I was involved in a $100,000 remodeling job where a bright restaurant owner had "fixed" his air conditioners by adding so-called water-cooled air cooled condenser units (He put a lawn sprinlker on the roof to cool the condensing units. ) Besides the eventual roof failure and leaks, he caused calcium fouling of all this equipment and they hired our firm to replace the roof and the air conditioning. It's better in the long run to exchange heat with water through a heat exchanger that can be cleaned, or inhenently has some anti-fouling feature. A loop of sealed pipe is often inserted into a deep well to exchange heat with the ground, without the potential of fouling groundwater or taking on calcium. Other systems use pipes buired 8' below grade, still a sealed system. We also investigated using well water for a major office building. They have maybe 750 employees, and also happen to own a big park next door with a deep well that can pump a firehose full of water. Originally the well was for watering the park. Water table is no problem in Missouri, it is the largest groundwater recharge area in the US, so the environmental impact was minimal. The plan would have been to run the cool water through a heat exchanger, which would cool the building's chillers instead of a conventional cooling tower. The wellwater would have been dumped to drain after one use. It was an attractive plan, economically. Having a building's chillers working against 52F instead of 90F really saves a lot of energy. Never got implemented though. --Lawrence ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter L. Peres" To: Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 11:13 AM Subject: Re: [OT]: Using well water to air condition home > On Mon, 10 Jun 2002, Jim wrote: > > >I have to wonder what the minerals in the water do over > >time to a condenser - > > > >- down here wooden fences in the line of fire from sprinklers > >(city/reservoir and some well water) show traces (same pattern > >as the sprinkler!) of white calcium deposits after awhile ... > > I've been thinking about this. Could one not use the spray-cooling method > on the intake air to the condenser ? This would be done by ducting the > intake through maybe an empty barrel with nozzles installed on top. The > direct cooling efficiency would be lower but maybe not that low. Only > small droplets and water vapor would make it to the condenser. > > Peter > > -- > http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us! > email listserv@mitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body > > -- http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us! email listserv@mitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body