Oldest Geo

[csealer]

A bunch of the geo units I service are from the '80s some vertical loop and some open loop. Some of the units have out lived the companies that made them. I just went on a call for 5-ton Jacobsen Energy Industries unit hooked up to a vertical closed loop I'm not sure how old it is I believe it's from the late '80s. We service a Comand-Air/WaterFurnace installed in '85. It's in the basement of an old stone farm house. It's rusted but keeps chugging along. What's the oldest geo unit you have in operation?

[BaldLoonie]

Friend of mine has a WaterFurnace in his house. We put it in around 1988 when the place was built. On a pump & dump system.

There's a neighborhood in our suburb 200 homes or so, all on loop WF's. Many have been changed, some to air source due to their loops being placed under garages & driveways. But a few are chugging along 19 years later.

[RoBoTeq]

This 1989 Geo is the oldest I've seen. It was really putting out some heat there for a while;

http://memimage.cardomain.com/ride_images/3/6/4481/25014740038_medium.jpg

Seriously though, there are quite a lot of older geothermal systems in Eastern PA. Most of the ClimateMaster systems I sell are replacements.

[fsq4cw]

This 1989 Geo is the oldest I've seen. It was really putting out some heat there for a while;

http://memimage.cardomain.com/ride_images/3/6/4481/25014740038_medium.jpg

Seriously though, there are quite a lot of older geothermal systems in Eastern PA. Most of the ClimateMaster systems I sell are replacements.

VERY FUNNY!!! LOL

[csealer]

For sale used car. Great heater!

[numbawunfela]

In March I switched out a TETCO Geothermal unit installed in 1980. The system had worked well ever since it's installation up until March. 29 years, not bad...

TETCO had been in business since the early seventies, they are the original geothermal system as far as I can tell. They obviously lacked the business savvy that some of the other guys had, otherwise they would be a lot larger today, and more well known. Got bought afew months ago...maybe they'll start putting out the same old last forever stuff that they used to.

[junkhound]

Ran the wshp I custom built in 1974 up until 2 years ago when I upgraded. The old unit used water from our small pond, sometimes tried to freeze the pond.

Upgrade uses well water.

[lane]

I serviced a pair of geo's starting in 1987, in the panhandle of Texas. They had two coils in the bottom of a river around 100 yards from the house.

Lane

[aircooled53]

1972 install
Watauga Texas has very old Spencer type Geo never seen one any where else..

[RoBoTeq]

Then again, I suppose the really old geo systems are the ones that use the air from caves to condition a structure. The one that comes to mind is the Lauray Caverns building that is built over the entrance to the caves.

[Poodle Head Mikey]

Because in the 1980's I used to work on two geo systems which were installed about 1961. The local electric company had them in their office building. Obviously built-on-site.

Which is really how all chillers used to be built - there was no such thing as a "packaged chiller". <g>

Carrier recip compressors, shell & tube heat exchangers, using well water. Neat old system. When the build was sold they ripped it all out and installed cheap RTU's.

sic transit purity - as usual.

PHM
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A bunch of the geo units I service are from the '80s some vertical loop and some open loop. Some of the units have out lived the companies that made them. I just went on a call for 5-ton Jacobsen Energy Industries unit hooked up to a vertical closed loop I'm not sure how old it is I believe it's from the late '80s. We service a Comand-Air/WaterFurnace installed in '85. It's in the basement of an old stone farm house. It's rusted but keeps chugging along. What's the oldest geo unit you have in operation?

[numbawunfela]

Then again, I suppose the really old geo systems are the ones that use the air from caves to condition a structure. The one that comes to mind is the Lauray Caverns building that is built over the entrance to the caves.

I think I saw the oldest Geo in a Flintstones re-run last week.

Let's see anybody top that!

:D

[freefall]

the one we removed last year had a failed compressor. It was a 1964 cooling only geothermal. It was in a historic district and it had been using city water. Talk about expensive to cool. The duct work was original, supply went up and had a "T" and it cooled two rooms in the lower level of the house. This thing was frickin huge. I'll see if I got some pictures. Every company walked from it. I found the compressor shorted to ground. We replaced it with an air handler and condenser with a bit more duct. I forget what refrigerant it was running, it was not 22

[SkyHeating]

The commonwealth building in my hometown of Portland Or was the first building to have geothermal, anybody know if it is still in operation? It was installed in 1944 and and the building was completed in 1946 if i remember correctly.

[geostuff]

mid eighties are about the oldest around me.

[Champ1]

My company changed what is believed to be the 1st. residential geothermal system installed. We were asked to leave a portion of it in its original installed space.
Project: Dr. Carl Neilsen (Ohio State University Physics Professor)
Location: Columbus, Ohio (Sawmill Road)
Estimated Original Install: 1950's.
Replacement: (2006) Open Loop FHP Geothermal. Later converted to a vertical loop.
FYI: Property is still owned by the family and system is operating properly.
Contact me for any supporting information pertaining to this project.

[Champ1]

I posted an incorrect date of orginal installation. This project was originally installed in 1948. YES, this is NOT a typo.
We changed this system out as described in previous thread.

[dijit]

I think I saw the oldest Geo in a Flintstones re-run last week.

Let's see anybody top that!

:D


Then again, I suppose the really old geo systems are the ones that use the air from caves to condition a structure. The one that comes to mind is the Lauray Caverns building that is built over the entrance to the caves.

I remember when I was a little kid, I went to some Indian ruins in the Painted Desert in Arizona with my dad. They had a hole in one of the rooms that had cool air coming out of it to this day! The roof and tops of the walls were no longer in tact but the a/c was still pumping. It connected to some underground caverns and I guess they may have just stumbled across a hole in the ground that had cool air coming out and built around it. But that has to be one of the first geothermal systems.

[RoBoTeq]

I remember when I was a little kid, I went to some Indian ruins in the Painted Desert in Arizona with my dad. They had a hole in one of the rooms that had cool air coming out of it to this day! The roof and tops of the walls were no longer in tact but the a/c was still pumping. It connected to some underground caverns and I guess they may have just stumbled across a hole in the ground that had cool air coming out and built around it. But that has to be one of the first geothermal systems.
Just goes to show that there really is nothing new under the Sun.

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