 10 year return on investment. Combine that with your federal write off and the payback is downright affordable, even if you have natural gas.

Let’s talk about the gear for a moment. In order to absorb energy from the ground, you need ground. The cheapest system by far is a horizontal field. Typically this field is going to require a minimum of 5,000 square feet of free and clear land available. Chances are, if you don’t have 3 acres of land, this option isn’t available. The most common alternative is to drill bore holes vertically. Typically you need 800-1100 feet of bore length to heat the average home which translates into 4 or 5 holes at varying depths. Other systems include open well systems that use ground water for heat transfer, and pond loops, both of which have difficult permitting process’ and are avoided in our area. However, MMI is currently working on making the permitting process a little easier to swallow.

I want to talk about drilling for a moment. Until now, drilling costs generally put the payback of a Geothermal heating system in the 20-25 year range. That is because we drill water wells instead of Geothermal wells. What’s the difference? Water wells require a steel casing to be pounded into the earth that serves no purpose in a Geothermal system. A Geothermal well isn’t cased, can be drilled quickly, and costs much less to install. MMI, is currently working with a drill team that utilizes this technology and our vertical well systems are about half of the price of our competition. And the systems have the same or better performance. The payback? Less than 10 years if you include your federal tax write off. This means that we can generally utilize a “postage stamp” size lot in the middle of the city.

Thanks for taking the time to learn about Geothermal heating. Feel free to contact us anytime for a savings and feasibility analysis. MMI has a great record for installing Geothermal and we look forward to serving you.

Josh Mitchell

This system was installed on my own home in W. Seattle on May 3rd and 4th.  It consists of 2 Viessmann flat plate collectors, 1 Superstor ultra 80 gallon buffer tank with duel coil, 1 Caleffi pump station with I-solar control, mounting racks, hardware and solarflex insulated tubing.  The solar thermal was integrated with my radiant heat system.  I had an existing Takagi tank-less hot water heater and a staple up hydronic radiant system that runs at 150 degree supply temperature.  Early May was still cold yet the 80 gallon solar thermal tank was still getting up into the high 80, low 90 degree water temperature range.  When there was a call for heat from the radiant system–the tank-less water heater was getting 90 degree water (approximately) vs. the normal street temperature water (55 degrees).  I noticed right away that the Takagi wasn’t having to come on full blast–it was much quieter–modulating its btuh output to bring 90 degree water up to 150 degree rather than 55 degree up to 150 degrees.  On sunny days (like this past Memorial day weekend)–the solar thermal system was consistently getting my tank up to 155 degrees or so.  We have had no call for heat lately from the radiant system due to the great weather–and we are also not using 80 gallons of hot water every day–so our tank-less heater hasn’t even been running at all.  I got my PSE bill yesterday and compared it to last years natural gas therm usage.  Last year’s cycle had 32 days vs. this years of 30 days (I believe PSE forecasts usage for the final week in order to send the bill out late in the month).  Anyway–last year we used 84 therms of natural gas for May–and this year we used 53 (with the last week a forecast based on daily use).  Even with the 2 extra days–that is pretty substantial.  I think, up until the last week and a half or so–that the weather was cooler this early May vs. May 2008.  I look forward to comparing the month to month natural gas savings and can’t wait to have a full year in perspective.  I enjoy going home from work at night and looking at the control to see how the day’s harvest has gone.  It is pretty fun and we are saving money.

http://www.dsireusa.org/incentives/index.cfm?CurrentPageID=1&State=WA&RE=1&EE=1 (Shows what energy incentives are available at the Federal, state and local level)

http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=products.pr_tax_credits#c3 (Summary of tax credits for homeowners)

http://www.carbonify.com/carbon-calculator.htm (A carbon dioxide emission calculator)

http://www.myamortizationchart.com/ (Handy mortgage calculator which can help you figure out what an investment in efficient equipment will cost monthly if you financed it through our Sunbridge loan program) . Remember–all $ that we pay to the utility can be viewed as interest–it never goes to pay anything off. Financing energy efficient equipment that lowers your utility bills, whether that be a solar thermal, pv, heat pump, boiler, efficient furnace, air handler, HRV,control system etc -is a good way to go because you eventually pay it off. You never pay off the utility. It is also an investment in your home and gets us all closer to energy independence.
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