This winning Quality Home Comfort Award project demonstrates what can be accomplished when a team bonds together in pursuit of a common comfort goal, and when participants take full ownership of a project.

After a successful career as a commercial builder, Patrick Stare decided he wanted to focus his time and energy on building energy-efficient homes.

For one of his first major projects, in early summer of last year, colleagues from a leading Southwest mechanical contractor — TDIndustries — referred Stare to employee-owned Tempo Mechanical Services, Irving, TX — the ContractingBusiness.com 2003 Residential HVAC Contractor of the Year. Up until 1997, Tempo was the residential construction division of TDIndustries, ContractingBusiness.com's 1995 Commercial HVAC Contractor of the Year. (Read the Tempo story at http://bit.ly/tempostory.) But, this would be no ordinary home or HVAC installation.

"The homeowners and I wanted to build a house with a geothermal comfort system, and one that would help qualify for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification," explains Stare, whose commercial building resumé includes a previous LEED Silver certification.

"Tempo was one of the few contractors in the region that could handle the LEED rating specifics, in addition to its experience installing geothermal systems," Stare says. The goal was total comfort and efficiency, and a responsible building design, at a cost that was within the customer's budget.”

Tempo's point-men in the project were Project Manager Ted Konechne, Jason Helm, project manager for Tempo's affiliate company, Tex Energy Solutions, a leading energy testing company, and "above-code" certifier, and Thomas Murrell, Tempo's vice president, new construction.

Stare knew the logistics required to deliver the home on schedule and as specified. Konechne and Helm supplied their experience in geothermal and energy efficiency required to pull all the pieces together, to offer the best options for the owners.

"The geothermal approach caused the project to double in price (total cost: $70,000+) — but it's a good option for those who can afford it and who want long-term sustainable home comfort," Konechne says. "The cost of repairing a standard system in the later years can mount up. With geothermal, the inherent value is that none of the elements are exposed to our severe Texas heat. They're all inside, contained in the building envelope. That leads to durability and longer life, with manufacturer warranties beyond what you’d see in a traditional system."

Konechne worked on 50 custom homes in this size range in 2010. Twenty have been in conjunction with Tex Energy, and were in compliance with an above-code program, such as Energy Star or Green Built Texas.

Perfect Collaborative Effort
Konechne says this home was ideal for a collaboration between Tempo and TexEnergy.

"We maintain a separation between the air conditioning company and the energy testing company. TexEnergy works more often with other air conditioning companies, to consult, test equipment, or help with LEED certifications. It just so happened that we were affiliate companies, with good communication and connections, and wide-ranging knowledge. That bond is valuable with these larger projects," Konechne says. "As soon as we realized in which direction we were going, Jason and I were able to react quickly, to get Pat what he needed to get started down the road towards a LEED-certified project."

Patrick Stare hit the ground running at a brisk pace. "From the very first day we met on the site, he said, 'OK, we're going to do this, and this, and this.' Each goal was reached at the right time," Ted says.

To ensure that the home's sizable footprint didn't negate its many favorable efficicency qualities, Stare used an ample amount of foam insulation underneath the floor assembly. The builder overcame the size issues with spray foam insulation, top of the line windows, and the incorporation of shading and orientation of the home as built, and delivered a perfect application for geothermal heating and cooling.

The 1.7-acre lot provided ample area for two separate loop fields. There are three, 300-ft. wells on the east side of the home, to serve the two-ton system for the master bedroom zone, as well as another eight loop field in the front of the home serving the family room and second floor zones.

The loops were put in place over the course of eight days. "The challenge with geothermal is finding a knowledgeable driller, one who can do the pressure drop calculations to figure out how to size the pipe. When we stir the water it must be kept at three gallons a minute, and the loop field must be sized properly for optimum cooling performance," Konechne explains. "The team at Geothermal Drilling, Inc. knew exactly how to proceed."