 I'm hoping to do a few of these though. Awesome, all right well my name is Roxy and I am the chair of the Sustainability Committee and I'm here with Rachel who is our vice chair as well as Belly who is our student member and we are speaking with Bill Tire who is the executive director and curator at the Glesner House in Chicago. So we're really excited they are planning to install geothermal and so we're gonna hear a little bit about what they're up to over there. So Bill can you just start us off with a little bit about your mission as an institution and sort of you know what the Glesner House is and what it does and how we can all come and visit. Yes absolutely so so Glesner House is a national historic landmark building constructed in 1887 and it was rescued from demolition in the 1960s primarily because it was considered a very important work of the architect Henry Hobson Richardson but since that time the family has returned most of the original furnishings and incredible archive of information so the story is really about the architecture the decorative arts and the family and their role in Chicago society. In the last few years we have really worked to expand our mission beyond being kind of a traditional house museum to really finding new ways that we can provide services to the community we have some wonderful spaces an outdoor courtyard a big coach house that has been restored that provide opportunities for this so our mission statement now is actually to spark excitement in architecture history and design through a dynamic exploration of Glesner House its family and its preservation. I was looking at your website and just seeing some of the cool things that you had going on on top of the haunted walk that you were talking about so that sounds really cool really innovative space so actually that kind of just going along with that it's it sounds like you have a collection that is sort of decorating for a lack of a better word in the house is that correct or do you have a separate collection as well. Yeah so we have a huge collection of decorative arts furniture art work textiles everything of that sort you can see a few of those things behind me on the mantle in the parlor and so that's a really really important part of our mission here and you know that's one of the reasons we we looked at a system that could help really protect the collection safely. Okay great so that kind of transitions into our next question so like I said at the beginning you have received a really amazing grant from the NEH the preservation and access grant so many congratulations on that and so could you just like tell us a little bit about where you are on the stage and or the stages of planning and implementation and I think as I sort of mentioned in some of our emails none of us are engineers so just a little disclaimer here we're going to talk kind of more broadly about the ideas of you know how you how you make this happen and what what sparks that inspiration as opposed to kind of the technical aspect of it so just so anyone watching can be aware of that so you what kind of got you all interested I mean the thing for me that seemed really innovative is that you are a historic building and I've heard of geothermal being used you know in kind of new builds like my parents installed it in their house but that's like you know built in 2004 or something so you know why did you turn to that as a as a solution and you know how are you going in terms of the implementation right so so I've been here for 13 years and when I started we had a system of eight gas-fired furnaces that were heating the building it's a 17,000 square foot building so there's four in the basement level and four in the attic level and most of those units had been installed in the late 1960s when the building was safe because there was no heating system functional at that point and so they were obviously approaching the end of their useful life we had to replace a couple and so we have a building and grounds committee that includes a couple of architects and people in the construction industry and so we started to talk about you know this is kind of our moment where we need to decide are we just going to simply replace what we have or do we look at other alternatives and the alternatives was obviously the option we pursued because we have gas-fired furnaces which meant we had no air conditioning or humidity control at all in most of the building except for a few window unit air conditioners and staff offices and things like that so that was always a big concern because of the of the collections and we tried to display everything in the rooms exactly as the Glesner's had it so we wanted to do that and not have to compromise and move things around so we really wanted to create an environment that would allow us to show the house as it was intended to be seen so we received an initial $100,000 grant about seven years ago and that allowed us to do the all the work to figure out how the system could be installed in the building so we hired the consultant that did all the schematics figured out where all the units would go how we wanted to divide up the building in terms of zones for example right now the collection storage area is part of a zone with another part of the building but we really wanted it to be its own designated area so we could control that very specifically so we did all of that and then we were actually able to dig the first two wells and do one zone within the building and so we were able to do all of that with a hundred thousand and that was really really helpful and then we also thought it would be helpful in terms of later fundraising because then we could show exactly what we did and what a difference it made in this portion