Ask This Old House

Kevin

Today on "Ask This Old House"...

Heath

These light switches don't match the character of the house, and this dimmer is upside down, but I have a solution for that.

Jayne

Wait a second. Heath, does that say "up"?

Heath

It does.

Jayne

So all we had to do is just flip it around?

Heath

Turn it around.

Ross

And in "Future House," I'll see how geothermal is becoming more affordable for the average homeowner. You're basically hammering the ground at 9,000 times a minute, which allows the ground to actually vibrate so fast that it actually becomes like a Jell-O, which allows you guys to drill through the earth so quickly.

Correct. Ross

And that lets you get in and out of the job much faster.

Thomas

Yes.

Kevin

Hi, there. I'm Kevin O'Connor. And welcome back to "Ask This Old House" where we would love to hear from you if you've got a question about your house. Keep those questions coming because we have got the experts with the answers.

Heath

So, what's the difference on that one?

Richard

That's just a straight flippy up-and-down toggle one.

It's a toggle switch. Richard

Toggle, yes.

Heath

A three-way toggle switch when you have multiple locations.

Richard

I know this one. This is the spinner.

Kevin

What's going on here? What's going on?

Richard

We're learning about switches. I'm getting all the technical names.

Kevin

Flippy, spinner.

Heath

We're giving him a little crash course.

Kevin

0 for 3, I think. Heath, don't be bogged down with this guy. You are up first. What are you working on?

Heath

So, today, we're looking at replacing a light switch, trying to replicate an antique one that a homeowner has in their home.

Kevin

Cool. All right. Well, grab your stuff and get going.

I'll get going. Kevin

Richard, how about you? What do you got?

Richard

Nothing.

Kevin

Oh, you should be able to handle that.

Richard

I got a loose day. You might want to talk to my son, Ross. He's got something going.

The good Trethewey. Richard

Yeah, that's right.

Kevin

I will. Hey,

Ross. Ross

Hey, Kev.

Kevin

What are you working on?

Ross

I've got a Future House on geothermal.

Kevin

Oh, cool. Well, you know I love geo.

Ross

You do. You must have it in your house, right?

Kevin

Oh, no. Way too expensive.

Ross

I agree with you. That large up-front cost, it's really why it hasn't reached that mass adoption.

Kevin

I mean, what a great idea, right? Consistent temperature in the ground, use that, but it's so expensive to get going, and I think it scares a lot of people.

Ross

Well, I'm headed up to New York to hope to find ways to make geothermal more affordable to more homeowners.

Kevin

Well, I'm definitely gonna tune in for that.

Ross

All right.

Heath

Hi,

Jayne. Jayne

Hey, Heath.

Thanks so much for stopping by. Heath

Nice to meet you. You have a beautiful home.

Jayne

Yeah, thanks. It's a 1920s duplex. My husband and I live on the first floor. I'd love to invite you in and take a look at the light switch.

Heath

Sounds good. Let's take a look.

Jayne

So, Heath, this is our living room with the light fixture that I told you about. When we bought the house two years ago,

there was no overhead lighting. Heath

Okay.

Jayne

So my husband installed the ceiling fan with the light, and then this is the switch for it. Not crazy about it.

Heath

You're not crazy about the switch? Well, the first thing I can tell looking at it is it looks like it's upside down.

Jayne

The switch is upside down?

Heath

The switch is upside down.

Geez. Heath

And the way to tell this is typically, this dimmer would have the slide on the right side and not the left, and when you go to use it, you might have noticed that when you push it up, it actually dims down on the slider, and when you push the slider down, it actually raises the light fixture.

Jayne

Yeah, doesn't totally make sense.

Heath

Yeah. Well, let's take a look and see how it operates. Yeah, it looks like it doesn't work too well for what we're looking at, either.

Jayne

It's not the best.

Heath

Let's see what we have for a light fixture. So, the good news is, you have a dedicated LED fixture, which means it'll last a really long time, and it's really energy-efficient, and that helps us with this issue, as well. That probably means this isn't an LED-compatible dimmer,

which is an easy enough fix. Jayne

Okay. So, one of the things I want to ask you about is in my son's room, we have one of the original switches.

It's a push-button. Heath

Okay.

