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Old 10-30-13, 07:59 PM   #81
Hv23t
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AC_Hacker View Post
You should read this post...

...It is about your water heater hack.

Seriously,

-AC
Yeah that is good info. On my setup I'm not using it to seal in the refridgerant. I'm using it as a bulkhead fitting to keep the water in the tank and allow the hx lines to come out/in.
I know I havnt updated this thread in awhile. Mainly because there isn't much to update. It's been about 11 months since I've installed it and it's been pretty much flawless. The kill a watt is estimating 184.21 for a year. If I get time someday I'd like to add a air temperature controlled fan to vent the room when the outside air is warmer than the inside. In the summer is stays really cold in there lowing the efficientcy.

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Old 10-31-13, 12:32 AM   #82
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Wouldn't it make more sense to move the cooled air where it's needed? Or put the heat pump where cooling is useful like mine does, but that's a little hard when you already built it...
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Old 10-31-13, 12:54 AM   #83
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Wouldn't it make more sense to move the cooled air where it's needed?
Some of the European units have baffles to direct the cool air from
the evaporator coils into the house or outside, as the season requires.

-AC
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Old 03-12-14, 07:06 AM   #84
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Default Rebirth of old window units and water heaters???

Hello HV and the rest of you scroungers!
I followed this thread while collecting parts for my own project but naught from HV for months????
My current thoughts are to run about 20 ft of 3/16" copper refrig tubing inside 20 ft of 3/4" copper tubing, then anneal the 3/4 so I can spiral bend it at maybe 30° around the outside (actual tank or just the cover?) Of my reborn 80 gal W/H. Then connect the bottom of the 3/4 to a T off the bottom tank drain and the top of it to a T at the top exit tap of the W/H and voila thermosiphon!!
The 3/16 would be the condenser of my 5K window unit sitting in the garage. (maryland coast) I figure a window unit might work better than a dehumidifier since they are designed to dump heat into 100° air?
I have a bunch of questions:
Do I need spacers inside the 3/4?
Is 3/16 too small and will the combo thermosiphon enough heat out of the condenser??
Why can't I just watch sports on Saturday like normal guys??
Later plans are for a similar tube in tube ground water coupled evaporator but this is the first bite and I've never even brazed HVAC lines.
Any thoughts??
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Old 03-12-14, 11:35 AM   #85
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ron342 View Post
Hello HV and the rest of you scroungers!
I followed this thread while collecting parts for my own project but naught from HV for months????
My current thoughts are to run about 20 ft of 3/16" copper refrig tubing inside 20 ft of 3/4" copper tubing, then anneal the 3/4 so I can spiral bend it at maybe 30° around the outside (actual tank or just the cover?) Of my reborn 80 gal W/H. Then connect the bottom of the 3/4 to a T off the bottom tank drain and the top of it to a T at the top exit tap of the W/H and voila thermosiphon!!
The 3/16 would be the condenser of my 5K window unit sitting in the garage. (maryland coast) I figure a window unit might work better than a dehumidifier since they are designed to dump heat into 100° air?
I have a bunch of questions:
Do I need spacers inside the 3/4?
Is 3/16 too small and will the combo thermosiphon enough heat out of the condenser??
Why can't I just watch sports on Saturday like normal guys??
Later plans are for a similar tube in tube ground water coupled evaporator but this is the first bite and I've never even brazed HVAC lines.
Any thoughts??
To make it work like thermosiphone it has to be vertical and vertical part as high as possible. You can have 2 or 3 parallel sections (depends on capacity) but sections must be bertical. I wouldn't worry about inside tube touching outside. Make sure your inside tube is refrigeration one and not a cheapo junk. I would use 1/4 acr tube line. Just start with 1 section 3/4 outside 1/4 acr inside. Make it as high as possible like 8-10 feet. If you discharge pressure goes to high add one more parallel section.
A small water pump would make your life easier but you want a challenge
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Old 03-12-14, 11:48 AM   #86
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ron342 View Post
Hello HV and the rest of you scroungers!
I followed this thread while collecting parts for my own project but naught from HV for months????
My current thoughts are to run about 20 ft of 3/16" copper refrig tubing inside 20 ft of 3/4" copper tubing, then anneal the 3/4 so I can spiral bend it at maybe 30° around the outside (actual tank or just the cover?) Of my reborn 80 gal W/H. Then connect the bottom of the 3/4 to a T off the bottom tank drain and the top of it to a T at the top exit tap of the W/H and voila thermosiphon!!
The 3/16 would be the condenser of my 5K window unit sitting in the garage. (maryland coast) I figure a window unit might work better than a dehumidifier since they are designed to dump heat into 100° air?
I have a bunch of questions:
Do I need spacers inside the 3/4?
Is 3/16 too small and will the combo thermosiphon enough heat out of the condenser??
Why can't I just watch sports on Saturday like normal guys??
Later plans are for a similar tube in tube ground water coupled evaporator but this is the first bite and I've never even brazed HVAC lines.
Any thoughts??
I would encourage you to go ahead and try it. You might be pioneering a new way to make a water heater.