of the building and then you know be able to do the remaining zones of which there's actually nine so then then we started looking at fundraising and then it was not until we received the grant from NEH this year which actually will fund the entire rest of the project that we were able to move forward so you you have let's see if I can get this right two zones now that are being controlled by geothermal and you're going to expand to the rest of the building right so we have we have two wells installed that are currently taking care of one zone they will be able we will be able to add some more zones onto those two wells and then we will be digging for additional wells which will take care of the rest of the building so six six wells ten zones and are the wells kind of visualize that is that like in the back of the building or because you're in Chicago right you're like that is correct and that's one of the things that was fortunate for us the building kind of wraps around a large private courtyard and so you obviously have to have space where you can dig the wells in order for this to work and that was one of the first things we tried to figure out was to make sure that we had enough space in the courtyard to be because the wells also have to be a certain distance apart I believe they have to be 20 feet apart and so we laid it out and figured that yes we can actually fit the six wells so that was hugely helpful if we were you know if we were on a lot in the city of Chicago where we had basically no grass or ground area it would not have been a potential for us to even look at helping you visualize it thank you and and did you look at any other any other options and like is sustainability kind of part of your mission is that why we were you were kind of really pushing to go in that direction or and also in addition to that were you looking at solar were you looking at wind I don't know how much you can do wind for your own institution but why did geothermal like really jump out to you as a great option there were two reasons one is a couple of the people on that committee had already worked on geothermal projects at other buildings so they were familiar with it and they understood but the most important reason for us is it was the system that would have the least impact on the building itself you know the wells are all underground everything is run into the basement underground and so when the units are all in you will not be able to see any trace of it whatsoever and that was that was obviously really important so that's why for example we didn't look at like solar where we would have huge panels on the roof and that sort of thing geothermal it's one of those things you spend I mean when all is said and done will be approaching about a half million dollars and people won't be able to see it at all but they will be able to feel the impact of what we've done yes the objects will feel it and that is that is wonderful actually Rachel do you want to ask your question because I think that transitions quite nicely actually yeah yeah so I was wondering you have a board of directors and I was wondering how you approach them with it or what role they played with with this decision-making if you've gotten any pushback from them or even the surrounding community because you are this is a historic building historic grounds and kind of what what your interaction with board of directors and the community has been like in yeah any pushback on that yeah so that's a good question so in terms of the board of directors because we had board members that you know we're kind of directly involved in figuring this project out for us they really deferred to them and their expertise I mean we were all in agreement that we had to do something and of course the rest of the board members this was not what they're knowledgeable about so they were very open to the idea they also really like the idea that you know when Glesner house was built in 1887 it was considered very cutting-edge and modern in terms of design but it also was very modern in terms of its technology so for example the heating plant that was installed in 1887 was kind of state-of-the-art and that sort of thing so they really liked the idea that we were continuing this theme of innovation in the 21st century just like the Glesner's did with what was available back in the 1880s so we really liked that and thought you know we can really play off of that in terms of the community we have a great community around us we made them aware of the project although because the work is mostly going on in the courtyard there's very little impact to the like the neighbors around us and that sort of thing but we did notify all of them just so that they would know what was going on like there was gonna be a dumpster out front for you know three weeks during the drilling and and that sort of thing but there was that the noise really didn't impact them and what we found was as we alerted them they were actually really interested because most of them are like well what is geothermal what does that even mean you know so it was kind of a nice opportunity to engage in a little dialogue and just let them know what we're doing to keep the building you know sustainable for the for the foreseeable future. Excellent excellent and did you reach out to the local newspaper and have them kind of broadcast this or are you waiting to do that until maybe later on when it's complete? Yeah so we are waiting because we haven't actually started the digging of the wells yet we had hoped to start that in October there's some delays with our permits because the drilling actually goes through the water table so we have to get approval from the county health department and unfortunately with everything