In response to a question in anoher thread, as that thread is getting enormous and getting way off topic, I'm starting a new thread about the cost of drilling.

183eej asked about if that price includes the copper loop. No. It doesn't include a copper or water loop. Just drilling, installing the loop in the hole, and grouting it full.

A plastic (HDPE) water loop could add $2-$5 per foot, including manifolds, excavation, pressure testing, and looping. Usually the drilling price we charge is in the $11-$14 per foot range for just drilling and grouting for the HDPE loops (it takes more grout, a larger hole, and more expensive bits/drill tooling).

A copper loop adds about $7-$8 per foot, including manifolds, excavation, pressure testing and looping. Usually the drilling price we charge in in the $10-$12 per foot range for just drilling and grouting for the copper loops.

So, a comparison of water source drilling with loops & looping included is about $13-$19 per foot, vs. a copper loop of $17-$20 per foot. Then you need to take into consideration the depth or footage required. Typically it's 200' per ton on water loops. It is most always 100' per ton for copper, unless the ground temp is higher than 55 deg. Then it's typically 150' per ton (75' deep, 2 holes per ton). So, let's take the $20 per foot on copper loops installed vs. $13 per foot on HDPE loops installed. Per ton, it'll cost $2000 for the copper loop installed vs. $2600 per ton with HDPE. Of course, this is drilled vs. drilled. Horizontal may be different. I don't often deal with horizontal installs a lot, as that's not the niche I've tooled up for.

Anyway, I'm not really trying to make a huge case for DX systems, as all installs are area and site specific...

In answer to the fallacy of there not being enough competition in the drilling part...that's ludicrous. Please, I implore you, buy one of these $300K-$700K drilling rigs and show us how to drill for less! Maybe you can get the drill manufacturers to drop their price. Something more affordable, like maybe $100K would fit me. I'd sure be able to drill for less, as long as it drills as fast and complete as my $700K setup. Maybe you can sell me some drill bits that'll last for 1,000 feet of drilling in rock for about $50 each. Maybe you could sell me some sonic drill tooling for $100 per 10' joint. Of course, it'd have to last as long as my $1200 per 10' joint tooling lasts.

Right now, I'm considering getting a second rig to keep up with demand. However, this won't reduce my risk. In fact, it would raise it. It's nothing that would steer me to being able to drill for less.

To further comment, too, about Joe's point about not waiting... The price will not come down. Or at least we all don't expect it too. If I could buy diesel for $1.00 per gallon, and copper at the same price as 10 years ago, then I could lower the price. Will anyone sell it to me for that? Please? Didn't think so.........

2005 in Montreal we paid Can$14 per foot all inclusive (drilling, HDPE loop, purge, pressure test, house connection and methanol fill). In the same year in the Eastern Townships area south east of Montreal we paid Can$17 per foot also all-inclusive. Over here single deep holes are not unusual - the latter one was 500 feet in granite/schist.

Paul.

Clark, thanks for the very helpful information you wrote above on the dynamics of costs associated with drilling, and the various options.

I'm curious to know if the numbers you articulated vary a lot, or just a little, by geographic area.  I.e., are your numbers representative of the Dallas area too, or, would the Dallas area be completely different.

And, would this drilling rig pictured below be an example of what costs about the one-third million dollars you note above?  If not, do you get more 'truck' or less 'truck' for the 1/3 million?

Many thanks!

Best regards,

Bill

No, a rig like that most likely only costs $100K-$180K, depending on the type of head it has. If it had a sonic drill head, it'd be in the $600K range. The $300K drill that I'm referring to is mounted on rubber tracks, and has a sonic drilling head. It's 6' wide, 14' long, and stands 14' tall. Its primary use would be just for DX geothermal loops (max. of 100' depth).

The rig I have now is 8' wide, 22' long, and stands 28' tall. It's also on tracks, but they are metal tracks. It's capable of drilling down to 500+feet. We've never gone deeper than 300', though.

