FineHome Source

Once again we had a beautiful day, a great crowd of interested visitors, and a tent full of enthusiastic professionals showing their work. This year like last, kids had a blast painting birdhouses while their parents learned the details of geothermal heating and cooling, solar hot water heating and how a Windsor chair is made by hand(I bought two of those).

It is hard to describe the synergy created by over 40 experts and craftspeople in one place talking about what they know best - creating a comfortable, beautiful and efficient home. Whether you were looking for concrete countertops or limestone, they were there. If you want to walk up a beautiful set of stairs, we had some talented stair builders and if you wanted to go straight up to the second floor, there was an elevator manufacturer. We had experts on security, home automation, sound systems, and a company that installs the best whole house generators to keep those things running.

In a sluggish economy we had a great turn out, showing there is always a market for high quality products and service providers with integrity.

I would like to thank everyone who came to visit and everyone who spent their day talking about all the things that make up a fine home.

Jimmy Crisp

Geothermal heating and cooling

One of my favorite jobs is visiting construction sites. On those visits I enjoy studying our homes from the most minor details we have designed to the overall execution of the project.

Earth moving is always interesting but is especially dramatic when it involves the installation of a geothermal heating and cooling system. Almost all of our designs include energy saving elements but few have the impact of an energy efficient mechanical system.

Conceptually a geothermal heat pump exchanges the earths natural thermal energy to heat or cool a house(or other structure) In practice although the initial cost of installation substantially exceeds a conventional system, the cost of operation is a fraction of that conventional system. With fuel prices at record levels, the payback period shrinks every day.

In this case the piping run to extract the earths' energy is buried 8 and 4 feet below the surface of the property and is placed in a giant loop. In winter, heat is captured from the soil at approximately 50 degrees while the air temperature can fall below zero. In summer the relatively cool ground temperature can be used to cool the indoor air. Extremely quiet condensers are located in the basement of the home.