The first college in the Southeast to install a geo- exchange system for heating and air conditioning four major residence halls, Catawba recently made a second commitment to install the system in two renovated buildings and a facility now under construction. With this decision, seven major buildings on campus will be heated and cooled by geo-exchange. The recently renovated Newton Hall and Brodbeck Music Building, now under restoration, will use the system. In addition, the new facility to house Catawba's Center for the Environment, which will be completed next year, will also use geo-exchange, which extracts heat and coolness from a liquid that is circulated in tubes in the ground. The temperature of the liquid remains a constant 56-58 degrees.
Heat pumps pull the heat or coolness out of the liquid and circulate it through the buildings.
The college will employ two different geo-exchange systems for the buildings. The Center for the Environment will use a closed-loop system in which the same liquid is circulated through a loop in the ground. The other structures will depend on the circulation of water from the aquifer located under the campus. You're not burning any kind of fossil fuel and not generating any kind of emissions or waste. The college has also been impressed with the economy of the method.