The Stricklers built a house along Mount Pleasant Road in Penfield 10 years ago. The late Myra Dell (Singer) Strickler, a science teacher at Penfield's high school, bought the historic farm when her father died in 1942 and she was the fourth generation to live on the 50-acre tract of land.
"This house is a tribute to Dell. She created this entire house," her husband, Mervin Strickler, said. "I'm giving you the tour so you understand the back story. I think you can see geothermal would be logical in the planning of this, in the uniqueness of it, to consider alternative energy."
The design for the 2,500-square-foot, three-story wood home has the feel of a Santa Fe-style house. It boasts 64 windows, and Dell Strickler made the house handicapped accessible because the couple viewed it as their retirement home.
One of Dell Strickler 's goals when designing the house was for it have no partitioned rooms, just areas openly flowing one into the other. Also, she didn't like doors which opened out so all of the doors, aside from the entrance doors, are pocket doors or folding doors.
"We were steeped in Frank Lloyd Wright's concepts of openness and relationship to nature. Those are stimuli, or motivating factors of what Dell had in mind," Mervin Strickler said. "We wanted to bring the outside in. You have a nice view from anywhere."
Strickler said, he and Dell are philosophical conservationists who don't believe in wasting resources.
"We wanted to explore solar and alternative heat sources. That's when we came upon geothermal," Strickler said.
Knisely and Sons have been in business since 1947, and the company has been installing geothermal systems since around 1978. They install systems as far as DuBois, Deep Creek, Md., and Somerset.
According to the U. S. Department of Energy, archaeological evidence shows geothermal energy is older than that. The first human use of geothermal resources in North America occurred more than 10,000 years ago with the settlement of Paleo-Indians at hot springs. The springs served as a source of warmth and cleansing, their minerals as a source of healing.
Historically, Strickler recalls the hardships of the early 1970's fuel crunch, as another catalyst for the couple's quest for an alternative energy source for their home.
He would get up at 4:30 a.m. once a week to get gas for the family's four cars.
"Gasoline was rationed. There wasn't any war on, but it was an effort by Southeast Asia and our increasing dependence on the Middle East to raise the price and they cut off supplies," Strickler said. "It was so bad some gas stations were only open every other day. Having gone through that, you can see why we made our decision."
Dell Strickler took the initiative to get in touch with all of the manufacturer's of geothermal units, which, according to Mervin, were few and far between 30 years ago. The couple chose "The Water Furnace" which was installed by Knisely & Sons.
Her research found the system, which cost them $19,000, would pay for itself in 10 years. Strickler said it actually paid for itself in six.
"As far as the environment, I think this is a no brainer. For anyone that is green, this is the way to go, but you have to be willing to pay," said Roger Knisely of Knisely & Sons in a phone interview Friday. "What we're finding for the system is - even when you pay for the system and are financing it, with all those costs people are seeing, the pay back is seven to eight years. Financially, it's still the smart thing to do."
Knisely said today an average geothermal system can cost between $18,000-28,000. Depending on what a customer wants, this cost can increase further.
"I would say, for our company, about 75 percent of what we're putting in is retrofit homes. It is best if the home is well insulated," Knisely said. "In the last year we've probably quadrupled the number of calls we get."
The original house on Sticklers' property, which is 125-years-old, now serves as the guest house. This two story structure still runs on heating fuel.
Strickler said he recently got the tank filled for the winter, costing him $4.61 per gallon.
"I used to pay 85 cents per gallon," Strickler said. "It (the geothermal system) is operated by electricity. Our electric bill, on average, is a little over $150 per month. Know what conventional heating and cooling would cost for this house? $800-900 per month. That is what we're saving, it's like putting it in the bank."
Knisely said as the cost of oil continues to rise, comparatively, geothermal is about one-quarter of the cost to run.
"A geothermal system works on the same principals as a normal air-to-air heat pump. An air-to-air heat pump pulls the heat from the air, so if the air temperature is zero degrees, its pulling heat from zero degrees," Knisely said. "With a geothermal system, it is pulling heat out of the ground which is consistently around 55-56 degrees in this area. So the colder it gets outside, the system doesn't care because it is pulling heat out of the 56 degrees. That is where it gets a lot of its efficiency."
With the geothermal system, there is no fuel burning, rather the pump uses electricity as a means to move the heat already in the ground.
"The cooling and the heat is the same system. There is a reversing valve in there that changes the flow of the refrigerant," Knisely said. "Anytime you have a gas and compress it, it gets hot. In air conditioning you send that hot gas outside and you dump the heat outside. It is not a simple process and you have to know a bit of science to comprehend it, but that's the simple form."
Instead of drilling seven new wells to feed the geothermal system, they chose to feed the geothermal system with the 104-year-old well with an aquifer which services their home.
"This old well is on an aquifer and with seven wells I was worried we would destroy that aquifer, so the Knisely Brothers said, 'that's not a problem with all this land we can put your lines in the ground," Strickler said. "There are six ditches 300-feet-long and four-feet-deep."
Sand was put in the ditches and a tracer wire was laid. Then, approximately 3,600 feet of three-quarter inch tubing was laid into the ditch. Twenty more tons of sand on top of the tubing, and the land was back filled. Today, one of their neighbors farms is on top of the pipe.
Strickler said many people don't understand there are geothermal capabilities just about everywhere.
"If you go into a coal mine here when its 20 below zero, it is never below 55 degrees," Strickler said. "When we get snow that lays on the ground from December to March, people would say 'Merv, Dell, isn't that awful,' and we'd say 'No, why? The snow is like an insulating blanket and we'd get six or seven more degrees. That's money in the pocket."
A few people, locally, who have had systems installed have called Strickler for information. He said, to his knowledge, there aren't more than a dozen within the area.
"Dell and I have become geothermal missionaries," Strickler said. "Every place we go, if there's an opportunity, and if there isn't we make one, to talk to people about it. We've converted probably about a dozen people."
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