Ellington

Riverview Animal Hospital’s new location will celebrate a soft opening Aug. 30, keeping customers and four-legged companions more comfortable with a new geothermal heating and cooling system.

“I guess as a businessperson it just makes sense to spend a little more up front and reap the dividends, basically for the entire life of the building,” said Tai Federico, owner of the newly relocated Riverview Animal Hospital, which is seeking Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification.

Ringgold-based Engineered Services installed the geothermal units in Riverview’s new facility and the company’s owners, Richard Parsons and his son Aaron Parsons, will speak during the upcoming Sierra Club monthly meeting Aug. 30 at 7 p.m. hosted at GreenSpaces on Main Street in Chattanooga.

“We have monthly meetings that are educational,” says Tami Freedman, Executive Committee member and publicity chair for the Cherokee chapter of the Sierra Club. “All summer, we have had a new energy theme. The last meeting was about solar panels. We thought geothermal would be a great topic.”

Engineered Services has installed more than 100 geothermal heating and cooling systems in Chattanooga and the surrounding area over the past five years.

“It is a refrigeration system that dissipates heat into the ground opposed to the air, resulting in more consistent temperatures and extreme reduction of energy costs,” said Richard Parsons. “The unit will typically pay for itself in five to seven years.”

A geothermal system utilizes ground temperatures, because the ground stays at a relatively constant temperature below a depth of two feet, making it a reservoir of heat in the winter and a heat sink in the summer. The geothermal heat pump is responsible for conducting water through a series of pipes buried in the ground that will either be cooled or pre-heated before returning to the unit. Parsons says each drop of water travels a total of 600 feet before reentering the system.

The geothermal pumps are unique in that they are not kept outside, but can fit neatly and very quietly indoors. One of the secrets to the cost savings of geothermal is the ability to reduce the amount of refrigerant used in each unit. The life span of residential geothermal systems are also approximately five to 10 years longer than traditional heating and cooling units.

“If you’re trying to lose heat to outside and its 95 degrees you have to push that uphill against the 95 degrees heat,” Federico said. “If you can lose some of that same heat in 68 degrees instead, you can see how that’s much more efficient.”