As far as price variances by region... If the general geologic formation of the earth is consolidated and not cobbles/gravel/loose fill, then a truck rig like the one in the picture will work fast and well. If that's the case, they can afford to drill for a lot less, because the overhead of the thing is considerably less. Most of Utah/Colorado/Wyoming/Idaho SUCKS for drilling. It varies so much from one hole to the next, that you can't rely on being able to complete enough holes fast enough to make such a truck rig work.

Clark, many thanks for a very informative reply!

Best regards,

Bill

Bill,

Market price in the Dallas area is running $4 per LF turn key.  There is another discussion thread about the price of geothermal never coming down.  I may be repeating myself but schools in North Texas are agressively installing geothermal.  A couple of months ago, Johnson and others had about 5,000 geothermal wells under contract, primarily for the Frisco ISD.  DFW Airport is currently working on a plan to renovate it's 35 year old terminals and the current price tag is somewhere around $2-3B.  Concurrent with this planning effort, the Airport has brought in Don Penn, the geothermal designer for all the school districts, to discuss geothermal heating and cooling for this rennovation work.  When the volume of sales goes go from being measured with a K to an M then to a B, competition and innovation increases and the price per unit, accordingly, comes down. 

And when this happens, people in the geothermal business make more money.  They will not make as much money per unit but their total revenues less their total expenses will be much greater because competition will force them to bring smarter innovation to the table like the sonic equipment that Clark has adopted up his way.  If they fail to innovate as the volume of work increases, the competition will absolutely kill them.  Wal-Mart, for example, does quite well on a net of 1 penny for every dollar of sales.  And the reason is because their revenues end with a B instead of a K.

Bill,

What did you pay for drilling on your place?

Dale, I appreciate the informative reply.

I'm pretty familiar with the effort under way for geothermal usage/conversion for the FISD.

It's my observation that the competitive 'landscape' for geothermal is quite healthy for the commercial sector here in the DFW area.  Commercially, it's no longer much of an argument to understand that geothermal is 'the real deal.'

Conversely, it's looks to be quite an unhealthy and noncompetitive environment for geothermal for the residential sector.

With respect to drilling, in my case, I was fortunate to be a project that Johnson drilled (last Summer - 2007), as they were booked hard over a year ago too.  I recently learned it was primarily due to intervention by Geothermal Distribution company (Rockwall) that Johnson came to do my drilling.

Johnson Drilling was a class act.  I'm pleased to see from your comment that they are booked with considerable backlog.

Just from my own personal geothermal installation project I gained appreciation for how unpredictable a drilling job can be - it's got to thus be tough to price residential jobs.  For example my job was estimated to require 2 days (8 bore holes, 300 ft each - 2400 LF total) with the rig pictured above - it turned out to be a full week due to the amount of water encountered during drilling.

If you don't mind, I have three questions:

(1) I assume your $4 / LF 'turn key' comment includes grout material and insertion (labor) of the HDPE U-tube pipe into the holes.  Does it also include the the U-tube pipe material?  And further, does it include connecting (fusion) the bore hole U-tube pipes into a header and bringing in the 'artery' pipes to/from the GSHP unit(s)?

(2) How much higher would the $4/LF turnkey number go if thermally enhanced grout is instead used?  (Is it ever used for residential projects?)

(3) Is the pricing signficantly different for residential versus commercial?

Lastly, noting that you're local here, feel free to contact me if you'd like to stop by to visit and take a look at what I've got here.

Again, many thanks for the helpful reply above!

Best regards,

Bill

Has anyone heard of or know much about the Geothermal Radial Drilling equipment coming out of Germany?  I ran accross this video on the equipment on You Tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jyyiym3T-Kk&feature=related looking for something else.  The company sent a brochure but the file is bigger than 100 KB so I can't post it here but I can email if is anyone is interested in reading the collateral.

What was intriging about the equipment was a drilling chamber that remains in the ground after the job is complete for maintenance purposes.  I don't see much functional value being brought to the table with this feature in a DX installation which is what I am interested in.  However, what it does do is provides something to show the neighbors.  From a marketing standpoint, I think this is huge.  I went to a meet and greet last night at a development in McKinney, TX and a real estate agent told me the problem with geothermal is that there is nothing to show people.  That stuck with me as I left.  The fact that is is totally unseen is one of the attractive things about geothermal.  By the same token, however, that leaves us with very little to show.  What is in the ground is the real story but we cover it up.  Being able to lift a lid and look down in one of these chambers and explain to the neighbors how this thing works provides something tangible to show.  With my eye on moving the geothermal product, I suspect a neighbor would like to have the same thing and I see that as the real value in this idea.  Word of mouth. 

