Nevada Small Business Development Center College of Business A partner in The Business Services Group

http://www.gblgeothermal.com/

Matt Miller, Jim Wallace

When Matt Miller got out of the Navy, he knew he wanted to start a company and do something different. “I would have sold socks,” he laughed, “but luckily my partner [Jim Wallace – a longtime name in Reno construction] and I found a technology that is underemployed and has huge potential.”

The technology you ask? Using geothermal energy to drastically reduce the cost of cooling or heating one’s house. Miller and Wallace formed GBL Geothermal to provide geothermal solutions for both residential and commercial clients.

The concept is simple. Think of your refrigerator. It cools what’s inside using electricity and a compressor to expand and contract refrigerant in metal coils. The coils inside the fridge are freezing while the coils on the back are really hot. The hot coils dissipate that heat (essentially the heat they take from inside the fridge) into the air. But the coil-to-air energy transfer isn’t terribly efficient, and so the compressor has to work hard to heat and cool the refrigerant to extremes. Your air conditioner uses the same concept by creating hot and cold coils and running air over them to pump cold air into your house.

Now, imagine making it easier to dissipate the heat from (or add heat to) the coils. Geothermal heat pump systems do that by running the coils of your AC system alongside a water system. It’s much easier (more efficient) to transfer the heat energy from the coils to the water system. The water in the system is run through an array of pipes in the ground to stabilize the water temperature. Ultimately, the compressor works a lot less and you save money on your electrical bill.

The rest of it isn’t that simple though. The pipes for the water system have to be buried deep enough and long enough in the ground to stabilize the water temperature as it runs through the cycle. The construction (drilling, excavating, engineering) requires planning and expertise and is rarely the same between two projects. Design inputs include landscape, the nature of the project (installation for a new house or as an addition to an existing house, for example), and the existing in house heating/cooling systems which the geothermal heat pump system will replace.

Thankfully, Matt Miller and Jim Wallace “provide turn key geothermal heat pump solutions.” As Matt Said, “whether you’re building a ski resort or you’re a homeowner who’s on oil, propane, or natural gas and wants to get switched off, [each project] requires different actors: general contractors, mechanical HVAC contractors, mechanical engineers, drillers, excavators, geothermal heat pump designers, geothermal heat pump engineers, construction managers, quality assurance, etc. We offer all those scopes of work. We come onto a project where they need something between none and all of what we offer, and so we change shape to fill in the project.”

“From designing ductwork to geothermal heat pumps to doing hydro geology studies – it’s an expansive buffet that we have to provide customers,” says Matt.

Matt and Jim met with Rod Jorgensen at the NSBDC back in 2008 as they were planning their business strategy.

As Matt put it, “Rod realized that since we are providing a service to the Reno construction industry… our relationships in Northern Nevada are going to be king – and those have absolutely proved vital.”

Since their processes are relatively unknown in the construction industry, Matt says much of his work is in “convincing the other guys that we bring value, and not liability, to what they’re doing.”

But the savings are there to be found. Roughly forty percent of energy expenditures in the United States are from heating, cooling, and hot water heating – a percentage roughly equivalent to the total energy usage for transportation (cars, trains, airplanes – fuel). Matt and Jim work to save commercial and residential customers money on heating and cooling.

As for advice, Matt says, “Start off with as little upfront commitment as you can.
Don’t go all in. Test waters and minimize risk wherever you can. Right now, keeping low overhead is king.”

Matt was honest about the state of the economy.

“You’d have to go looking hard for a worse market than this, but we think energy is important and it doesn’t take much to keep our heads above water. We’re holding tight, getting good at what we do, and waiting for the right moments.”

GBL Geothermal is located at 1485 Southern Way, Sparks, NV 89431.

They can be reached at info@gblgeothermal.com, gblgeothermal.com, or 775.772.2779.