Sustainability, now a popular buzz word has been the DSC's mantra since 1962, besides being good for the environment, it's good business.  For example, DSC's custom titanium heat exchanger reduced one processor heat requirements from 20 KW to less than 1 KW.

From the Electric and Hybrid cars D&S and family has been driving for six years DSC Labs is environmentally conscious and it's not always easy.  Before converting the 15,000ft DSC Lab building to ground source heating they tested it out on their own home - as you'll see below, it's a messy business.

Heating and cooling a building from the ground involves pumping antifreeze through polyethylene tubing deep into the ground.  During the winter you use heat from the ground to warm the building; in the summer the process is reversed, the cold from the ground is used to cool the building while the heat from the building is returned to the ground to use next winter.

Remote controlled state-of-the-art sonic drill rig arrives at David and Sues house - Mike, the driller is "driving" the heavy rig by radio using a with a control box similar flying a model airplane.

Well casing arriving at the house - ground source uses a lot of pipe . . .

. . . and a huge amount of water.  the house required almost 1 km of 1 1/4in pipe, drilled to a depth of 100 m to provide adequate heating and cooling.

Drilling about to start on first well at the back of the D and S home.

Thousands of gallons of water with a ton of soil and clay from the wellsmade a lot of mud.

Here, Mike is about to insert a block of concrete under one of the rigs adjustable feet to provide a solid drilling platform.

After completing the house the operation moved to the lab - DSC's building required 10x300ft holes drilled mostly through solid rock.

Detailed engineering drawings were required before work could begin

Drill rig arriving at the lab

Operator driving the rig to the first well site

Excavator digging 5 foot deep trench to take the piping iinto the building.

Photographing the operation

Connection panel and main pumps

Wells connecting to header before insulation

Ten 300ft wells supply the buildings heat / cool

Two of the four heat pumps and buffer tanks awaiting final connections

The complete system is made up of several kilometers  of pipe and thousands of solder joints

Water to air fan coils enable any of the 10 zones to be heated or cooled to different temperatures at the same time.

Current initiatives include:

Product trade-in programs -

Because we don't want to see DSC products ending up in the world's garbage dumps.  Options include - trade-in any old DSC test pattern for a 15% discount off a new DSC chart - automatic annual trade-in for and receive a 35% discount, and the EcoAlign lease program which provides 50% or higher discounts over annual purchase - more details at EcoAlign.

The "Greening" of D and S buildings -
D and S are currently installing geothermal heating and cooling at both their home and DSC Labs.  This should reduce fossil fuel consumption by over 60% while producing a superior work environment and increased efficiency.  They used their house as the guinea pig to find out potential problems .  The history in pictures follows - more will be added as the projects proceed.

For more information and updates regarding the Greening of DSC,