Geothermal Well Construction Part 4

Each column well, once drilled gets connected to the building through a series of pipes. These pipes run into a mechanical room which will house the heat exchanger and pumps for the system.


There are seven pipes needed to be tied into the system. Each pipe corresponds to a specific well and are in a closed loop between ground water and the building.

These pipes are then covered, and the sidewalks are restored.

Geothermal Well Construction Part 3

Because of the tremendous depth being drilled, special equipment was required to aid in the removal of the freshly ground particulate. The blue piece of equipment seen above is an air compressor, its job is to blow 1000 psi of air down the drilled shaft forcing the ground water and crushed rock to the surface.

The water and dirt are then forced out through a hose attached to the drill, into a dumpster.

The dumpster acts as a filter by collecting the particulate and releasing just the water to the cities sewer system.

Geothermal Well Construction Part 2

Drilling deep into the earth takes a lot of patience. Repetition seems to be the order of the day. the following is a representation of the process to dig our wells.



The drill extenders are thread through the steal collar...

..and then attached to the drill...

...and then connected to the end of the last section. This process gets continued until the desired depth is reached. One section follows another which follows another.

Geothermal Well Construction Part 1

The blocking off of 15th Street was the first step towards geothermal heat exchange. The median abutments extended four feet beyond the parking lane and required fencing to make room for the safety of the drillers and their equipment.

The use of geothermal heat exchange has been limited in urban environments because of the area of land needed to create a field for heat exchange. Standing deep column wells alleviate the need for that area by expanding the field deeper into the earth. This practice has been implemented in New York and Boston and for the first time ever here in Philadelphia at the Friends Center.



Drilling wells deeper then the Empire State building is tall, only adds to the mystery of the project. It is exciting to see technology developed for the production of fossil fuel can be adapted to help move society away from that very same fossil fuel.