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Old 02-03-15, 07:29 PM   #11
Elcam84
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ecomodded View Post
If a person had a well or pond they could easily make a pump driven air conditioner , using ceiling mount radiant cooling. Which might be cheaper then powering a table fan.
I have been thinking about running the water from the well through a heat exchanger in the shop. When the pump is running it would kick on a fan to move air across it and cool the shop. Just supplemental cooling for it. Any bit of cooling helps here. It's 20x40x10 insulated metal building with 2 tons of ac which is not enough in the summer here.

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Old 02-03-15, 09:01 PM   #12
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Originally Posted by Elcam84 View Post
I have been thinking about running the water from the well through a heat exchanger in the shop. When the pump is running it would kick on a fan to move air across it and cool the shop. Just supplemental cooling for it. Any bit of cooling helps here. It's 20x40x10 insulated metal building with 2 tons of ac which is not enough in the summer here.
Something like that certainly will work.

However, you need to know that when you reduce the temperature of the air, it becomes more humid. Your water will certainly be doing a lot of the cooling work for you, but you'll need some de-humidification to be comfortable.

Ask EcoRenovator randen, he lives in Canada but his summers get plenty hot and mighty humid. He did some kind of direct water cooling, and it lowered the temperature, but raised the discomfort level.

Your A/C will do some de-humidification.

Painting the roof of your shop white could certainly knock the temperature down.

Growing Kudzu on the roof would help, too... although your neighbors might tar & feather you for it. If you invited them into your shop for cold beer & B-B-Q could help ameliorate the Kudzu fury.

If you have an abundance of cheap water, misting water periodically on the roof will also help.

But if you want to get serious, and if your water flow is sufficient you could buy or build a ground source heat pump and use the well water for heating & cooling. It'll be more efficiency than your air conditioner. But you'll still need in excess of 2 Tons, as things now stand.

Is there still a drought in Texas, or did the Gov execute the drought?

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Old 02-04-15, 06:49 PM   #13
Elcam84
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The ac has no problem getting the moisture out when it's running. It just pours out. Gets quite dry in there as the ac runs at full blast all the time When I'm using the shop because it's undersized for the heat load.

The plan is to use the well water to cool the shop when it's watering the grass. Miget as well use the cool of the water for something.


The shop is a metal building so painting it is out of the question. It's already a light tan and paint will make it a maintenence nightmare. Kudzu won't grow here luckily.
I have done roof misting on a friend's shop and it makes a huge difference in keeping it cooler. Just used micro sprinklers. If I do it with mine I'd have to filter the water. High iron and mineral content.



No GSHP for me here. We don't plan on being here too many more years. Besides my well is only a 4" casing 100' deep. There is supposedly another well but I haven't found it yet. I found this one as it was drilled when the house was built. it was buried in the middle of the yard...
My output is max 8 gpm when the water table is high. Typically it's closer to 6 and drops to 3 at the end of a hot dry summer. The soil here is basically sand for most of that 100' with a little clay here and there.

Yes we are in a drought and have been for over 15 years now. The lakes are pretty sad riget now. It's almost a half mile walk from the bottom of the boat ramp to the water and you have to do allot of walking up hill to get to the water. Need to take some pics and take the metal detector out.
Wells are exempt from water restrictions because water is the property of the land owner or water rights owner not the state. New water wells have to be very deep to get good water and flow now. They recommend 1000' wells now. 200' doesn't get much good usable water anymore. The real issue is that the well drillers are really scalping these days. If you can get someone out it'll cost you a minimum of $25 a foot.


I looked into doing a GSHP for the house a couple years ago and a loop system is not feasible because of the soil type and how far down the loops have to be to hit cool soil. The slab of my shop will get up to 100* in the summer if I'm not running the ac. And well systems have to be depressed as well and they again are $25 a foot. Negative payback on it.
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Old 02-07-15, 07:12 AM   #14
randen
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Elcam 84

If GSHP won't work and the water from the well won't be reliable for out-put and eventually blocking a heat-exchanger with all the minerals in the water.

It sounds like your problem or maybe solution is the sun. How about a huge air to air unit powered by some solar PV panels. Air to air units are cheap and I bet you can find slightly used ones.

An array of PV panels will supply the energy for cooling when its needed the most. When the sun is shinning.
If you don't plan to be there very long you can take the panels and air-conditions with you.

Randen


Last edited by randen; 02-07-15 at 07:15 AM.. Reason: grammer
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