Ultra Geothermal Extends Warmth in Both Work and Community

By Craig Robert Brown
Green Alliance Staff Writer

All Green Alliance Businesses are green-certified, a three part sustainability analysis that looks into every aspect of that company’s product and practice. Ultra Geothermal has recently been re-evaluated and their sustainability certification documents refreshed and updated. Read Ultra’s Green Story below and visit their page here to see the rest of Ultra's sustainability certification.

Before becoming Ultra Geothermal in 2007, Ultra Heating and Cooling was just a conventional HVAC company that also happened to install geothermal systems. With over a decade of installations, Ultra, now a geothermal-exclusive company, has installed more than 750 systems in New Hampshire including one of UNH's dorm buildings with 48 rooms.

Owner Melissa Aho maintains that, while geothermal has certainly become more popular in recent years, the technology has always been – and in many ways remains – price indicative. That is: you often have to pay more up front in order to see greater savings down the road. “As a company, we feel customers come to you and want to pay for the best service and quality possible,” says Aho. “We felt the only way to achieve that was to focus solely on geothermal, in short because everything else – and especially oil – was becoming so volatile and unpredictable.”

As far as energy sources are concerned, geothermal remains one of the cleanest and most efficient available. While certainly complex, the systems actually require very little in the way of materials, and in most cases existing property sites have all the water necessary to make the system function. Ultra even offers classes and tutorial sessions about their systems to the public free of charge.

In conjunction with its highly efficient systems, Ultra also utilizes small-scale operations that render it a truly green business. The company uses small, fleet, fuel-efficient trucks, has conducted numerous energy audits – one of which resulted in the installation of high-efficiency spray foam insulation in the attic and basement – and even began stock piling machine parts and pieces in its two-bay garage in order to cut down on the number of deliveries made by suppliers. If a project site is far enough away, Ultra will pay for its installers to stay in a hotel, rather than have to drive back and forth multiple times.

The list of charities, organizations and causes that Ultra advocates and supports is as long as it is varied and dedicated. Every year Aho participates and donates money to the St. Charles Children’s Home Road Race, which helps benefit the home for children. She also sits on the Barrington Chamber of Commerce, for which Aho has held fundraisers to help benefit the organization’s office space, and has also joined the Dover Chamber. Additionally, she has also helped put on the annual Barrington Chamber Golf Tournament, and sponsored a UNH student project which resulted in the design of a system to desalinate water through the use of solar panels. She is also an active sponsor of the UNH Energy Club, the March of Dimes, and a Barrington Bike Race for a local food pantry.

GREEN DREAMS: Like most purveyors of clean, renewable energy, Aho likes to imagine a future where geothermal is within reach of an ever-growing cross-section of the population. To that end, Aho and company plan to continue their education efforts, offering free tutorial sessions for anyone interested in learning more about the benefits, and ultimate savings, made possible by going green in their home heating.  

To learn more about Ultra Geothermal click here! 

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