The Homemade Heat Pump Manifesto

[Vern2]

What about fitting wooden dowell rod to the pipe. I think you could make it look quite nice. Making the support ends from round ended blocks of wood. I stained all my wooded towel and t-paper holders to match cabinets. I built my own house. I did everything. I worked just on weekends on the house for 6 years. Already lived in a nice house. I just used the build as a weekend hobby. Both wife and I worked full time, no kids. When we moved in. Had one sink, one shower, one toilet. The pool was done. Kids are on there own now. Moved in 1976, no house payment at 30.

[AC_Hacker]

Originally Posted by pachai

Can I use pipe that is more attractive than
copper? eg, stainless? (expensive) bronzed brass? (is it available?) (Chrome 24" is $35 as opposed to $12 for 10' copper).

My thought if I used regular threaded pipe would be to use regular threaded elbows to match, stub it into the wall cavity, and then adapt it to the 1/2" PEX.

Or, I could just use copper and spray paint it to match the Delta Oil Brushed Bronze...

Regarding performance, there won't be much difference how you do it.

Aesthetically... now there's the issue...

In my experience, women have very particular expectations about how things will look in the kitchen and bathroom.

If you get a commercial hydronic towel rack, it will be the safest choice as far as looks are concerned.

If you DIY it, unless you are a very skilled craftsman, it will look DIY.

Your painted copper approach will look like painted copper (if it were me, I'd buff it up nice and shiny and put lacquer on it so it stays nice and shiny copper).

Or you could intentionally do a bold DIY approach and go with iron pipe. But if you go with a multi-rung ladder type towel rack, it might be tricky to assemble with all screw threads.

Another consideration is galvanic action due to dissimilar metals.

-AC_Hacker

[pachai]

Originally Posted by AC_Hacker

In my experience, women have very particular expectations about how things will look in the kitchen and bathroom.
-AC_Hacker

My wife told me which towel bar to buy....
but that doesn't prevent me from making
a hydronic wall plate radiator below it.

I just learned the meaning of Street Elbow.
(That's how you make a U turn -
one side of a street elbow fits into
a regular elbow - and two rights make a... :-)

Although, on second thought...it might be
better to just bring the pex out of the wall,
make the spiral and put a box on it - no metal.
(?)

[Ko_deZ]

I suggest that you get a sheet of metal, preferably aluminium, and solder zig-zag copper tubes to it, spaced about 30cm between. The aluminium sheet will spread the heat. I guess you only need a U actually. Then fasten this to the wall, and put tiles on top of it. Invisible, and quite efficient I would think. A bit annoyed now that my bathrooms are all finished

[Ko_deZ]

Allright, so I finally got my hands on a unit that I believe I can use. It is a R404a unit that has been used for a cold room in a bakery that went bankrupt. From what I can see from wikipedia, this was made to be a replacement for R22, but the oil is different. Does this also mean that I can run this unit with R290, just change the oil? I tried to find the post about this that was made earlier, but I could not find it.

[AC_Hacker]

Originally Posted by Ko_deZ

From what I can see from wikipedia, this was made to be a replacement for R22, but the oil is different. Does this also mean that I can run this unit with R290, just change the oil? I tried to find the post about this that was made earlier, but I could not find it.

I haven't tried to take a compressor from one type of oil to another, but here's my best guess:

R-22 and R-290 both use a mineral oil lubricant. Not so R-404a.

Assuming that you have a compressor that has at least most of it's oil still in it, carefully drain the oil into a container... let it drain overnight. Then measure how much oil came out, and replace that amount with refrigeration mineral oil.

If you don't have any confidence that you have a full charge of oil, Google your compressor model number... there's oil capacity info out there somewhere.

There may also be an issue with contamination of the filter/dryer that is usually found at the input to the compressor. Might want to do some research into that potential problem.

Good Luck,

-AC_Hacker

[randen]

Heated towel bar
Yes I had made one using 3/4 stainless polished tube. Tube bender and silver solder. polished the joints to look factory made. A lot of work. One should feel their wallet from time to time. Do I have more money than time?? The towel bar worked well. Always a dry warm towel at the ready.

Randen

[AC_Hacker]

[QUOTE=randen;14479]Tube bender and silver solder. polished the joints to look factory made./QUOTE]

Randen, if you have any photos of the towel rack, I'd love to see how it turned out.

Also, I seem to recall that we had a discussion about purging a ground loop.

Well, I came across this document that you might find useful.

Sorry, but it does not address the minimum feet per second to do a good purge.

However, this document gets right in to that information. (HINT: 2ft/sec)

additionally you might be interested in browsing about on this page. Looks like interesting information here.

Regards,

-AC_Hacker

[randen]

I would like to up date the thread with my findings. As you may remember I had converted a air handler from Refrigerant cooled to water cooled. The idea was to run water from the ground loop through the air-handler to air-condition the shop. It happend to be the best time to try it out as today July21 we had record high temperatures 37 deg C. with soaring humidity. The water started circulating a noon. Water temp from the ground loop to the air-handler 17 deg C. returning to the loop at 21 deg C. These were stable temps as it ran all day. The air temp in the shop before starting 29 deg C. and after 3 hrs. the temp dropped to 25.6 deg C. The air temp out of the air-handler was 21 deg C. The amount of water (condensation) that was running out was remarkable. I'm going to let it run through the night as I feel the equipment and the shop is heat soaked and full of moisture. So far I'm please with the performance I will up-date the thread with more results soon. It would seam a viable alternative to the extra electical energy to run a compressor. The fan motor and circulation pump requires about 5A at 110V. If I can get the temp down to 24 deg C.or a little lower in this climate would that would make me satisfied with the method.

Randen

[ThomSjay]

And your trench is only about six feet deep? Wow. How high is your water table? I do know that Strathroy is on top of an underground lake of water. (I grew up there).