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Old 04-28-13, 11:18 AM   #41
stevehull
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Been following the posts on storing and/or lugging water about. Seems like a lot of work. But I do have something to contribute that is directly applicable to the "stone age geothermal". It provided me with about 12-18 K BTU of cooling and very little cost.

Some 22 years ago I designed and built a home for us in central Oklahoma and built a basement. The "knowledgeble people (AKA builders) said it would not work, would be wet/clammy etc. It was not and is not.

Standard poured 3000 psi walls on footings, however, I applied closed cell foam on the outside of the walls. This minimized, actually completely prevented, condensation as the wall surface never got to the critical dew point. Deep well temp here is about 60F, but closer to the surface it approaches 70 in the summer.

We also had all the return air go through the basement. The proforma, before building, showed an additional 12K BTU cooling. Measurements show that I was a bit conservative and it is about 18K BTU.

Subslab insulation still has me on the edge. In the summer the floors are delightfully cool, but in the winter, they feel cold. The floor adds a lot to the thermal mass, but perhaps I would have used an inch of closed cell foam there too.

Note that the above is highly regionally specific. Lots of cooling degree days, not a lot of high dew points in the summer and a ground water temp in the low 60's.

I have seen a very interesting applications where large diameter (24") deep water columns were put in basements (New Hampshire) with convection in the vertical column providing heat movement. The column went up to the first floor, but did not provide the amount of heat projected. Very good convection as some of the colums were clear plastic and a drop of dye showed the water movements.

And no lugging water jugs!!

Steve

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Old 04-28-13, 12:52 PM   #42
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AC,

I tend to think more in terms of emergy use. This along with the exergy analysis works very well to determine the real eco-cost and efficiency of energy use in general.

"Beginning in the last century man began to develop an entirely new basis for power with the use of coal, oil, and other stored-energy sources to supplement solar energy. Concentrated inputs of power whose accumulation had been the work of billions of acres of solar energy, became available for manipulation by man.

The first formal statement of what would later be termed emergy was in 1973:

Energy is measured by calories, btu’s, kilowatthours, and other intraconvertable units, but energy has a scale of quality which is not indicated by these measures. The ability to do work for man depends on the energy quality and quantity and this is measurable by the amount of energy of a lower quality grade required to develop the higher grade. The scale of energy goes from dilute sunlight up to plant matter, to coal, from coal to oil, to electricity and up to the high quality efforts of computer and human information processing.

Given next are definitions of most important terms used in the emergy methodology.
Emergy is the available energy of one form that is used up in transformations directly and indirectly to make a product or service. The unit of emergy is the emjoule or emergy joule. Using emergy, sunlight, fuel, electricity, and human service can be put on a common basis by expressing each of them in the emjoules of solar energy that is required to produce them. If solar emergy is the baseline, then the results are solar emjoules (abbreviated seJ). Although other baselines have been used, such as coal emjoules or electrical emjoules, in most cases emergy data are given in solar emjoules."-copied straight from wikipedia.

Most seasoned designers have the mindset that energy is energy is energy. It's all the same, no matter how you get it. They will design their contraptions to be the least expensive in 99% of cases, taking a total cost of ownership approach. IMHO, this works against the concepts of exergy and emergy efficency, and when you step back and take a look at the total package created, it is horribly wasteful.

America has a lot to learn from our European neighbors. We cannot continue to horde and gobble up all the energy the earth can muster forever. Eventually high-grade energy will be priced out of economic reach of most of us. The energy we need is in the ground and the sun, things that the Carnegies and Rockefellers of today can't sell us! If it worked for the Romans for hundreds of years, why can't it work for us today?

By the way, I can't get enough of the research you have done. I just love the way you spout out information freely that "professionals" tend to hold close to the vest or deny flatly. It has helped me greatly. Keep up the good work, brother.

Jeff
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Old 04-28-13, 01:34 PM   #43
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Scottorious,

Determining your heat load requirements will tell you how big and what kind of heat exchange devices to employ. The math and sizing involved is the easy part. An important factor to consider is your well water source. If it varies much or not, average vs peak temps; required flow rate; pump power consumption; etc. The big thing is that your dT is not going to be 30-50 degF like a high-grade source, so you will need to have more surface area than the industry-standard devices use. This fits in well with your thermal store idea. More is better, too much isn't.

