Large buildings use water to remove the heat from theur ac condensers.
What about a recirculating fountain to spay the coils in my ac condenser for 90+ temp days.
How much 'gain' in efficiency would result?
On Wed, 26 Sep 2007 17:13:24 -0700, BoyntonStu wrote Re Spray water on compressor to raise efficiency?:
Well, assuming the water is about 70F, you would gain a considerable increase in efficiency. But then, you would probably ruin you condensers with corrosion and fouling.
Negitive gain as your unit isn't setup to take the water and the fins would corrode and then you need a new unit costing more than you saved.
Rich
If they're designed to sit out in the rain all winter, would occasional water in the summer really be that damaging? (Suppose it depends on how corrosive the city water supply is....)
The temperature difference between the condenser coil and the air is the point of balance where all of the heat in the gas is rejected and the gas condenses into a liquid At this point of balance the pressure becomes constant at the condensing pressure. The difference in Evaporating and condensing pressure is then used to force the liquid refrigerant through the refrigerant control. If this pressure is reduced then flow is reduced and the evaporator can starve.
in grocery store we put in misters on our condensers,cut elec bill in half.had to clean coils twice a tear with lime remover.lucas
Rain water, although not pure, does not contain the minerals that tap water usually does. You can get quite a buildup of crud on the coils if you spray.
The reason for the compromises which cause manufacturers to choose air cooled condensers are easily understood. For example spraying a 100 ml mist of water per second equals 360 Liters per hour or app
3.6 tons of water per 10 hr day. Which in one year of 300 days equals 1000 tons if this is multiplied by 100 million consumers then then the loss is one hundred billion tons of clean water.per year. That would make the price of bread even more f****ng outrageous than it is. So the next time you enjoy a couple of slices of toast you should think about that.
How about a recirculating system that uses the same water (+ makeup for evaporation) over and over again.
The water would be sprayed on the coils, collected, pumped a few feet into the 70* ground to cool, and sprayed again.
Hmmm, It'd be OK if distilled water is used?
"BoyntonStu" wrote
I pumped rainwater water up from a plastic 55 gallon drum through a horizontal tube with some holes over the coil of a window AC.
... 20% in my experiments and 22% in Y. Goswami's U. Florida central air experiments. He built a swamp cooler around the AC coil, so the water never touched it. I avoided mineral buildup by using rainwater, with a $10 10 W fountain pump in a plastic 55 gallon drum below the AC. Limestone in the drum helps avoid acid rain problems.
Nick
Evaporating that water takes 360x2.2x1000 = 792K Btu/h, like 158 5K Btu/h window ACs :-) Or more, if the water does not provide all the cooling :-)
Nick
Some thoughts.
The average house unit in Florida is several tins ad it produces about
1 gallon of cool condensed water per day HMMM?Some details please on the swamp cooler design.
Would this idea work?
Sink a 55 gallon drum into the 70* ground to cool the water and to hide it.
Pipe all condensate into the drum.
Swamp cooler surrounding the condenser.
BoyntonStu
I have a duplex on an island.
The utilities last month were almost $700.
The savings won,t equal the added bother.
Should be. That is similar to how the window units work with a slinger ring to get rid of condensate.
Tins? :-)
Goswami used an Acme Kool Cell greenhouse evaporative cooler kit. Swamp Thing is another brand. Stuppy Greenhouse Manufacturing sells a 10' length of Swamp Thing pads and gutters and overhead sprinklers for $181.
Goswami cut one down to make something like a 2.5' cube surrounding an outdoor condensing unit. You also need something like Stuppy's $268 "Plumbing completion package" which has a float valve and an adjustable bleedoff valve (nominally 1%) to avoid mineral buildup. The idea is to surround the condensing coil with a swamp cooler box.
The ground won't help much in cooling it.
Sounds good.
You might just trickle the mineral-free condensate and rainwater over the coil, with no swamp cooler.
jim
... 0.2x700 = $140 per month? :-)
Nick
Go down 5' and get 55º.
There have been a number of commercial kits to do this. The problem is, even with soft water, they scale up the evaporators fast and that reduces the efficiency. Don't bother.
A real hack would be to cut the condenser apart, and place the coils in a 'bathtub' in the ground, etc
on 9/27/2007 1:35 PM BoyntonStu said the following:
How about running an AC duct from the AC to the condenser? :-)
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