going on this year the county health department is a bit overwhelmed with what they need to deal with so so we don't actually know when we start but when we're at a good point where it's kind of like a good visual we are gonna take advantage of that and hopefully get some good press and again because it is kind of a very modern technology it's you know we feel a much more interesting story than if we were just replacing our eight furnaces with eight furnaces that's like well everybody does that but it's like well here here's Glesner House doing something that's really interesting and maybe it's something you can do as well so. Excellent thank you yeah I'm looking forward to seeing the press releases and and the articles about it. Yes and when we did when we did phase one there's a woman in and I'm not gonna remember the name of the website unfortunately but she has a website where she specifically focuses on projects geothermal projects and so during our first phase she actually wrote three or four articles on her site where it kind of explained what was going on and she is more of a technical person so I really appreciated that she did that because she was able to write these articles in a way that I would not be able to because I don't necessarily understand the specifics I think it's called Histora Cycle and I've already been in touch with her and she's gonna do some follow-up articles now that we're going into to part two so that was that was kind of the easiest way for us to kind of get the word out because then we would just direct people to those links and they could read you know read her articles. Excellent that sounds great. Yeah that would be really awesome to for us to have a look at and maybe promote her work. Yeah I'm super and I just love this whole idea of the fact that they were really innovative and that you guys are now adopting such an in I mean that's so beautiful. Is there any kind of plan to do some programming at the at the institution around when it's done or? Yeah so what we hope to do in January assuming that we get our permit and we can get started with the digging is we will have an online program for people so we can explain what the process is and we work with a wonderful consultant his name is Mark Nussbaum he did the first phase and he'll obviously be working on the second phase and so he'll be participating again because he can speak about this in a way that I can't I know it's a big hole in the ground but he actually explains why there's a big hole in the ground and then what we would like to do at certain phases is we will offer some hard hat tours for people who actually want to see it being installed now these will be very small and again it's all dependent on the pandemic if we can even have people in the building at the beginning of the year but our hope is to be able to do some tours and I think it would be really interesting because it also gets people into some parts of the building that they never get to see so you know the basement we have a sub basement so those are the two things we're kind of hoping to do to give people that are interested you know a chance to really see more and learn more depending on their on their level of interest and knowledge yeah I sort of them always interested in how museums and and cultural institutions can kind of function in this space of like exciting people and even leading the way and inspiring which it sounds like you guys are 100% plugged into so that's really awesome when it when it's done you said that you won't notice anything is it going to basically fuel the existing radiator system or what is it that you have right so we're actually fortunate that we don't have a radiator system the house was built with a gravity air system and so the duct works and the vents and everything are all in place and those will all be reused although we will be replacing most of the ducts because you have to have a different type of duct work when it also is being used for cool air because of the condensation factor but it's it's all basically in place so it's pulling it out and putting a new duct where it is there'll only be a few rooms where we decided that we actually needed to add something where you know it never perhaps worked as well as it should or there have been some modifications to the building through the years inside which would result in a few changes to that but no we're very fortunate I looked very closely at another geothermal system when it was installed up in Evanston it's the Evanston History Center and so I went up there several times they were a few years ahead of our first phase and it was great to be able to see what they were doing and they had a radiator system in the building so they actually had to cut holes in all their floors and walls and install grates and duct work and so it was a much more extensive project as I say the basic infrastructure is is already here in the building which will save a lot of time and and dollars of course and jumping off that the point of dollars the point that is always the stumbling block when it comes to doing this wonderful stuff I think a lot of institutions a lot of people even are really intimidated by the cost of doing some of these initiatives and as I mentioned you guys have gotten some wonderful help doing that but but sort of how did you approach that just as a leader at your institution like how did you kind of shake off that anxiety or whatever could you speak to that at all yeah no it's a really good question because it's an extremely expensive system to put in no obviously that's because it's a big building and we have multiple zones and that sort of thing and so initially we were talking about it as from the financial standpoint of the money that