A lot depends on your expectations, skill level and taste. These things are hard to generalize about. A barrel with a stovepipe running through it rigged to a computer fan might not be something you would be willing to look at every day, but it would work for Joe Dirt. A caveman wouldn't care if the thing was ugly. With me, if I can get the thing to do what I want without endlessly fiddling with controls, and I can dress it up well enough that my wife doesn't grimace when she looks at it, that's good enough for me.

Then again, some of the devices I have created are beyond dressing up. Even though they work like magic, they are way too Mad Max for her taste. These misfits live in the barn or the dungeon (aka basement) and I love them all. Sometimes the journey isn't about the end.
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Old 04-30-13, 12:39 PM   #44
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jeff5may View Post
...spout out information freely that "professionals" tend to hold close to the vest or deny flatly...
Big energy changes are ahead for us, and time is getting short...

I'm doing my bit to try to re-establish 'The Commons', the idea that there is land or culture, or lore that is freely available for everyone. I think that pursuits driven by the profit motive are a second-tier activity.

There really is some amazing information here on EcoRenovator, thanks to the sharing of information resources and especially hands-on knowledge of everyone.

Thank you for your kind words.

Best,

-AC
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Old 06-07-13, 09:26 AM   #45
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I've hauled water most of my life in these thin walled plastic gallon jugs. They will eventually leak and they degrade in the sunlight. Usually a very slow leak that you don't notice until it has soaked into whatever you value most.
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Old 06-08-13, 08:39 AM   #46
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Here are some numbers for the stone-age water movement. Let's suppose you move 1000 gallons(8000 lbs) twice per day, and it takes you 1 minute to make a round trip carrying 4 jugs (32 lbs). If anyone is in good enough shape to maintain a faster pace over 250 trips, it's time to enter some competitions!

Let's assume optimistically that you gain an 8 degree differential per day from 69-77F once per day. My Atlanta basement floor is 73F by the end of the summer and gets down to 64 by the end of winter. Even if the natural temps are lower in northern climes, it won't stay that way once you continually add heat to the earth. Your 8 hours of extreme exercise per day has gained you 64,000 BTU, most of which you added back to the house in sensible heat and latent humidity.

The biggest problem for many areas is the humidity. I have lived in Tuscon and learned that if it is 120F outside but you are in the shade and not terribly active, you are comfortable. Here in Georgia, you are often miserable at 80F. The latent heat load to dehumidify a building is much greater than the sensible temperature load. If you have indoor humidity greater than 70% for more than brief periods, you are asking for mold problems. I found this out the hard way when I decided to pull outdoor air in through the basement and out through the upstairs windows. It cooled surprisingly well for a while, but then I had a mold nightmare.

Any scheme to use well water or water movement that doesn't get the air down below 55F or so won't dehumidify well enough and won't work except in reasonably arid regions.

Where these ideas really shine is in taking some load off the air conditioner or moving it to different times. Well water pumped through a coil before the air conditioner will take some of the sensible heat away, and lets the A/C do the dehumidifying work. If the pre-coil is big enough to not cause a lot of air restriction and your water pump is efficient, you will see a net gain.

Scottorius, you could modify your stoneage idea by stacking 30 or 55 gallon drums of water in the rooms that get the largest temperature swings to temper the peak load and move some of it to when your electricity is cheaper and your ac is more efficient. You can usually get these drums free from carwashes-they have more than enough! Disguise them as columns or end tables and the ladies will be happy. Make sure you place them close to the ends of loadbearing members and don't put them too close together if not on a slab.

Temperature has inertia, but so does humidity. Wallboard, fabrics and wood that the house and its contents are made of breathe, releasing and absorbing humidity. Cooling the house off at night with cool but more humid air takes away much of this humidity control reserve, making it more humid in the house in the middle of the day and might make the total cooling load higher. Sometimes it is better to just keep the humidity average lower, making the house more comfortable during the day.

I have installed a 23 SEER Nordyne AC in my fairly large house. I haven't been able to get it to take more than 15kwh per day even set on deepfreeze and with 40 people over for a party. The average is around 10kwh/day. The builder grade crap I had before would sometimes take around 80kwh/day.

AC, you should have been a preacher! Charmaine and I have been laughing out loud everytime we think of your quote from Renovations for 3 days straight now!

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