Jayne

Can I show you that and see if it might work in here?

Heath

Absolutely. Let's take a look.

Jayne

Okay. So here is Wesley's room.

Heath

Okay. Oh. And here's our light switch. And these are beautiful switches. You don't see these too often anymore. They used to have these beautiful mother-of-pearl inlays into them with the brass plates. They're really, really nice. Well, let me kind of give you an idea of how these work. Normally, we'd send the power wire to one screw, the load wire, in this case the light fixture, to the other screw, the ground on this guy, and if you look inside the switch where we cut it, you can see two tabs that are separate. When we turn the switch on, the two tabs make contact, let power go to the light fixture to turn the light on. When you turn it off, it breaks the tabs. No power to the light fixture.

Jayne

Like you said, these are really beautiful lights, but why aren't they used anymore?

Heath

Couple of reasons we've heard. One, the noise.

A little loud. Heath

A little loud. And the second thing is, the materials to make these were a little more expensive, so as the general toggle switch became more popular, less expensive to make, it was more common to use. The good news is for you, though, they do make an LED dimmer that looks like this style that is compatible to work in your living room.

Great. Let's do it. Heath

All right. Before I do any work, I want to turn the power off down at the panel, and then we can remove the switches. So, first, we're going to take the screws out of the plate.

Jayne

Wait a second. Heath, does that say "up"?

Heath

It does.

Jayne

So all we had to do is just flip it around?

Heath

That's it. This is the single switch that controls the lamp on the other side of the room, so we're going to take the feed wire off first. The dimmer is the one we're going to be replacing that goes to the LED light on the ceiling fan. And, lastly, we'll take the ground wire off. So, let me show you what we've found for a new switch. This is a reproduction push-button to match what you have in the other bedroom. The good thing is this reproduction matches all of today's modern safety standards and gives us the same look that you have over there

that we're looking for. Jayne

Love it.

Heath

Then for the dimmer, a little different with the same kind of look. The top pushes in and out to toggle the light on. The bottom dial is the actual dimmer. The one thing I did notice, though, is we do want to add a second ground wire. There wasn't one that went to the other device, so we're going to put one for this switch, one for the other switch, and then we can install the devices.

Jayne

Okay.

Heath

So, we're going to trim that off flush, and then we're just going to reinstall the wire nut to hold all of the grounds together, tuck that right in the back of the box. And now we're ready to install the new switches. So, first, we're going to put the toggle switch in. So, we want the hook to wrap around the switch clockwise, then we'll pinch that together to give us a nice closed loop. And, that way, when we tighten it... it'll draw that wire together and keep it nice and snug. Next, we'll go to the red wire. In this case, that goes to the receptacle that controls the lamp. And with this particular switch, it's designed for the wire to slide into here, and the screw actually acts as a clamp internally, so instead of wrapping it around like we normally would... that clamp will hold the wire internally, and we'll do the same for the feed wire. And then in this case, we're going to put a little tape around it because we do have a metal box. And for the dimmer, we have pigtails we're actually going to attach using a wire nut. So, we'll start by putting the ground on. Then we'll move to our load wire. In this case, it's the LED light fixture. And then finally, we'll connect the feed wire. Since we have enough slack on the existing wires, I'm just going to cut off this loop and start with a freshly stripped piece. Now we'll fold the wires into the back of the box. And finally, we'll put our new plate on. All right. The new switches are all in.

Jayne

I love the way it looks.

Heath

And the breaker is on. Let's give it a try.

Jayne

All right. This is for the lamp?

Heath

That's for the lamp.

Lamp looks great. Jayne

Success.

Heath

And now for the new dimmer.

Jayne

Looks good. And there's the dimmer.

Perfect. Jayne

Works. Looks great. Thanks so much,

Heath. Heath

Thank you.

