First, as an aside, what is the opposite of radiator (as in central heating) - consumer, sink? Best I could think of was absorber.
To the point: I can't see any actual solutions to my problem, but it should provoke some intereresting discussion, anyway.
It's been very hot here in the UK this past weekend and while lying awake in the sweltering heat, trying and failing to get to sleep, I was wondering if there was anything I could do to cool the house down. I started on how we kept the house warm, and worked backwards. The obvious thing was the central heating: could I pump cold water around that? Well the rads. were already cold, so that wasn't doing much. So why does the heating work? Because the rads get a lot hotter than the surroundings. Could I pump very cold water around the system? I couldn't see water even at 0 deg. having much effect, so it would have to be well below 0 deg. to have any effect. The obvious problem - you can't cool water below 0 deg. C! How could I stop it freezing up? Does the anti-corrosion additive have any anti-freeze properties? Doubtful, as this isn't its purpose. Add antifreeze? That can take water down to -20 deg. C, as I recall (if, of course, I could 'bulk cool' the water down to that!). Now rads at -20 deg C might be nice on hot summer nights...
And a serious question: while thinking about adding antifreeze to the heating system, I recalled that in WWII, the piston-engined power plants in aircraft invaribly used (100%?) gycol (which I think is anti-freeze by any other name). What was the advantage of doing this? I can't see as the anti-freezing properties would be of any interest, so does gycol 'conduct' heat more efficiently than water or glycol-water mix? If it does, would running a domestic heating system with glycol instead of water make it more efficent?
Davey
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