[AT] OOOPS - Do as I say not as I do - now rambling off topic

[Indiana Robinson]

On 29 Jul 2005 at 21:09, Henry Miller wrote:
> I have a small (~30,000 gallon in spring, 1/3 that in fall) pond in the 
> backyard.   I'm running some pumps for fountains, and I've toyed with the 
> idea of running the waterfall pipes into a heat exchanger in the duct work 
> for cheap AC.      




	I'm sure I have posted this here before but since they let many of us hide our own 
easter eggs due to CRS I don't guess it matters.
	When we opened our first store in 1974 it was in a big old two story with full basement, 
brick building downtown. It was heated by a big gas steam boiler in the basement. The 
main floor had about 12 foot ceilings but the office area in the rear only had about a 7 
foot ceiling. The back wall of the main floor went all of the way to the 12 foot level 
creating a small closed loft above the office area. In the loft above the office area 
there was a huge slow running squirrel cage blower which blew into a big duct that ran to 
a big grill in the back wall of the main room. Inside the duct was a set of filters and a 
large coil that resembled an oversize transmission cooler or refrigerator coil. There 
were 4 valves in the back stairs from the basement to the outside. In one setting the 
steam from the boiler ran through the coil and provided most the heat for the building. 
Of course much of the direct  boiler heat also came up the front basement stairs and on 
up the open second floor stairs. In the summer you shut off the two valves to the coil 
from the boiler and opened one of the other valves all of the way which led to the drain 
system. The other valve was just cold water from the city water line and you just 
"cracked" that line. You watched the drain line and sat the water valve so that it ran a 
stream just a bit more than a steady dribble, maybe a 3/16" stream or so and depending a 
little on how hot it was. The fan blowing air through the coils and out into the store 
was plenty to cool the entire building. In fact I would always shut it down at night and 
it would cool right down each morning. The coil had a catch pan under it that drained to 
the drain line as well and the excess moisture in the air would condense on the coil and 
drip into the pan to drain away. I was always very pleased with that system. Operating 
cost was just power for the blower and a little extra on the water bill. In the mid 
1970's I figured it cost less that $30 a month to cool that good sized building in hot 
weather.
	I once made a small scale version to cool another store a little and it did work but the 
coil I had on hand did not have near enough surface area. I had always intended to make 
another using an automotive radiator but like many other things I never got a "round 
tuit". It could work very well for cooling a tractor shop.
	One thing to take into consideration is the configuration of the coil / radiator. In a 
coil like a transmission cooler / refrigerator style the water can go in from the top or 
the bottom and there is a single path. I believe if a radiator were used the water would 
have to push up from the bottom in order to use all of the possible channels.


-- 
"farmer", Esquire
At Hewick Midwest
      Wealth beyond belief, just no money...

Paternal Robinson's here by way of Norway (Clan Gunn), Scottish Highlands,
Cleasby Yorkshire England, Virginia, Kentucky then Indiana. In America 100 
years 
before the revolution.


Francis Robinson
Central Indiana USA
robinson at svs.net