Ross

When you're looking for renewable ways to fuel your home, it's hard to beat geothermal heat pumps, at least in theory. Just below our feet, the earth is always at a consistent temperature of about 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Using a looped pipe filled with water or antifreeze, you can tap into that constant temperature. In the summer, that well can be a place to dump excess heat, and in the winter, heat can be pulled out of the ground. That same system can also provide hot water for your showers and your dishes. It's incredibly efficient and requires no fossil fuels. So why isn't geothermal as common as solar or wind? For one thing, drilling a well can get very expensive. Some of it is because you don't know what's below your feet when you start drilling. It could be soft like this... or it could be hard as a rock. It's also typically a messy process that involves big equipment that doesn't fit into every yard. Here on "Future House," we've been exploring ways that geothermal has been getting more accessible. I toured a community in Texas that installed geothermal wells before any houses were built. Every home in that neighborhood was connected to the geothermal system, and each house only paid a small portion of the overall costs. But what if you're not moving, or you like the house you live in? Today, I'm headed to Albany, New York, to see the evolution of geothermal that may allow it to get deployed to many, many more houses.

Thomas

Ross, welcome to our drill site.

Ross

Thomas, thanks for having me. When I think of geothermal, though, I am not thinking about established neighborhoods with small lot lines. I mean, I'm thinking usually major renovations, new construction, large projects. This is unique.

Thomas

This used to be the case up until now. What we're trying to do is bring geothermal to residential neighborhoods, and to be able to do that, we have to design for modularity and be able to squeeze into really tight spaces.

Ross

Yeah. When I think of a traditional geothermal rig, I'm not thinking of something this small. I mean, it's fitting between the tree and the house in a small lot like this.

This is compact. Thomas

Correct. We try to design it to be able to squeeze into really tight spaces, and to be able to do that, we designed the undercarriages to have rubber tracks, to be able to rotate 360 degrees without churning up the yard, and it also distributes the load so that you don't damage driveways.

Ross

That's great. All right. So this is the rig.

Let me see it. Thomas

Yeah. So, you see how the drill is in place now. The casing is vertical. So we're about to commence with sonic drilling, right? And what sonic drilling does is oscillate that casing vertically at up to 150 hertz, and that is 9,000 vertical beats per minute.

Ross

So, if I can get a recap here, you're basically hammering the ground at 9,000 times a minute, which allows the ground to actually vibrate so fast that it actually becomes like a Jell-O which allows you guys to drill through the earth so quickly.

Correct. Ross

And that lets you get in and out of the job much faster.

Thomas

Yes. Right now, we are adding an additional 10 foot of casing to the drill string, and you'll see that we are running 10-foot casing lengths as opposed to 20-foot casing lengths, and that's going to help us make the entire system more compact.

Ross

Got it. So, if you were using 20-foot casings, this truck would be a lot larger.

Exactly. Ross

Gotcha. Okay.

Thomas

With this sonic system, we are able to install the casing all the way down to bedrock in 30 minutes. A conventional system could take up to 7 hours to install the same diameter casing to the same depth.

Ross

Wow. That is a significant difference.

Thomas

And they will not be able to extract that casing. Every piece of casing that you see on our pipe handler right now has been used on previous projects. We have not replaced a single set of casing.

Ross

And that's really unique because most installations that I see, the casing stays in forever.

Thomas

Right, and the purpose of that casing is to prevent collapse of the hole and to retain all of our drilling fluids, which will increase the rate of penetration as a whole for the entire project. This allows us to bring down the cost even further for the ground-loop installation.

Ross

So a 6-inch casing has made its way down 82 feet, lodged itself into bedrock, and now they're switching to another drill rig.

Thomas

Exactly, and that's going to have a down-the-hole hammer, which we call the DTH, and it's going to be drilling through the center of this 6-inch casing all the way to bedrock and then from bedrock all the way through to the total depth, which is the designed depth for this well. This well is going to be a 300-foot well, and this project will have two of those 300-foot wells.

Ross

Gotcha.

Thomas

While we are drilling, you will see that all of the rock chippings and mud and soil that is excavated from this hole will have to come up the hole, and instead of dumping it all on the customer's yard, we are transferring that to our mud processing unit, and our mud processing unit will be able to separate the solids from the liquids. And this enables us to recycle the water and reuse this same water over and over again and clean that water to within 30 microns, which is about 1/1000th of an inch.

Ross

So, I can see the loop rig coming in. I see the high-density polyethylene piping lowered into the bore hole. I also see another pipe coming in at the same time. What's that pipe for?

Thomas

That is the coil tubing pipe, and that's going to enable us to grout from the bottom up, which is an underwater grouting technique.