it will save us in the long term because of course getting rid of all the gas fired furnaces and we'll actually use geothermal for the you know the hot water tanks and that sort of thing so basically gas service won't be needed and you can imagine you know over the course of the winter when we get our monthly gas bill and we have eight furnaces going they're big bills so we looked at that on the flip side there's a little bit of an increase in your electric bill because these are electric powered units but in the end you save a lot of money but we did not approach it as saying you know what this is a $450,000 project and we're going to save x number of dollars per year and you know in 80 years this will cover its cost that really was not the motivation the motivation was this was really the only system we examined that would provide the property the proper climate controls for the entire building and that was that was really paramount for us because also a geothermal system is very very long lasting so there's a long commitment with it I mean they're new enough you know you don't ultimately know but you know 50 years is is considered pretty normal in terms of all the all the stuff that's in the ground before it really needs much work so so that was really more of the motivation and you know for those of us who work in this building during the summer months and we know how hot it is and for example my office and collection storage are actually on the top level of the house it was never really the attic it was always a finished space but we are under the roof and even you know even with our window unit air conditioners if we had a long hot spell you know it would be over 90 up here and I used to think about the fact you know at the end of the day I could go home and take a shower and but I would worry about the collections that continued to sit in that environment and so that was very very concerning and when we wrote the grant for NEH it really was not about the building itself it was really about preserving the humanities collections within the building both the decorative arts and the archive archival materials that are available to you know to researchers do you have any conservators on your staff or do you work with outside conservators so we have an extremely small staff that's why I have two titles so so no so as we need to address issues like that we would have to bring somebody in we are also we were just approved this year for the collection assessment program and we actually deferred it for a year because if we had done it in 2020 it would have all been done remotely and we're really hoping by doing it in 2021 we can actually have people on site because a couple of the big concerns even with geothermal is still the fact that like our collection storage areas are not large enough and how do we deal with that and you know is there possibilities of putting it elsewhere in the building or how else do you deal with those sorts of issues so it's actually kind of nice that that will be coming in that assessment as the geothermal is being finished because then we'll actually be dealing with the environment that we will be living with for you know for the foreseeable future um Belly did you have any questions I did have a question about collections care I was are you concerned at all about like when you say the word drilling my first thought is like oh no vibrations um are you concerned at all about the construction of the new system affecting your collections that's a really good question and I had asked that before they started drilling the first wells because I said you know should we go around and remove things from our plate and it was we actually found a lot more impact about six years ago a big building was torn down across the streets it was an industrial building and then they put in a townhouse development and the vibration on the building was much more significant for that in fact the developers actually put a vibration monitor in our building I think primarily so that if we ever came back to them and said you know what these walls cracked while you were doing your work they had a way of actually measuring how it impacted the building but no by and large I found that the the drilling in the courtyard was minimal and the wells that are dug are very small they're only about eight inches across and although they go down 500 feet it's a very very small opening and then they do have to trench a little bit to to run things into the building but that's not so bad but no it it wasn't bad I was also concerned just about the sound because obviously I was going to be on site all day and I thought you know if I have to deal with this sound you know 10 hours a day how am I going to do that and you're certainly well aware that they're working in the courtyard it's not that it's quiet but it's it's manageable and it was actually manageable to the point where we didn't have to stop our our tours because inside the building although you could hear it you could very easily still hear the dose into over the noise and so that was nice that we didn't have to stop that we will be closing in January and February of this year for two reasons one is it tends to be a very slow time for us and with the pandemic potentially getting worse we figured you know we may have to close anyway but we're just going to go ahead and do it but the other advantage is that during those couple months we will be able to do some of the interior work that would be most intrusive on the tours so for example the work that has to be done in the visitor center itself would be virtually impossible to do and keep the building open for tours so we hope to take advantage and really structure things to to maximize that and it's also a great