Refrigeration principles are a few hundred years old.

Carrier air conditioning has existed for one hundred years whose principles of refrigeration (fridges, central air, coolers and air source pumps) and ground source heat pumps are similar to the inside portion of the groundheat system.

The exterior portion of the system using water as a source of energy (heat) discharge, heat sink, or a source of heat energy intake was used in submarines since before World War II.

In 1948, in Port Credit Ontario (near Toronto), a European immigrant placed copper pipes in the ground and extracted heat via a refrigeration circuit and heated his home.

In the early 1950’s, through a grant from Ontario Hydro, Professor Frank Hooper at the University of Toronto did research on the heat from the ground by drilling a 1200 feet deep hole at the entrance of the Princess Gate at the Toronto Exhibition grounds.  Temperature sensors were placed at various depths of the hole.  It was discovered that the system had potential to save energy (electrical), Ontario Hydro withheld funding soon after.

In the 1950’s, many North American manufacturers had water source heat pumps available and by the early 1960’s it was quite common to use these systems in high rise buildings with a combination of air cooled condensers and boilers.

In the early 1970’s, with the oil embargo the Scandinavian countries, being very oil dependent, were among the most hurt by the shortage.  They embarked on commercializing known technologies to substitute oil, such as developing water source and ground source for heating only (some of which heated whole communities using the Baltic Sea as a source of energy).  In residential and small commercial buildings they buried polyethylene pipe in the ground pumping a fluid, which formed an exchanger to extract heat from the ground.

By the end of the 1970’s and early 1980’s, the Swedes claimed a 20 MW savings of energy (one power plant).

In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, Oklahoma State University researched and promoted this technology for heating and cooling and was followed by Ferris State University’s endorsement of the technology.  In addition, via Professor Parker and under the direction of Dr. Bowes of Oklahoma State University training for the installation of ground source systems became available.

In Canada, as the use of energy became proportionally higher due to the increase in extreme weather conditions this research was being put to practice.  Dr. Otto Svec, with the National Research Council of Canada further developed other variations of installations.  Groundheat Systems International, Water Furnace, Cantherm and Urban Heating were among the first companies in Canada to apply this technology.