Dandelion partners with residential geothermal contractors throughout the Northeast to provide geothermal drilling and ground loop installation services. One example of this type of project is an August 2024 project Dandelion drilled at a home in Belchertown, MA.
The Belchertown, MA home was tucked into the forest, just off the road. While a wheeled rig may have been able to access the front yard, drilling there would require trenching across the driveway because the homeowner’s heating system was located on the left side of the house, on the top of the above picture.
With our tracked rig and separate compressor, we were able to locate the borehole on the side of the house right next to where the geothermal heat pump would be located, keeping the trench short and the equipment out of the way of the homeowner’s driveway.
In addition to the rig and compressor, Dandelion can bring a custom dumpster to jobs that will benefit from it to collect spoils and keep the site clean. A custom umbilical is run from the rig to the dumpster, funneling the spoils directly into it for containment. Note how clean the homeowner’s side yard is, even in the middle of the drilling process. This can be critical for suburban homes in densely populated neighborhoods.
Our rigs are small and lightweight. In addition to allowing for access to tight spaces, this allows us to work with small crews and avoid the need for auxiliary equipment that might otherwise be needed to lift heavy drill rods, for example.
In this photo, you can see one of our drilling team members is able to easily move a rod into position himself, without the aid of external equipment.
This photo, taken right after drilling was completed, shows how the site was kept clean.
Dandelion typically drills 4.5” boreholes for our residential projects and installs 1.5” u-bend pipes. This photo shows the u-bend pipes coming out of the borehole before grouting has taken place.
A specially designed truck delivers the drilling rig and dumpster and collects them at the end of the job in order to drive them to the next location.
All in all, Dandelion’s single family residential drilling suite of equipment is optimized for residential job sites, homeowner friendliness (keeping the site clean), small drill crew sizes and straightforward transportation logistics. All of these elements allow us to offer competitive pricing for drilling services that homeowners love.