However, my personal thought is that having the condenser coil INSIDE the tank is a great way to go because of the total exposure, and there is thermo-siphonic action going on there and there is minimum resistance to the flow. Also, you won't be leaking heat back to the sky, except from the tank itself, but that's another project.

> I figure a window unit might work better than a dehumidifier since they are designed to dump heat into 100° air?

Using the condenser from your AC unit as an evaporator coil sound like pretty clever thinking to me.

> Do I need spacers inside the 3/4?

I'm not so sure that efficiency increases from using spacers will justify the hassle.

> Is 3/16 too small and will the combo thermosiphon enough heat out of the condenser??

I'm not sure that anybody here can answer that one. You idea will work, but if you could force (pump) a higher rate of water flow, it would work better.

If you really want to come to grips with thermo-siphon and resistance to flow, etc. You might want to try to find an old book on steam heating, written at the beginning of the 20th century. Those guys became masters of thermo-siphon engineering.

> why can't I just watch sports on Saturday like normal guys??

Either you have become inspired by the vision of being able to free yourself from the numbing world of pre-manufactured products, or else you just aren't getting enough fiber in your diet.

It's usually one of those two things.

-AC



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Old 03-12-14, 06:23 PM   #87
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Thanks guys
I think I'll try it with 1/4 HVAC tubing inside the 3/4, I would try the straight up and down parallel runs but wanted to counterflow the hottest refrigerantbdown from the top and that would be complicated by the parrallel runs.
First i'll try to bend it around the tank!
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Old 03-12-14, 07:02 PM   #88
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It all depends on your demand. If you want faster recovery time, a higher capacity unit will heat more water faster. The behavior of the unit can be twisted no matter how the unit was designed originally. A dehumidifier has been done, as well as a run-of-the-mill 5000 btu window a/c unit. Both are in operation today. According to their respective hackers, they both do the job cheaper than they did before as electric units.
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Old 03-12-14, 08:10 PM   #89
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Default another hot water tank heat pump

Having built the DIY hot water heater hack I wish to report a resounding success. I will offer up the findings to date. Its been about 45 days in operation and the parents are quite pleased albeit not quite used to the lower 130 Deg. F temp. compared to the previous propane powered HWT of 180 Deg. F.

To compare some of the operational cost of water heating options. A quick look at the energy guide for the HWTs. A electric water heater is rated a 4880 Kwh/year with $0.18/kwh is $878.00 per year. A propane powered HWT will use 1052 ltr (278 us gal) @ $1.20/ltr is $1262.00 per year.

Now for the DIY Hot water heater hack we are seeing 106 Kwh/month (Kill-O-Watt Meter). That works out to 1272Kwh/year and ONLY $228.00/year AWESOME!!!

Ron342 Wrote:Why can't I just watch sports on Saturday like normal guys??

Now Knowing these costs,Who can afford to just watch sports??

The hack is with a 5000Btu window shaker. The heat-exchanger in the tank is working extremely well. I had copied Hv2T s idea. "the corkscrew condenser"

The BBQ gas refrigerant has offered up another advantage of lower power consumption. The 5000Btu window shaker uses about 500 watts with R22 and the R290 is running with 380 watts

Randen
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Old 03-12-14, 09:06 PM   #90
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The BBQ gas refrigerant has offered up another advantage of lower power consumption. The 5000Btu window shaker uses about 500 watts with R22 and the R290 is running with 380 watts...
Randen,

I didn't want to be the one to break this to you... but in the summer, your efficiency will increase even more.

Best,

-AC

P.S.: How did you deal with the defrost issue?

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