Ross

That will become a column that will have really good contact with the earth

for really good efficiency. Thomas

Correct. And this grouting, or concreting, layer around it has two purposes. The first purpose is to conduct heat from the soil to the ground loop, and the second purpose is to ensure that no pollution or impurities can actually penetrate the soil towards the aquifers. All right, so, now we have completed our drilling, looping, and grouting, which means the geothermal loop has been installed, right? And this will be linked towards the inside of the house. And Brian Zimmerly is inside working on that system right now, and he'll be able to show you all the magic inside.

Ross

So, Brian, I design a lot of geothermal systems, and they typically require a custom solution, right? High-end residential, you know, it's a different market. So tell me about the innovation and what you guys

are working on here. Brian

Absolutely, yeah. So, one of the steps that we've done right off the bat is standardize a lot of the way that we design and engineer the systems. So we use design software to properly size the unit to make sure the geothermal well is properly sized, and that just helps the overall efficiency of the project.

Gotcha. Brian

What we've also done is that we're reusing any existing infrastructure that we can, so in this case the existing air ducts.

Ross

Gotcha. Okay.

Brian

And so you can see here, we've cut off the existing ducts and added our new system in and just added these flexible duct connectors.

Ross

So it's pretty much plug-and-play, right? Plugging it in here, connecting between the supply and the return?

Brian

Exactly. The home used to have an air conditioner outside, natural-gas furnace inside. What we've done is pulled that old unit out -- coil, condenser, furnace -- and we've kept the natural-gas lines, and now we've got one single geothermal unitary system.

Ross

So no more outdoor condenser.

Brian

No more outdoor condenser, which is great. Yeah, and you'll notice, too, that one of the things you'll typically see in a geothermal system is a separate pump box that has your pumps and some of the flushing ports in it. We've put all of that into one unit to make the installation process that much faster and smoother. And installing things in a factory is much faster than doing it in the field. And so what you'll see here -- What we've got is two pumps that pump through this piping and out to our geothermal well, and it's pumping a mixture of water and a little bit of glycol just to account for any possible freezing conditions.

Okay. Brian

And so that water then is moving through a heat exchanger inside the tank, or inside the unit, that exchanges with the refrigerant that's all self-contained inside the box.

Ross

Gotcha. So, on the air side, I see the return ducts coming in here.

Exactly. Ross

What happens next?

Brian

Yeah, so, this is just like any typical system where you're pulling return air across a refrigerant coil that the fan is pulling and pushing out through the rest of your existing ductwork.

Ross

Got it. So in the wintertime, when the air is cold, it's coming in right across that coil, warming up, and then being delivered to the supply duct into the space. Exactly, and then it's just a continuous cycle where we're then going back and getting more heat from the ground and pulling it back to your heat exchangers. That's great. That's great. Awesome. What about the blue pipe?

Brian

Yeah. You'll notice that we've got this extra piping here, that this is going over to heat your hot water for things like showers or dishwashing.

So domestic water. Brian

Exactly.

Brian

So, in cases, for example, like the summertime, where you've got extra heat from the heat pump, before we send that out to the geothermal well, we can send it into a preheat tank. So this tank here is just like any other water heater, but we've just not connected it to any power, right?

Ross

Gotcha, okay.

Brian

So the cold water comes in here, and we can heat it with that excess geothermal before it goes into your traditional water heater.

Ross

Got it. Got it. So it's commonly called a superheater or preheat tank connection.

Exactly. Ross

And so your electric water heater doesn't have to work as hard because it's got preheated water.

Brian

Exactly, yeah, and basically this, you know, can heat anywhere from 20% to 30% of the home's annual domestic hot-water use. It just makes the primary water heater have to work a little less hard.

Ross

Yeah, so it's all electric, the whole system?

Brian

The system is all electric now, which is really great. If you can then pair it up with something like solar on your rooftop, then your home becomes a lot more sustainable.

Really exciting. Brian

It is exciting.

Ross

So, how many system have you installed to date?

Thomas

We've installed a couple of hundred, all the way from here in Albany, south along the Hudson River Valley, to just north of New York City.

Ross

Gotcha. Now, why New York?

