Roland Hakim

Greetings: This is a very interesting discussion forum that I just discovered and I am glad that the topic of geothermail energy is being discussed in the context of new condo construction. I would like to clarify a few items that the previous poster has mentioned regarding the benefits of geothermal energy for a residential condo building. The heat pumps are decentralized and are individually distributed in each apartment in such a way that each resident would have his own heat pump controlled with its correspondent thermostat. Thus controlling the degree of comfort he or she wishes to have. Indeed it is correct that it is much more expensive upfront to put geothermal installations instead of straight baseboards instead of a window shaker air- conditioning unit. However, they are two completely different systems and philosophies which should not be compared directly. In our experience when we installed the first geothermal system in Montreal for large installations in 1995 (please see the article below), we found that the initial cost of the geothermal energy system was less than a traditional system while also offering the benefit of being approximately 70% less costs in terms of energy consumption; not to mention the reduced ecological footprint that such a system provides. In the case of residential construction, in our project Selby: Jardins Westmount the initial installation of a decentralized geothermal system is far more expensive than a straightforward baseboard system but as everything else in the project, the philophy is not the same as in regular condos. We are offering top of the line construction features such as triple glazed windows, the geothermal sytem, and many other ecological and sustainable construction features that would save the condo owners a lot of money in the long term while keeping the price per square foot very competitive. Sincerely, Roland Hakim, Eng. SelbyCampus Inc. http://www.jardinswestmount.com http://www.selbycondos.com http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/publications/infosource/pub/ici/caddet/francais/r409.cfm?attr=20 http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/publications/infosource/pub/ici/caddet/english/r409.cfm?attr=20