Freus air conditioner

[Ashton Crusher]

Has anyone used one of these Freus water cooled AC systems and if so how did you like it?

[AlanBown]

The web page shows 4 different models. Having some experience with cooling towers for commercial work. I am very skeptical when anyone uses water and copper together WITH OUT water treatment. Even then the maintenance can be a problem.

There was some vendor at the last Phoenix Home show that basically had a coil of copper inside a cooler. When the compressor turned on the pump in the sump sprayed city water on the coil of copper. He could not tell me if they were using type L or K copper. Nor if the soldering was silver solder. My brother was interested until I took him to a commercial site and had them talk to him about the volume of water and chemicals that it took to run. If your doing something under 20 tons forget it. If your doing over 20 tons then maybe. Depends on the local conditions. Cooling towers in the desert work well until the monsoon season then they are hard pressed to keep a 10 degree differential.

I have had swamp coolers and for the difference in cost I will stick to a/c. A friend of mine had a similar home with a MasterCool 6500 with pre cooler and I had one with out. We talked several times a week and I had installed temp gauges in the closest register to the unit. He at best was ONE degree cooler than I was. Not much return for the amount the precooler costs and the power it uses. After 4 years of nonsense I helped him toss it into the trash cause it was full of calcium.

If you are wanting to work on the system constantly and you like to tinker then have fun. I tried lots of methods of reducing the Phoenix summer temps in hopes of increasing the efficiency and lowering the bills. I failed. One house that I owned I installed a misting system on the coil to lower the temps. The house was scheduled to be demoed so I did not care. It took less than one month to calicum up the coil so bad that the unit was tripping out on high head. 2 hours with coil cleaning solution helped, thank god it was not all that hot and I was moving.

I will stick to air to air for the lack of service that it requires. Did you notice on their web page, I did not see a UL or CSA listing. Can you give me the UL listing numbers so I can check it out? I have issues with electrical equipment that does not pass minimum standards.

If your serious about saving money then play around with this calculator. You can see how much you can save based on SEER ratings. http://198.147.238.24/ac_calc/default.aspGood luck

[Ashton Crusher]

-- New service to compete with paypal Get $25 pre-registration bonus by following this link

[webmaster]

Missed this one..sorry about that...

Umm..its been done before. Carrier and Lennox used to offer a model that had a pan with a loop that went through it..had a float, overflow, etc... When they worked, they worked. Didnt save tons, but it worked. When they fail...and they will, its a nightmare.

You can call it what you want, but Freus is a failed experement, with a new package. Its still going to create a new to the owner set of headaches over a fairly short period of time. If you want the ultimate in cheap to run, go geothermal...

2nd that.

I used to own, and install MC2s with the 12inch pads, and dual precoolers. Depending on the temps, and RH, they can work great, particularly with UpDucts in each room. I dont recall but the cheapest of homes ONLY having a swamp only on it. And to get rid of the calcium, a Mean Green Machine worked wonders and twice a season pad cleaning...

[lasonael]

Just a quick note about my experience with Freus. I live in Tucson, AZ. I upgraded from a swamp cooler to a new AC system with a Freus water cooled condenser in may of 2001. I had a professional HVAC company install the system. The first summer went flawless. For the winter, the condenser was just "drained of water" as instructed by the installer. However, the next summer came with problems. When the AC was turned on, it would run for short periods of time, but never long enough to cool the house. A call went out to the installer. Thirteen months after the system was installed, one month after the "installation" warranty was up, the installer informed me that there was a build up of "sediment" on the condenser coils stopping the heat transfer. Thank God the system has thermal protection. The installer told me for an additional $500, a new coil could be installed. I was also informed that a simple $15 inline water filter could have prevented this (13 months after installation). After telling the installer where to go, I set about cleaning the entire system and I installed the water filter. Every year since, I've simply replaced the water filter at the begining of summer and drained the system at the end. During the years before AC, each summer my swamp cooler would literaly run for 2 months straight, day and night, in an attempt to keep my

1972 house cool at arround 80 degrees. This would cost me about $115 a month. The AC system, keeping the same house at a dry 74 degrees, costs about $95 amonth. As for the other concerns in the other posts, no have happened yet.