Brian

Yeah, New York for a few reasons. One is there are a few million homes that heat with fuel, oil, and propane today, and they're going to see the most savings from geothermal. On top of that, New York has generally high energy prices, and the state provides good incentives for homeowners

to choose geothermal today. Ross

Gotcha. Now, in a house like the one we just installed in, what's the out-of-pocket expense for that homeowner?

Brian

Yeah, the average out-of-pocket for a home like that would be anywhere from $18,000 to $22,000 -- that home coming in around $19,000.

Ross

Okay. Now, that's less expensive than a traditional geothermal system, but that's still really expensive.

Brian

Yeah, so, we're taking a play out of the book of solar, and, you know, a decade or so ago, solar on rooftops was really expensive, and what we're doing is providing financing similar to the way solar did, where we take away that up-front cost, so the homeowner has zero out-of-pocket on day one, and you replace that with a fixed monthly fee, so they start seeing the savings from day one. And what that means is that now they get heating, cooling, and some of their domestic hot water for a fixed monthly rate that's lower than what they would be paying for their utilities otherwise.

Gotcha. Thomas

And it should be added that the homeowner owns the geothermal system. It's an asset that they can amortize over the lifetime, and it adds value to their real estate.

Brian

Yeah. That's a great point.

Ross

I'm a big fan of geothermal, and I'm glad you guys are making it more accessible.

Thank you. Brian

Yeah. Thanks, Ross.

Thank you. Kevin

Wow. That is encouraging and interesting to see. Is it possible that this is the breakout moment for geothermal, the one that will make it go mainstream?

Ross

I mean, it's a huge step in the right direction. You know, historically you had, you know, a driller, you had an HVAC contractor, you might have a drills contractor. That, you know, team had to be assembled. With them, they're trying to bring it all together into one.

Kevin

And then, of course, the drilling cost, which was

always the biggest hurdle. Richard

Right, right.

Kevin

They're starting to attack that, so it's promising.

Richard

Well, I've been advocating geothermal for a long time -- 25, 30 years -- but it's been an uphill climb, particularly in New England. By the time you drill down into that granite, it gets really expensive and painful. You know, and what's also happening in the marketplace is these cold-weather heat pumps have come along. You know, we know that you used to have a single box outside that can find enough heat even on a zero-degree day to heat the building.

It's hard to argue with that. Kevin

It's true. We see these mini-splits all over the place these days. I mean, what do you say to that?

Ross

Yeah, but you got to think about ground-source heat pumps inherently are always going to be more efficient than air-source counterpart because if you think about it, the house wants to be 70 degrees, and the ground temperature is about 50 degrees, so when I'm heating or cooling, I'm bringing it from 50 to 70. That's a 20-degree delta.

Kevin

Winter or summer, just 20 degrees.

Ross

But with an air-source heat pump, the outdoor temperature when it's really cold out could be zero degrees, and I have to bring that up to 70, or on a hot summer day, it could be 95 or 100 degrees. I got to bring that down, so the delta-T is a lot wider with an air-source heat pump, so it has to work a lot harder.

Kevin

Yeah,

he's got you there. Richard

The other thing that's pretty good on the geothermal is it's invisible. You know, you don't see it. You don't hear anything. There's nothing outside. Just like W.C. Fields said about kids. Don't see them, don't hear them.

Kevin

Did you feel it?

Ross

Agh!

Kevin

Did you feel it? You guys should resolve this over Thanksgiving dinner...

It's all fine. Kevin

...and report back to us. Exciting news for both of your technologies. All right. Well, we'd love to hear from you, so keep your questions coming. And until next time, I'm Kevin O'Connor...

I'm Rich Trethewey. Ross

I'm Ross Trethewey.

Kevin

...for "Ask This Old House."

And they do like each other. Richard

For sure.

Laughs

And they do like each other. Richard

Kevin

Next time on "Ask This Old House"...

Richard

This house in Virginia was built in the '90s with a type of pipe that could burst and flood the house. I'll tell you what it is and how we fix it.

Ross

I'll explain what indoor air quality is and how to improve it. These buildings are getting tighter.

They're like a Thermos. Richard

And what they become is really the ultimate Petri dish, really.

Creaking

Tom

And do you hear that? This door is really squeaky, and I'll show you a few different ways to make it quiet.

Creaking