Mount Vernon Optic-Herald (Mount Vernon, Tex.), Vol. 138, No. 49, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 5, 2012 Page: 2 of 10
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Page 2, Section A, July 5, 2012
Mount Vernon Optic-Herald
Geothermal system planned
in courthouse renovations
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Members of the Commis-
sioners Court made the deci-
sion early in the renovation
process to pursue a geothennal
system. Results from a recent
test well at the site are in and
engineers are ready to proceed
with their design with heat/
cool exchange wells to be
drilled and installed in the next
30-60 days.
The Court gave consensus
approval for the design for the
well system to be on the exist-
ing parking lot on the northeast
comer of the block as well as
north of Jackson St.
Charlie Wilson, project rep-
resentative with the Komatsu
Architecture firm, which is
renovating the courthouse, told
the Court that the current de-
sign has more than 40 wells to
a depth of 400 feet going into
the parking lot area. "Going
that deep can be more costly
and it is really crowded," she
told the Court.
Moving a portion of the
wells to the area just across
Jackson St. will allow better
distribution of the wells, which
can be made more shallow.
Mrs. Wilson explained. Both
areas can be graded and used
as parking lots. However, no
structures can be built on ei-
ther site.
No final dollar amount has
been announced for the system.
Generally speaking the cost
compared to a conventional
system is recovered over a
3-7 year period through lower
energy bills, according to the
International Ground Source
Heat Pump Association.
"The geothermal system
also satisfies the Texas State
Historical Commission’s pref-
erence in not having unsightly
equipment placed in the yard
or on the roof of the building,"
Mrs. Wilson.
Geothermal is derived from
the Greek (geo) meaning earth
and (thermos) meaning heat.
This technology has been
widely used since the early
1980’s for both residential and
commercial applications.
"It is commonly installed
on both public and private
projects," says Allan Skouby,
with Geothermal Resource
Technologies, Inc., who has
more than 30 years experience
in applying this technology.
According to Mr. Skouby,
Test drilling optic Photo by Susan Reeves
Workers with Johnson Drilling from Blue Ridge, Tex.
drilled test wells in the parking lot located northwest of
the courthouse in May. Franklin County Commissioners
gave approval to have a heat/cool geothermal exchange
system designed in the Monday, July 2 meeting,
in North Texas, there are sev- The hole is drilled using a
eral historic county court-
houses, schools of all sizes,
office buildings and residen-
tial housing in every income
bracket currently using this
type system.
How does it work?
The system generally con-
sists of packaged heat pumps
which are connected to a
forced air duct system within
the building, a ground heat ex-
changer, which is connected to
the packaged heat pumps and
circulating pumps to circulate
a water solution through the
ground system and packaged
heat pumps.
The ground heat exchanger
portion of the system must be
built on site and installed. It
is constructed of high density
polyethylene pipe, which is
welded together. Once com-
pleted, it is filled with water,
and connected to the heat
pumps within the building.
The water circulates be-
tween the building and the
closed-loop ground heat ex-
changer, promoting heat trans-
fer between the building and the
earth. In the summer months,
the heat from the building is
deposited in the ground and
in the winter months heat is
taken from the ground to heat
the building.
What’s in the wells?
It is a vertical hole (bore
hole) in the ground, generally
4.5 to 6 inches in diameter.
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drill rig and once a hole
completed, two pipes which
are joined with a hair pin "U’“
fitting attached to the bottom
end is inserted to the bottom
of the bore, with the open ends
of the pipe sticking out of the
ground.
The space between the "u-
bend" assembly and the bore
wall is filled with a state ap-
proved clay based material
which seals the entire bore,
bottom-to-top. This mate-
rial acts as a thennal bridge
between the pipe wall and
the bore wall during the heat
transfer process.
The number of wells and the
depth of each well depends on
several factors:
- Building heating and cool-
ing load;
- Annual hours of operation
in each mode;
- Deep earth ground tem-
perature; and
- Local ground characteris-
tics for heat transfer.
Typically about 250 feet
of bore hole is needed per
ton (12,000 Btu’s) of cooling
load. That can change with the
specific ground temperature
or thennal characteristics at a
specific site.
Why geothennal instead
of a conventional system?
With geothennal heat pump
systems, history has proven
over and over that these sys-
tems are far more energy ef-
ficient (lower annual operating
costs) and have much lower
annual maintenance costs, ac-
cording to Mr. Skouby.
There is no outdoor equip-
ment to be vandalized or main-
tained. This technology is far
more aesthetically pleasing on
historical buildings because
of lack of outdoor equipment.
A geothennal heat pump sys-
tem tends to last considerably
longer (useful life) than its
conventional counterpart.
