Use water to cool down your apartment
 

Hey there,

Today i did a fun project, did it more or less for fun. I am taking water from toilete tank since it refills itself when its empty. Cold water goes through the copper pipe and then heated water goes down the drain ( literaly :D ). There is no pump since suction and gravitation does all the work. Fan blows air over the copper pipes and heats them.

http://s22.postimg.org/h3d2hzopp/DSC_0034.jpg

I am wondering how good this system would work on those really hot days ... would it make a difference ?

Let us say the sistem will use 1 cubic meter ( 1000 liters ) of water per day. And lets say that the water will have 15C when it enters and 25C when it leaves. Soo 10C delta. Would this calculation be correct?

Q = 4.186 J/g K *1,000,000g * 10K = 41860000J

And since it will be done in 24 hours .... 86400 seconds ....

41860000J/86400s = ~490W of cooling per hour .... is this correct ?

If this indeed is correct and we assume that the apartment that is 20 square meters big and has 32C to to begin with ... i do belive this would make a small difference in the temperature ... and when its 32C ... every degree counts.

There is an eco note though .... a lot of water would be wasted ... water is very cheap here ... but its a shame to waste water. Maybe if it would be only used in those days where its just too hot ....

I can say that the air that fan blows into me is colder .... i could add ice to the toilete tank ..... it would make the kitchen hoter but the air blowing into my workspace would certanly be cooler. Soo, what do you think ? :)

If I understand this correctly you intend to continually flush the toilet, or let it "run" just to barely cool yourself down?

The way it works though it doesnt interfere with the toilete in any way. It sucks the water out of the toilete water tank, and that tank refills itself as soon as the water drops below the certain level.

I do not plan to run this sistem, i made this to test how it works .... :)

You will need a lot more copper tubing to make a difference with a fan. Even better if you can get a small radiator.

If you want to stick to a small amount of tubing consider a contact system such as a "cool shirt" which is nothing more than tubes that carry water attached to a t shirt. Since air isn't that great at heat transfer the contact based system takes that out. With the cool shirt you are basically cooling your whole core which allows the body to quicly get rid of excess heat.

Water's greatest cooling effect come when it evaporates.

-AC

Many people have used this approach to cool small areas. Just google the term:

Homemade air conditioner

It kinda works. It kinda works better if you use ice water. Good for spot cooling. Or camping.