In Highland Park in North Dallas several years ago, one of the residents installed lights up in their trees to cast a moon light effect on their front yard.  It created a nice ambiance for the yard at night and, I suspect, also provided an additional sense of security at the same time.  Anyway, within a year, most everyone in Highland Park had installed lights in their trees.  I'm just wondering what effect the ability to lift a lid and show the neighbors their new geothermal system would have on sales?  Thoughts anyone?

The brochure also includes graphs about the importance of the loops angle of inclination.  They say that if the loop arrangement is vertical, the loops mutual influence is high and the heat gradient is low.  Conversely, for a loop arrangment that is slanted or diagonal, the heat gradient is high and the mutual influence is low.  I haven't seen that argument before, at least not in the form of a graph like this.  Any thoughts on the validity of this argument?

Does anyone know if this system has taken off.

http://www.geoenergyusa.com/column.htm

The GeoColumn is installed within a self contained well of about 2 feet in diameter and between 15 to 20 feet in depth (depending upon climatic conditions and regional soil type), ONE of these columns are needed for each ton of capacity required, so an average home requiring three tons of heating and cooling capacity would need 3 GeoColumns. These wells can be easily augured using the same utility equipment that is normally used to install utility poles.

I called the marketing guy with my DFW Airport hat on and told him we were interested in talking to them about their product and they never got back with us.  I took that to mean they were not ready for prime time.  Other geothermal vendors I have called to express an interest on behalf of the Airport couldn't get on a plane fast enough to come out and give a presentation.  Conceptually, this is an intriguing product since it has the potential to remove the price barrier of drilling.  But, it'll never get off the ground if they don't return phone calls.

I would really have to see this work to believe it.  It might work in dirt, but  the hole would not stay open in sand or gravel,  and that little drill would have a very hard time (almost impossible ) drilling in rock.

Doesn't look like it would work at all for what we do.

What if you only needed on $60 of materials per ton of capacity, and that said material took up 60 milliliters of space per ton (that just had to be installed below frost line)? What would the cost structure look like?
I'm extrapolating the math from this
article
Basically, if a very cheap running magnet causing the magneto calorimeter effect could be done at the right price, those are the requirements you would be looking at for loop materials. Now obviously the article says it's not effective yet, but if it could be done, what then?
It's probably years off, but I'd keep my eyes peeled for the first manufacturer to have a magnetic heat pump.

Dale, the problem was the fact that my location is residential with very limited land area, versus a commercial site with vast land area, for the water to run out onto.  In my case, the only place the water could go was the street / storm sewer system.  Johnson Drillers was exceptionally concerned about this, and in fact wasn't comfortable proceeding drilling the wells until the water could be dealt in some manner other than it going into the storm sewer.

After first trying to erect a barrier around the yard perimeter (at additional cost, and, didn't contain the water), Johnson brought in a small tank fitted onto a flat bed trailer, and simply pumped water from the drill hole site, as the hole was being drilled, to the tank.  This worked fine but incurred more additional costs.

And cost problem was further aggravated with Johnson having to have equipment on-site for what ended up being a week, versus what was estimated as a couple day job.

In the end the additional drilling costs caused relationships to disintegrate amongst all parties - very unfortunate because driller and HVAC installer are good people.

With respect to your comments to the 3 questions I had asked, here's a belated thanks for the helpful information.