"We are looking forward
to having lots of cost effective
maintenance-free years from
this system," noted County
Judge Paul Lovier.
- Lillie Bush-Reves ’12
(City
\Continued from Page 1A
to continue with an applica-
tion to the TWDB for an ad-
ditional $560,000 loan/grant.
That money, if approved,
would be used to make im-
provements at the sewer treat-
ment plant. The city has earned
a 16 percent "Green Credit"
with the board. This means that
the city, if approved, would
get $33,600 of the total as a
grant.
The Green Credits were
earned for water and power
conservation measures taken
by the city over the past eight
years. Mr. Turner noted it
primarily was for the installa-
tion of solar panels on the City
Hall building and its electrical
conservation assessment and
implementation plan.
- Lillie Bush-Reves ’12
if you are being
abused call the
SAFE-T
24-Hour Hotline
(903) 575-9999
Courthouse office locations discussed
Planners are getting out
their shoehorns to begin the
process of fitting county of-
fices back into spaces at the
Franklin County Courthouse
once restorations are com-
pleted. A two hour work-
shop was utilized to discuss
the plan.
Members of the Frank-
lin County Commissioners
Court met with Komatsu
planner Charlie Wilson and
architect Rick Stacy Monday.
After the Court gave consen-
sus approval for the plan, the
two finished the remainder
of the day meeting with
individual elected officials/
department heads about their
specific space.
Under the proposed office
plan, the county clerk, treasur-
er, and commissioners offices
will be in the basement, along
with two large restrooms, stor-
age and an electric/mechanical
room. The elevator will remain
in the same location, the south-
west comer, on all floors.
The main floor has a unisex
bathroom next to the elevator,
the county attorney and sec-
retary’s offices, county judge,
auditor and their assistant au-
ditor/secretary, justice of the
peace and two clerks offices.
The floor also has an expanded
commissioner’s courtroom and
a jury/conference room.
The majority of the second
floor will continue to be the
district courtroom. A district
clerk records room on the
southeast comer will also serve
as a witness room/defense at-
torney conference room. The
adult probation office will be
in the southwest comer behind
the elevator.
The jury room and adjoin-
ing two restrooms will remain
in the northeast corner. The
district clerk and two deputy
clerks will share the northwest
comer. A small separate office
for the district judge will be
carved out of that space also.
- Lillie Bush-Reves ’12
Computer users urged to conduct
simple malware diagnostic test
Hundreds of thousands
of Internet uses may lose
their online access on July
9, 2012, and Better Business
Bureau is urging all consum-
ers and businesses to mn a
quick and easy diagnostic
test to see if their computers
are infected.
The FBI’s DNS Chang-
er Working Group (http://
www.dcwg.org/detect/) can
detect the malware and ex-
plain how to fix infected ma-
chines.
"Everyone should check
to see if their computer is
infected," urged Katherine
Hutt, spokesperson for the
Council of Better Business
Bureaus. "It takes less than a
minute to check and, if your
equipment is clean, there is
nothing more you need to do.
If your computer is infected,
the DNS Changer Work-
ing Group recommends the
necessary steps to save your
computer. But this must be
done by July 9th or you could
lose internet access."
Last November, the FBI
took down the servers of inter-
national hackers operating out
of Estonia. The hackers had
already successfully down-
loaded malware onto more
than half a million comput-
ers, turning off vims updates
and redirecting consumers to
fraudulent websites.
If the servers had simply
been shut down, the victims’
computers would no longer
be able to access the internet.
Instead, the FBI set up clean
servers to replace the ones
that were running the scam,
and victims have been redi-
rected to those clean servers
ever since, usually without
any knowledge they’d been
infected in the first place.
Originally the rescue serv-
ers were to be active until
March, but a court ruling ex-
tended the program until July
9th. At that time the clean
servers will be turned off and
anyone who is still infected
with the malware will lose
their internet access. The FBI
believes there are still about
360,000 infected computers
in a dozen countries, includ-
ing the U.S. and Canada.
-FDA ’12
(Turtle
\Continued from Page 1A
the water slide will help keep
everyone cool," Jacque Bate-
man, AMM president, said.
"We will have snow cones
available too."
The Alamo Mission Muse-
um is located on CR SE4105,
E5 miles south of the 1-30
south service road. For more
information call 903-588-
2442 or 903-285-0277.
- Susan Reeves ’12
Vacation Loans
Do you need
some time away?
Ask about a
vacation ban
and start packing\
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Bush-Reves, Lillie. Mount Vernon Optic-Herald (Mount Vernon, Tex.), Vol. 138, No. 49, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 5, 2012, newspaper, July 5, 2012; Mount Vernon, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth831869/m1/2/: accessed June 11, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .