Free air conditioning

[Birdmmjb]

I was just on the instructables website and saw a great idea for using well water for cooling the home.

The person posting had a radiator in front of a fan and ran his well water through this before watering the yard, stock ect.

I moved to the farm 3 years ago and there is a well curb in the car port/storm shelter.  I knew that there was water in the well as I could see it down the curb.

The temps here have been over 100 for several days and I could see me using the well to cool the house and water the horses and fill the pool using a solar pump.

So out the the well I go and remove the cover....Look water down there cool air here I come.  I drop a bucket to discover how deep the well is and what the water temp would be for my cheep hea texcharger.

Guess what 20 feet down I have only 2" of water. Bumer. I wonder if there is any way to dig it deeper. I am too large to go down the curb and it is inclosed under roof in a carport with stormshelter and shop on top of the shelter?

I keep looking

Jan

[feral air]

Call around and see what it would cost to dig a new well or whether or not the existing well could be made deeper. If your horses are going to be drinking the water then factor in the cost of a new radiator too...cleaning a salvaged radiator and hoping you got all the nasties out probably isn't worth it, especially if it leaks.

You could also just use your house water. If you're already using the house water to water the horses then running it through a radiator first shouldn't be a big deal. Adding a solar panel to drive the fan would keep the system from adding to your electricty bill and the fan would kick on when there's sun...when you need it most.

If you use the house/horse water then you might have to rearrange your watering schedule. You'd probably want to water around 11:30, 1:30 and again at 3. The second and third times just enough to flush the radiator so it fills with cool water again.

You can get "dumb" timers that run for a set amount of time for a few bucks...we have one for our garden that just hooks right to the hose, it has off/on and settings for 1-120 minutes, it's all mechanical - no batteries to replace and no dials to mis-configure. I'd do the first watering by hand and fill the buckets 3/4 of the way. The second and third watering I'd use the timer and set it for a minute or three.

I was thinking about doing the same thing but we've got a large pond to pull from. Our pond is higher than our house and barn too, so I could gravity feed the whole shebang...maybe in time for next summer.

[scottsAI]

Hello Birdmmjb,

I take it your water is not from a well? Or why would you be interested in another?

Well water cooling has some limits. Not cool enough to go below the due point, thus little relief from the humidity. If humidity is not a problem then a swamp cooler may work for you.

Spray misting on AC coils is claimed to help improve the efficiency of it. I bought the parts, yet to test.

Well

If water at 20 then a shallow well is a possibility. Check out drilling your own well. Easiest is to drive a well point in the existing hole may save a lot of work. Likely only need to go a few feet deeper. Hardware store should have the well point and well pipe (not the same, much thicker to handle the pounding). Good luck. (When it comes to wells some luck is required).

Have fun,

Scott.

[harrie]

Yes, using ground water will work great, at least it dose for me, I have a flowing well that dumps 1000 gals an hour into our pond, It is a 4 inch well that I drove down myself with a 200 lb slide hammer, using my tractor pto with a large pully for raising the hammer up and down using a rope.

The well is only 50 foot deep. I have a 1 1/4 inch suction pipe for our water system inside the 4" along with a 3/4 inch pipe that goes into my basement thru a heat exchanger radiator. I did install a small grundfos pump in the line, to move the water faster.

The water temp is 40 degrees year around. I run the forced air fan and the pump with my wind turbine. the water exits the exchanger at 45 degrees.

The heat exchanger is installed in the cold air return of my furnace. I also use the same heat exchanger in the winter from my outdoor wood stove to heat the house.

when using the cold water, the condinsation water runs to a floor drain,

We have had 90 degree weather, and 90% humidity this summer, and we enjoy 68 degree temp in the house.

It removes enough water out of the air, that it will shut down my dehumidifier.

After the water goes thru the exchanger, it than goes back to the underground pipe that runs to our pond.

My house is not super insulated, and is of 2X4 wall construction. We are very happy with the setup, and most important, FREE.

[Birdmmjb]

Thanks for the idea of using the house water for this.  It did not occur to me at the time.

No we are not on a well, there is a rural water assn. that provides our water. I wonder if they are the cause of the low water in this well as their huge well and pump are close to my property.  The well was used at some time for the house as there are pipes in my well and they have cut the curb, which runs through the shelter, to house the pump in a freeze free space.

Finding water in this area should be easy as part of the farm was sold before we could get it and there are 2 springs on that property just a few hundred feet from the house

My horses are on automatic fill tanks so the water would be changed in the radiator throughout the day and night as they drink. More during the day than at night.

The humidity is a big factor here as we hit 90-100% often.  I somtimes feel that you need to be half tropical fish to live here in the summer.  The air conditioner could not be shut off but we would be able to run it less.

I have built a  12 vdc tread mill fan copied from gheard here and run it off the solar.

The thought on the well was to lower our water bill while lowering the electric bill and being able to keep stock and garden happy. (lower bills of any kind keep me happy).

Another use for this setup was for a small heat gain in the insulated "dog den" during the winter as the water from the well or house is warmer than the outside air and would provide some small heat in there.  I have several older dogs that need a little help in harsh weather but they dont want to come into the house and I have a fear of fire from heat lamps and such in their den.