Best regards,

Bill

Clark,

I left you a private message and hadn't heard from you so I wasn't sure if an email notification is generated from a private message so I thought I would give this a try.  Just want to follow up with you some more about the sonic drill rig.

in south east saskatchewan i paid $4000 for 10 holes 90 feet deep, grouted, fused, leak tested from my basement, last year. they wanted to go 200 feet deep, but drilling conditions made 90 more feasible

Bill,
While you comment that relationships deteriorated between parties you follow with the foot note that all are good people.
Folks think that geo is high margin work but there are too many slices of the pie for one tradesman to walk away rich (electrician, excavator, plumber, mechanic). I approach all folks with the proviso that if you don't have a sense of humor, you can't afford geo. What I mean by that is that it (geo) is generally a massivive undertaking and if you are not flexible about contingencies, you are un-realistic.
That said I believe it is my responsibility to caution the end consumer about possible hic-ups, though occasionally there is the unforseen (Mrs. Kravitz).
I appreciate your comments as you've not spoken ill of your contractor in spite of unforseen expense. Folks who want us to itemize expense to the nth degree are most likely to get stuck with a bill for the suprises while consumers who use your "all are good people" mind-set will often get extra effort from the people involved.
Joe

Joe:

My contractor presented to me a fixed price proposal.  I agreed to it without any attempt at 'haggling' or negotiation, as I felt it was a fair price.

I'm sure there were many line items my contractor had to estimate to arrive at a proposal.  These 'cost' details were not shared with me, nor did I ask for any itemization.  My only knowledge is what the whole project cost me - a single number - and again, I felt it was a fair price.

My contractor outsourced the drilling to a drilling firm.  The rest of the project was done by my contractor, including bore hole pipe interconnection, pipe fusion, header construction, piping to the 2 units in the attic, and associated loop plumbing.  The project also included removal of all existing HVAC equipment and ductwork, installation of all new ductwork, and a 3-zone system on one of the units.

I asked for, and the contractor agreed, for Manual J, S, and T analysis.  I asked the contractor, as part of the proposal, to completely design and install a duct system that was properly designed for correct airflows and volumes.  The contractor was encouraged and given permission to change air duct locations however best accommodated a good air flow design.  The contractor did not have to spend any time reviewing any design details - Man. J, etc., or any airflow - the contractor said all this was done, and I accepted this without asking for review.

I have no design documents of any kind from the contractor.  I also don't have any documents showing how the loop field header was constructed, or even where it's located.  Nothing was ever offered.

The unexpected excess water encountered while drilling caused a greater drilling expense than what my contractor had internally estimated.  Unlike the contractor that the person (Linda) in Austin has, my contractor asked for additional payment from me.  I wasn't in a position to afford the additional expense, and gracefully communicated this.

My project was sizable for what was for the most part a one person company.  What was supposed to be a project with loss of total HVAC limited to a few days, it turned out to be about a month without any HVAC.  I didn't ask for any reimbursement for the many hotel stays due to the intense summer heat.

My contractor also had some unfamiliarity with my City's local codes, causing a failed city inspection near completion.  This angered my contractor, and, caused him again to have unexpected costs.  This time, no request was made to me for additional payment, though.

Lastly, my contractor deviated from an important clause in the contract with respect to the ductwork, to reduce cost.  I didn't catch this until after project completion because I was not inspecting work as it progressed.  While this was my fault for not catching it sooner, still, it has caused considerable unhappiness on my part.  I haven't been very successful mentally 'moving on' from this.

My contractor was paid in installments as the contract stated.  All payments were made as requested, and without discussion.

The contractor I had is what the WaterFurnace Texas Territory manager said is the best.

I well understand that great things always get accomplished in our society through cultivation of relationship.  There is no other better way.  It thus bothers me significantly when the result of a significant endeavor is deteriorated relationships, regardless of what happens, or who did what.

What's particularly sad is that there is constant missed opportunity for referral from a job that now has many people coming to visit, and even more communicating with me electronically.  In fact, I'll be doing a presentation to a pretty sizable audience in a couple of months on the virtues of geo, and using my installation as the example.

My contractor is a good person.  It's thus really sad that relationships deteriorated.  It's a lesson for all that relationships count - it's truly the 'engine' that expands business and grows commerce.

I give Linda in Austin high marks for relationship management - I wish I was as good as her.  I believe her relationship management ability is in large part the reason her contractor is still out there working, working hard, at his expense, to make it right.

I still 'toss and turn' and lose a little sleep on this subject.  My contractor is a good person.

Best regards,

Bill

Bill,

What aspect of your ductwork fell short of your expectations?