Quote:
Originally Posted by opiesche
I've been thinking about doing the same thing with my radiant heating installation. I'm thinking in my case the water shouldn't be less than 60F, to avoid condensation (from what I can tell from various charts and graphs online, 85F air temperature at 40% RH gives a dew point at about 59F). We're usually at 30-35% RH, so I'd consider 60F water to be safe.
One question that arises is how to keep the water cool. I've got a closed loop system, so it stands to reason that the water will warm up after a while, reducing the cooling effect. How quickly the water warms up is TBD - I don't think there's a good way to tell without trying.
I've considered peltier elements attached to the manifold to lower the water temperature - any thoughts?
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Yeah, it would be really easy for you, with your wizard skills, to build a dew point calculator that was
in direct contact with the coldest part of your cooling loop because that is the exact point where the condensation will begin.
Not to discourage you in this effort, but having radiant floor cooling doesn't have all the same advantages as radiant floor heating.
Because of temperature stratification, your highest delta-T in the room will not be so close to your coolness radiator where it would do the most good.
The Germans are doing quite well with radiant cooling by using radiant ceiling cooling, and the dew point issue still remains.
But no doubt, radiant floor cooling would help considerably, and you already have the infrastructure, so why not use it?
As far as cooling the fluid in your closed loop, you pretty much have heat pumps (cold pumps?), ground source, and evaporators as options.
If you're going to take a serious look at heat pumps for cooling, why not also for heating?
Ditto GSHP.
Now that you have the infrastructure, there are many possibilities.
-AC