Combined Garage and Office Space – Northport, Michigan

Client Profile
This 13,200 Sq Ft New Construction building is located in Northern Michigan.  The space is used for both commercial office use  and as a climate controlled storage facility.

Challenge
The second floor was designed for commercial office space, while the ground floor of the building has a large open space room with 14’ tall walls which needed to be conditioned for storage.  With the client’s close proximity to Lake Michigan, the mechanical engineer needed to incorporate the most efficient and energy conservative heating and cooling system.  The system also needed to address humidity control  and  include radiant flooring on the ground level.

The Solution

Geothermal Innovations worked with the mechanical engineer to ensure the efficiency of the field size met the requirements provided for the water to water in floor heat and water to air ceiling air conditioning. 

GI designed and installed a geothermal field for a 20 ton system with peak connected loads of 14 tons heating and 16 tons cooling.  After consideration of the space and ground formation, GI opted to install the field using the Michigan manufactured, Gi4 heat exchanger pipe.   The field includes 8 wells at a depth of 200 ft, with a total of 4 zones to improve efficiency and create redundancy. 

The Results 

The customer is extremely pleased with the comfortable temperatures this 100% geothermal system is able to maintain during the cold northern Michigan winters.  They are also enjoying a building that heats and cools for less than 10¢ per square foot, which is well below the 18-20¢ national average. With this savings, they are still on track for an expected ROI of 5 years.