This new heating system is the shit.
Literally.
Google recently detailed how it uses recycled wastewater to cool the servers in its Georgia data center, but a company in Philadelphia is now going to be using sewage water to heat a building. NovaThermal Energy has installed a wastewater geothermal heating system in the basement of the Southeast Water Pollution Control Facility in Philadelphia in what the company is calling the technology’s first deployment in the United States. The Philadelphia Water Company, of which the building is a part, manages the city’s wastewater, stormwater — and somewhat ironically, its drinking water. The 1 million BTU per hour geothermal unit uses a water source heat pump, outfitted with a filtration device, to transfer heat directly from an adjacent sewage channel and turn it into electricity, providing heat for the building at an estimated cost savings of 50 percent.
Taco Bell and your local taco truck are helping cut heating costs. Whodathunkit?
We were thinking of building a house a few years ago. Geo-thermal heating/cooling is definitely the way to go with new construction. A big money saver over oil or gas.