Designed · Drilled · Commissioned
Ground source heat pump systems for commercial, institutional and residential buildings. Engineered to the Canadian standard, sized to the building's real annual balance, and honest about when a cheaper system would serve you better.
On a commercial ground source project most of the cost is in the ground, and the ground qualifies. That makes this the largest single credit available on any building measure in Canada — and it runs to 31 December 2033.
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Three questions. We will say no when the answer is no.
From the roof to the rock
Every choice below is made before a drill turns, and each one constrains the next. Read it in order — that is how the project happens.
Nothing about the ground matters until the load is known. We calculate heat loss and gain on the building as it is, then look at the annual balance — how much heat comes out of the ground over a year against how much goes back in. A loop sized only to peak heating load in a cooling-dominated building drifts thermally over a decade, and the symptom arrives long after the invoice.
Open land favours a horizontal field and cuts the cost substantially. A tight urban lot forces vertical bores. Water on the property changes the answer again. Access for a rig, setback distances, existing services and what is under the parking lot all decide the configuration before any engineering does.
Ten metres down, ground temperature sits between roughly 8 and 10°C year round in most of southern Canada. That stability is the entire proposition: a heat pump working against a constant source instead of against −20°C air. It is also why the performance gap between ground source and air source widens exactly when you need heat most.
On a commercial field, thermal conductivity is tested rather than taken from a table. The difference between assumed and measured conductivity routinely moves total bore length by double-digit percentages — in either direction. Assume high and the field is short and the building is cold in year three. Assume low and you have paid for metres you never needed.
Pipe goes down, turns, and comes back. What surrounds it decides whether it works: grout that conducts heat and seals the bore against cross-contamination between aquifers, fusion joints made properly because nothing below grade is ever repaired, and a purge that actually removes the air. Every one of these is covered by the Canadian standard, and every one is where a cheap quote saves its money.
Entering and leaving water temperature, flow rate and pressure drop, written down and handed to you. Without those numbers nobody can ever say whether the system degraded or was never right. With them, you own a fifty-year asset with a baseline.
What we do
A loop field is the one part of a building system you cannot easily revisit. Once the bores are grouted and the slab is back down, an undersized field stays undersized. So the sequence matters more here than on anything else we install.
Access, geology, services, setbacks and what the site will actually permit. The answer is occasionally that this building should not have a ground loop at all.
Before design, not afterA test bore, instrumented and run long enough to measure how quickly the ground gives up and takes back heat. On a commercial field this is not optional engineering.
Measured, not assumedHeating and cooling hours across a full year. A field sized for peak heating in a building that also rejects heat all summer is a different field entirely.
Annual balance, not peak loadSchools, long-term care, municipal buildings. Steady load, long horizons, and an owner who will still be there in twenty-five years. The profile the technology was built for.
30% federal credit appliesWhere simultaneous heating and cooling makes a ground loop do work no air-source system can match — moving heat between zones instead of rejecting it.
Best case: mixed simultaneous loadFor properties with the land and the horizon. No federal credit applies to a house, so the case has to stand on the energy alone — and sometimes it does not.
Honest comparison firstThe standard
"Do you design to CSA C448, and which edition?" It is a fair question, it takes ten seconds, and the answers will separate your bidders faster than anything else you could ask.
Why it matters commercially, not just technically. An undersized loop field does not announce itself. The system works, the client is happy, and then several seasons in the ground has not fully recovered between cycles and the capacity is simply not there on the coldest week. By then the fix is another drilling programme, on an occupied building. What the standard covers →
Request an assessment
Tell us the building, the site and how long you expect to own it. You will get a reference number immediately and an honest answer about whether this is the right system for you.