TWO UTILITY ROOMS, ONE GEOTHERMAL SOURCE: THE ENERGY SYNERGY OF A GAS STATION AND CAR WASH

Heating two functionally very different buildings from a shared source is no simple task. The gas station requires a comfortable temperature for customers in areas where they rest or shop. This means fan coil heating and cooling that must operate quietly, reliably and unobtrusively. At the same time, warm floor heating must be provided in changing rooms and sanitary facilities for employees, along with domestic hot water preparation.

The car wash presents entirely different requirements. The automatic car wash space requires air heating via fan heaters, while the floor surface must be protected against icing in winter. This means low-temperature floor heating that runs continuously during the cold months and must not fail precisely when conditions are most demanding.

All these functions had to be integrated into a unified control system covering both buildings simultaneously, without requiring separate management for each utility room.

The designer divided the system into two separate utility rooms that share a common geothermal source of six geothermal probes.

In the gas station utility room, two WPG heat pumps are installed with a 500-litre buffer tank. These two units cover fan coil heating and cooling of customer areas as well as floor heating in changing rooms and sanitary facilities for employees, all at a radiator regime of up to 55 °C.

In the car wash utility room, two KRONOTERM WPG heat pumps are installed with a 200-litre buffer tank. These units provide air heating of the car wash space via two fan heaters, as well as floor heating of the car wash surface to prevent icing in winter.

In addition, a separate KRONOTERM domestic hot water heat pump is installed on the building for domestic hot water preparation.

The entire system with all four heating loops (two direct, two mixing) is controlled by the KSMpro controller, which enables centralised monitoring of both utility rooms simultaneously.

Heating a building with two such different functions from a single geothermal source is a project that requires precise planning and the right equipment. The result is a system that covers all requirements without compromises on individual functions and without separate energy systems for each building.

From an operating cost perspective, a geothermal system is one of the best long-term decisions. The temperature of geothermal probes remains relatively constant throughout the year, which means the heat pump operates with high efficiency even in winter, when heating demands are greatest and when costs with alternative systems — gas, heating oil or electricity — would increase the most. For a building that must heat continuously all year round, this cost predictability is important both for planning operating costs and for the long-term return on investment.

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