During its replacement of our home’s prior oil-fueled heating and central air conditioning systems with a geothermal system, Achieve Renewable Energy LLC created a trench across our crescent driveway. They promised not to leave the trench open:
But they did indeed leave the trench open, which endangered us by cutting off half our driveway and forcing us to enter and exit via a blind curve in the road. I communicated that via email to Achieve Renewable Energy LLC after they had left the trench open for a few days:
And in that email exchange I attached these photographs of the open trench:
Despite my asking in my email message that Achieve Renewable Energy “have any other work done that’s necessary to restore our home and driveway to safe condition without further delay”, they left us with that dangerous open trench for several additional days.
Under MA law at the time, trenches of certain dimensions required a permit and inspection. But Achieve Renewable Energy LLC had the trench dug in such a way that it did not require a permit. My town’s Building Commissioner explained to me that contractors sometimes dig trenches that way to avoid the permit and inspection requirements.
But after this botched geothermal system installation project, a better geothermal system installer (Bill Wenzel Heating & Air Conditioning) explained to me that because the pipes were laid in the trench less than three feet deep, that would expose the system’s liquid to overly cold ground surface temperatures in the winter and thereby adversely impact the performance of the system. In his testimony in his deposition, our town Building Commissioner agreed with that:
Question: How about at Mr. Bush’s house particularly, did you have any sense whether 33 was sufficient or whether it should have been a deeper excavation at that location?
Answer: It’s my opinion that any piping, geothermal or water should be deeper than 48 inches, but that’s not the code.