24000 BTU AC Unit conversion to geothermal well water source

jeff5may · 11-24-16, 10:03 PM

No, you want to find soft annealed copper pipe and bend it cold! Common refrigeration interconnect lineset tubing is perfect for forming. Not the same material as hard water pipe.

After some amount of bending or extrusion, the pipes will harden. At this point, it's difficult to work with. If the tubing is heated, you have to have inert gas inside it so it won't rust. Next level of difficulty kind of process. Keep on with your research and development and figure out something you are comfortable with producing yourself BEFORE you spend any extra time or money!

What I would do given your situation is to get the stock setup rigged up with taps on the suction, discharge and liquid lines. I would definitely stick some valves into the plumbing for flow control, mainly to be able to cut the outdoor fan and heat exchanger flow if I needed to. THEN I WOULD RUN IT LIKE I STOLE IT.

After I trusted it to work and not die in a short time, THEN I would bother to try to improve it. If it gets too cold outside for it to work, just shut it down. The main idea here is that you will learn a lot about the unit just getting it up and running like usual. Once you have run the unit and have done some tests on it, you will develop a basis of comparison for it. The whole project will build your confidence in what you are doing is valuable. Plus, it will work fine for 3 seasons of the year, and begin to pay for itself.

The plate heat exchanger referenced this time is much closer to what you will need to do the job. 50 plates may be over sized, maybe 30 or 40 plates of the same series would be enough. Probably not very cheap either.

I agree completely with Randy. These things aren't heavy and expensive for no reason. Anything you build has to work like a brick or an anvil or it will die violently. Murphy's law bites hard in this realm. More important than the material cost, it takes a high level of perfection, determination and mental toughness that not many people possess. Just look at the disasters that most of us have had building this stuff! Falling on your face and having to start all over again is common.

11-24-16, 10:03 PM	#11
jeff5may Supreme EcoRenovator Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: elizabethtown, ky, USA Posts: 2,431 Thanks: 431 Thanked 619 Times in 517 Posts	No, you want to find soft annealed copper pipe and bend it cold! Common refrigeration interconnect lineset tubing is perfect for forming. Not the same material as hard water pipe. After some amount of bending or extrusion, the pipes will harden. At this point, it's difficult to work with. If the tubing is heated, you have to have inert gas inside it so it won't rust. Next level of difficulty kind of process. Keep on with your research and development and figure out something you are comfortable with producing yourself BEFORE you spend any extra time or money! What I would do given your situation is to get the stock setup rigged up with taps on the suction, discharge and liquid lines. I would definitely stick some valves into the plumbing for flow control, mainly to be able to cut the outdoor fan and heat exchanger flow if I needed to. THEN I WOULD RUN IT LIKE I STOLE IT. After I trusted it to work and not die in a short time, THEN I would bother to try to improve it. If it gets too cold outside for it to work, just shut it down. The main idea here is that you will learn a lot about the unit just getting it up and running like usual. Once you have run the unit and have done some tests on it, you will develop a basis of comparison for it. The whole project will build your confidence in what you are doing is valuable. Plus, it will work fine for 3 seasons of the year, and begin to pay for itself. The plate heat exchanger referenced this time is much closer to what you will need to do the job. 50 plates may be over sized, maybe 30 or 40 plates of the same series would be enough. Probably not very cheap either. I agree completely with Randy. These things aren't heavy and expensive for no reason. Anything you build has to work like a brick or an anvil or it will die violently. Murphy's law bites hard in this realm. More important than the material cost, it takes a high level of perfection, determination and mental toughness that not many people possess. Just look at the disasters that most of us have had building this stuff! Falling on your face and having to start all over again is common. Last edited by jeff5may; 11-24-16 at 11:36 PM..