Voters may not be rallying around Stéphane Dion's green shift, but some concerned buyers in Kanata are making their own eco transition. So far, about two-thirds of folks buying into Tega Homes' upscale community, The Vertical Limits of Kanata Lakes townhomes, have opted for optional geothermal heating and cooling systems.
Such systems use the earth's thermal energy for home comfort.

At $21,800, the geothermal option is not a lightly made decision, but just do the math: 50 per cent of the 22 townhomes in the Vertical Limits townhouse community have been sold. That's a lot of homeowners opting to avoid greenhouse gases -- about the equivalent of taking 12 cars off the road.

The other big plus is cost-savings: depending on your energy source, geothermal systems can slash heating and cooling costs by more than 80 per cent.
"I'm trying to separate myself from the traditional approach of constructing homes," says Tega Homes owner Spyros Dimitrakopoulos. "Now my primary concern is to make Tega one of the leaders in green home ownership."

Convinced that Ottawa buyers are committed to softening their environmental footprints, Dimitrakopoulos is including the geothermal set-up option to all buyers of the three-storey, 3,000-square-foot homes at the grand opening set for Saturday, Oct. 4.

The opening will be held at the building site next to All Saints Catholic High School at 5115 Kanata Ave. (for more information, go to www.verticallimitskanata.com or call 613-851-0352).
Just to ensure there are no hard feelings, early buyers locked into attractive pricing packages, says the builder.

Another of Tega's new projects, the Petrino Lofts Phase II planned near the Carlingwood Shopping Centre, will also include the geothermal option.
Dimitrakopoulos is installing geothermal technology by Ottawa-based Geologic Heating Systems. Ecocité on the Canal, a major Ottawa condominium project, is also using a geothermal system by Geologic.

Sometimes known as a ground source heat pump, a geothermal system consists of a closed loop sunk deeply into the ground. On larger, usually rural properties, the loop is sometimes installed horizontally.

An electric pump pushes a mixture of ethanol and water down the loop, drawing the earth's heat back up and into a heat exchanger, which concentrates the energy and releases it into the house. In the summer, it pulls heat from the house and releases it into ground, much the way a refrigerator cools its interior by extracting heat rather than injecting cold.

Like other geothermal systems in cold climates, the Tega projects will include backup electric heat for when the coldest winter days exceed geothermals warming capacity.

A geothermal system does not run for free. Electricity powers the circulating pump and there is occasional maintenance on the systems. Nonetheless, heating and cooling, for example, an average 2,000-square-foot home in Ottawa with geothermal would cost about $750 a year, compared to roughly $2,200 for a natural gas furnace and electric central air conditioning. "If next winter, gas prices double, imagine how much money you can save," says Dimitrakopoulos.

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