Jan

[Goose]

Hi Harry,

I don't suppose you could post some pictures?  Sounds like a neat project you have going.

thanks

[harrie]

Ya, I will try, might be a couple days.

[bob g]

the depth of the water in a well is no indication of how much water you can get out of it.

for instance if it is in the water table it may produce hundreds of gallons per minute and not drop a foot

whereas another well might be 100 ft to water and have 50 ft of standing water in the caseing,, and pump dry in a few minutes! because the strata cannot replace the water fast enough.

i would suspect yours will produce more water than you think.

stick a pump down the hole and see how much you can pump out over time without sucking it dry.

i have seen such wells that you could not suck them dry without a very large pump,, (several hp)

i have also seen deep holes with lots of water in the casing suck dry with a 1/2 hp submersible pump.

bob g

[TomW]

bob g;

Good points! And supported by personal observation.

Cheers.

TomW

[nothing to lose]

Watering stock can keep the water flowing nicely, be careful about the radiator you use so you don't poison anything. NO LEAD etc.. and not any used auto types that had anti-freeze etc... either.

A good trick to use when using water like this is to install a cheap valve and turn it to a slow flow after the radiator. Pipe the water to the stock tanks and install one of those cheap float valves that shuts the water off at a certain level. Durring the day when stock is drinking and heat evaporates the water etc.. you will have a steady slow flow of water through the radiator. In with the cold and out with the hot.

 Durring the day the water level in the stock tank should fall below the preset standing level so it should slowly be filling all day but never be to low for the stock to have plenty to drink.

Also you could install a 55gal drum or such above the toilet outside somewhere and run a line to the toilet and let it gravity feed to fill it. Pipe the heated radiator water to the drum using a slow flow also. The toilet don't care if the water is warm or cold!

Depending on your type toilet, every time you flush during the day you let 3-5 gallons of cold water into your radiator

 Even at 5gal per flush you have 11 flushes available before it goes dry, how often would you flush 11 times quickly? And it's slowly refilling when not being flushed!

Here the heat in the house seems worse towards night. I guess it builds up during the day and takes awhile to get the house hot, but then it takes along time to cool back down when the sun is gone also. Run the radiator water at full pressure/flow to the shower/tub and to the washing machine. In the evening when cleaning up and washing clothes your running lots of cold water through the radiator fast because your using allot of cold water. You could also install extra radiators to use in the evenings in the lines to the shower washer where you will be using water much faster at night.

With city type water it just runs when on, so no need to worry about pumps etc..

With a well though you don't want the pump running all the time. A pressure tank will fill up fast when the pressure drops and the pump runs, shuts off when pressure rises of course.

 With the pressure tank then you can have a steady slow flow of water all the time and the pump only runs when needed to refill the tank. The pressure tank should be insulated good to keep that well water cold for use like this. If the water stands in the tank and gets hot then you lost your cooling, so a slow feed to stock tanks etc.. helps keep fresh cold water flowing throughout the day and also keeps cold water in the tank instead of letting it sit long periods and warm up.

If your well only has a low level of water and does not fill very fast you may still be able to pump enough to fill a pressure tank holding maybe 3-6gal and shut off the pump. Adjust the slow flow out of the radiator to the amount of time it takes to fill the well back up or a bit longer. So if you can get 6gal out of the well to fill the tank but it takes 20 minutes to refill the well, set the flow rate at the radiator so the pump only comes on every 30minutes or so. Don't connect the shower washer to that line though if the well fills too slow of course.

 It's all the same amount of water, and other than startup for the pump the same amount of power used to pump the water, rather allot all at once or a little now and then.

As for general use with wells, if you have a good well with good water you could run the whole house this way if using a safe heat exchanger. I would still run cold water to the sinks straight from the well though. Who wants warm water to drink on a hot day?

[thefinis]

Did I miss something? I think he has(2") 2 inches of water and the only pump I can think of that would pick it up would be a sump pump and 20 ft of head may be getting near the limit for one of those. Checking it for flow may be hard but worth a try. One indicator is to TRY and fill the pipe with a water hose. If the water goes away at a fair rate back to the 2" level then you are probably at the water table top. If the pipe fills up and and very very slowly goes down it may be caved in or be in a real tight formation.

Lots of good ideas posted already. See what depth the water supply well is pumping from (stands) to get an idea of what yours might should be. Look and see what rock strata the springs are flowing from (and  the stratas above and below) and if it shows on your place do a little digging and chipping. Big trees moss wet ground etc may help locate a likely area.

Finis

[harrie]

here are a couple pictures of the exchanger on the cold air return of my furnace, and the piping comming into it. The top gray lines come from my outdoor stove, and the lower lines come from well. I have raised the filter to see the exchanger. It is rated at 125,000 BTU.

As you can see, I do not have the house cold air return ducted, the air simply comes down the basement stairs and goes into the furnace thru the exchanger radiator.

[Goose]

Thanks Harrie,That is pretty cool.

Here is a link to another guy that cools his house.  Pretty crude, but interesting.

http://www.instructables.com/id/E20XX17F5FEQ1AA/

[Birdmmjb]

thats the site that go me thinking of this.

Jan