"
.,„ •I( crews had ttrjr rtall wens and pipes beneath
the parking lot at.theAra Kaufman Chapel;_
_:
Jackie Headapohl
Managing Editor
S
ince last July, the parking lot
at the Ira Kaufman Chapel in
Southfield has been bustling with
life: Work crews have been digging wells
and trenches, and pipes have been laid.
The activity continues on the inside of
the building in between services as crews
install new ductwork and electricians lay
out new wiring.
The goal: replace the 50-year-old inef-
ficient boiler heating and cooling system
with a new geothermal heating and cool-
ing system that will begin producing heat
in early October. The Ira Kaufman Chapel
is the first funeral home in the United
States (and only the second in North
America) to use the environmentally
friendly technology.
"It's kind of sad that we're the first ones:'
says David Techner, funeral director at the
chapel. "Environmental stewardship is con-
sistent with Jewish values. Jewish funeral
services have always been green. Now a
Jewish funeral home will be green, too."
The decision to replace the aging boiler
with a geothermal heating system was a
no-brainer," according to Ilene Kaufman
Techner, wife of David and owner of ITEC
Enterprises, a Birmingham-based general
contractor experienced in green building
technology.
"We had to replace the heating system
at any rate she said. "A geothermal system
costs about 50 percent more than a tra-
ditional system, but with tax credits and
energy savings it will more than pay for
10 October 6 s 2011
itself in 10 years."
The old boiler was running at "likely
5-10 percent efficiency,' says Chad
Techner, son of David and Ilene, who
has been helping to manage the project.
"Geothermal is 95 percent efficient — and
there's very little maintenance cost. We
only have to change the filters."
Utility savings are also substantial. For
the geothermal-produced electricity that
will power the pumps and blowers in the
heating and cooling system, DTE Energy
will charge only half the rate per kilowatt
hour than that of regularly produced elec-
tricity, according to the utility company.
During the project, the Ira Kaufman
Chapel also performed a complete asbes-
tos remediation, recycled 20,000 pounds
of used metal and replaced old lighting
with more energy-efficient LED light-
ing. New foam insulation on the roof and
injection foam in the walls will add to the
energy savings.
Chad Techner says he hopes to further
extend the building's greening to achieve
a carbon neutral footprint. "Our goal is to
install solar panels on the roof sometime
in the next few years:' he said. "With that,
we should be able to produce more energy
than we actually use."
Members of the community have been
very supportive of the project, which costs
as much as the building and the land did
in 1961, David Techner adds.
"The response has been phenomenal:'
he says. "Our investment — which comes
with a 50-year warranty —makes a strong
statement to the community that we're
here to stay." [ _I
What Is Geothermal Energy?
Chad, Ilene and David Techner
A clean, renewable geothermal
energy system captures the heat
emanating from the Earth's interior,
which is a constant 55 degrees,
and disperses it to ground source
heat pumps, which then distribute it
through a conventional duct system.
For cooling, the system extracts
heat from the building and moves it
back into the loop in the Earth.
How Did They Do It?
I
lene Techner explains that 11
ground source heat pumps have
been installed in the chapel. These
pumps take advantage of the Earth's
relatively constant temperature and
circulate liquid (25 percent propylene
glycol and 75 percent water) through
pipes buried in a continuous loop in the
chapel's parking lot.
Contractors drilled 28 wells, each 290-
feet deep. Each well contains a pipe that
goes down and up and all are connected
in a continuous loop, making for one
very long piece of pipe that's been heat-
fused together. "The well drillers were
here about a month:' Techner says.
The wells comprise four rows of
pipes, which travel under the parking
lot and attach to special green pipes
within the building, which are in turn
connected to each of the 11 pumps that
disperse the heat. Ceilings inside the
chapel were removed and old ductwork
was used when possible. Pipes were
insulated, and the electrical system
upgraded at the same time.
Five-foot trenches, where the pipes are
all connected, had to be dug around the
wells to get below the frost line. "We ran
into some difficulty because the water
table was so high': says Techner, who
added that water was a mere 20 inches
below the surface. "White pipes were
installed to take that excess water and
send it to a drain not too far away."
Once the project is complete, the
parking lot will be resurfaced in two
phases. That work is expected to be
done within weeks. During construc-
tion, the parking lot has been open.
"Not only will we be saving on energy
costs, we'll also be helping to reduce our
country's dependence on foreign oil;'
Techner says. ri