Geothermal Drilling in the Rockies

Experience, dedication and ingenuity have led company owner Dan Rau and his team at Colorado Geothermal to great success in the geothermal industry, specifically in vertical loop installations. Working on primarily residential projects, Rau helps keep Colorado residents warm through the winter.

With experience, dedication, and much ingenuity, Colorado Geothermal Drilling is perched as one of the top geothermal drillers across the state.
Its owner, Dan Rau, devised a small, 10’ to 15’ customized drill that enables workers to get into a lot of tight spaces. In densely populated areas where there’s 1/8 to 1/6 of an acre of space between houses, the rig is able to get in because it’s so much smaller than a typical loop drilling rig. This generates much business for the company since many houses in Colorado sit on a small amount of land about ¼ to ½ of an acre in tight-knit communities.
“It (rig) gets into tight areas. Not many guys have equipment to get in there like we do,” Rau said.
Colorado Geothermal specializes in vertical loop fields. Rau noted that there’s only a small portion of homes that have room for vertical systems.
Many homes have no where to put a loop field except in the back yard. For many geothermal drilling companies the area is too small to work in or they can’t get their equipment into it.
What sets Rau’s company apart from others is the 10 years of experience they have and the innovative equipment they run.
A few competitors have popped up during recent years but have gone out of business because they lacked the experience and knowledge, Rau said.
Rau’s company handles about 50 to 60 projects in one week. The work is primarily residential with only 10 percent commercial jobs.
The economy has had an impact on the types of jobs the company completes. Three to four years ago, 90 percent of the jobs were new construction and 10 percent was retrofitting existing houses. Now those numbers have flip flopped with about 80 percent retrofit jobs and 20 percent new construction.
“Things have shifted. With the economy, people are staying in their homes rather than buying new ones,” he said.
It’s easier to do new construction, Rau noted, because there’s no tearing up of landscaping and no sod that needs to be replaced. When putting a vertical loop in the front yard of an existing home, utilities, water, sewer, gas, electricity, are all in the way and need to be worked around.
But Rau’s smaller rig allows him to get into the front yard and install the looping.
“That’s where we beat out our competition,” he said.
A new construction project in Evergreen presented a challenge of drilling through solid granite due to the mountainous region. It took twice as long to get the job done, but Rau was successful. If a propane  heating system were put into the home,  it would have cost the owners about $800 or $900 per month. But with a geothermal heating system, the bill comes out to be about $300 a month, Rau said. The 8,000 ft. spec home required ten 230’ loops installed under the driveway. The home was featured in the 2009 Denver Luxury Home Tour.
Rau doesn’t discriminate between which jobs to take. He has completed projects for houses as small as 1,500 sq. ft. all the way up to 40,000 sq. ft., which required 8,400’ of drilling and twenty-four 300’ loops. The average size home the company works on is about 4,000 sq. ft.
The Imagine House in Boulder was one of the larger commercial projects the company has tackled. The house was a residence for special needs people. It was a small site on a tight lot situated off a four lane road running through town. Rau installed ten 280’ loops under the parking lot. The projected savings over the life of the system is $560,000.
The company works throughout Colorado and a bit into Cheyenne, Wyo. Rau said he tries to stay within a 75 mile radius of their Brighton hub. The company will also take jobs up into the mountains and have done work up to 9,000’. The bulk of their work is in Denver.
“We work mostly within a fifty to seventy mile radius so our guys can come home at night and have a family life and not be on the road weeks at a time,” Rau said.
For a job in Wyoming, Rau throws more manpower at it to get it finished faster.
In Colorado the word about geothermal seems to be spreading mostly on the east side of the state in Denver, Fort Collins, and Colorado Springs.
“On a nationwide basis only 1 to 2 percent of homes are geothermal. A lot of people could have geothermal and I think it’s coming along fairly well. But geothermal heating and cooling systems aren’t the norm in the country,” Rau said.
For advertising, Rau is a board member of the Colorado Association for Geothermal Heat Pump Systems where he works to get the word out about geothermal. He also attends the annual meeting for the HVAC association which can bring in much business.
The HVAC community knows little about the geothermal industry, unfortunately, Rau said. The HVAC contractors are the ones who control whether a standard furnace and air conditioner goes into a home or a geothermal system. But ultimately it’s the homeowner who has to initiate the interest in geothermal.
Rau said he is hoping the HVAC contractors will begin informing homeowners that they have a choice of putting in a geothermal system.
“We gather everyone together and discuss how to help promote the industry as a whole and move forward,” Rau said of the HVAC meeting.
The company’s website also gets a lot of attention and the company has been featured a few times on the Discovery Channel with shows such as Planet Green and Renovation Nation. The show Renovation Nation filmed Rau’s company as they drilled for the Imagine House in Boulder.
“The (shows) definitely drum up interest and make people aware,” he said, adding that he might have gotten a few jobs after the shows aired.
The company also gets jobs by word of mouth, About 75 percent are acquired this way, he said.
The market has been growing steadily for the company. Rau has five employees.
“The economy has affected us some. People are hesitant on spending the money. There’s an uncertainty of what happens next. We’re fortunate we’ve stayed busy,” Rau said.
New construction has picked up this fall and even with the recession going, Rau said he is pushing on and finding work.
Rau has some heavy hitters in the competition arena that do a lot of the commercial work. During the next few years he would like to get more into the commercial market.
“But if we’re still doing residential I can’t complain. We’re doing more work and being more efficient. We pride ourselves on designs and installation and doing a good job. It puts ourselves above the competition. And we’ll put it in more efficiently,” Rau said.
Rau has created a unique rig for his company and has placed himself on a high peak in the Colorado arena of geothermal installers. As his company runs strong so does his will to grow and expand as word spreads about geothermal. ELT