“Mike (Beaver) and company have been involved with our solar house from the beginning. His father was a founding member of the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association many years ago so they have the right mindset for energy efficient and green building.
“Mike has remained very involved with our house by personally participating in the Tour of Solar Homes at our house each year. I have found Beaver Brothers to be very responsive and reliable which is a must in this business. They always have someone on call which is a big deal since problems always seem to happen on the weekend. The geothermal system was just one small part of the work they did for us.
“We’ve had our geothermal system six years…. It definitely works since it is the only cooling for our house. We do not use the heat pump for domestic hot water. We use direct solar thermal for that.
“The best surprise in our house, which has a full suite of green technologies, has been the low tech solar hot water. We have a 1,000-gallon hot water heater that provides domestic hot water and space heating through radiant floor heating. It provides 100 percent of space heating and probably 90+ percent of domestic hot water.
“In terms of a vendor you will be in good hands with Beaver Brothers. Our system is quite complex but they have been very good at learning it and maintaining all the records. They’re also nice people to work with.”