way to publicize where we're going to be closed it's not like oh we're closed because we normally don't get very many people through the door it's we're closed because we have this exciting project going on and we can get all this work done you know while we can just do what we need to do in the building that's awesome I was going to ask if it was like fortuitous in the most terrible way I guess that we had a pandemic I feel like a lot of institutions are like okay let's do these projects now um but yeah that's so you were able to kind of plan around when you were when you wanted to be closing anyway it sounds like yeah awesome all right well um I had a couple other questions just about sort of um advice for other institutions and sort of where you're finding your energy for this project like um what's kind of most exciting to you uh as you lead this this institution and and what um and what would you say to other people who are sort of timid about taking the plunge in terms of something like geothermal yeah so you know at first it did seem totally overwhelming um but I think two things really helped us first of all finding the right consultant to walk us through the project who has done this at a number of other locations um as as I jokingly said when we started working with him I said I love working with you because all the mistakes have been made with your prior clients and you've corrected all of those so we should be good to go here but he obviously does come in with the expertise and because this was an evolving technology you know a system that he had put in several years before us we were doing things differently just because there were new things available and that sort of thing so finding the right person is key um the other thing I found extraordinarily helpful was as I mentioned with the Evanston History Center actually being able to go and see this in process you know we went while the drilling was going on we went for different phases and so you could really see firsthand just how it was impacting the building and and what obstacles um they ran across um and there's enough of these geothermal systems around now that it's not hard to find a site that may have already had one done and you know just talk to talk to the people that were there at the time and just say well you know what was good what was bad about it um I've actually had quite a few people through the year since we did our first Faye five years ago call us they've either read those articles online or whatever the cases and have just kind of asked us to walk them through the process which we're always happy to do and at the end of the NEH grant the final piece of it is we will actually be writing a white paper which will then obviously be permanently available for people so I feel that's a really important part of what we do we're fortunate we received the grant but we need to kind of carry that forward so that others can can learn from what we did. So appreciate that we'll definitely be looking out for that as you know a group that's trying to promote this stuff in the cultural heritage space yeah I think the more places that kind of start taking these sort of brave actions and and trying things like you say the next person who comes along will be like we don't want to make those mistakes but I love that that's really funny did um did Mark have experience in in specifically the museum slash historic building realm is that a specialty? Yes and in fact many of his projects have been historic buildings one of the most significant that he worked on but after he did phase one but has now been done is Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple in Oak Park and so we actually took a group to see that about a year ago and that was obviously a very challenging building because of Wright's particular design but no I would say the majority of his projects actually are historic retrofits which made him even more perfect for the project. Take too much of your time either really appreciate you taking the time to chat with us about this this is so interesting I really didn't know how um how sort of applicable geothermal could be to I guess my my expectations that it was something for new buildings is totally wrong so I'm really glad to to learn that um yeah so we would love we would love to stay in touch as the project progresses and maybe do a few more sort of social media blasts or something following the progress and any stumbling blocks or or you know victories that you guys have and victories I should say. Yeah no that'll be great and we anticipate with all of the interior work with the nine zones uh it'll probably be nine to 12 months um from the time we start until we're completely finished so there will certainly be opportunities for updates I'm particularly interested there's several units that have to come up to the third floor um and because this is a fluid base system I'm particularly interested in how they're going to get all of that up to the third floor it was easy to do in the basement and also making sure that we have proper um controls in place so that if one of these units starts leaking or something on the third floor how do we avoid any potential damage uh to the building or the collection so those are those are some of the things we haven't addressed yet because we're not that far along but we'll certainly be things that that will be unique to this building and dealing with its particular construction and how we're laying out the units. Yeah those are all important things to consider I guess but awesome well thanks so much again for for chatting with us this was really fun and we really appreciate you taking the time. Yeah my pleasure yeah thanks for reaching out. Yeah absolutely nice to meet you.