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Shop cooler/grass waterer

7K views 25 replies 15 participants last post by  northwoodneil 
#1 ·
Neighbor has a system of cooling his shop and watering his grass/garden at the same time. He uses an old air conditioner w/o the compressor and runs water through it on out to where he needs the water. Fan blows accross the coils cooling his shop in the process. (Well water, so its pretty cool as it comes out of the ground.)
 
#2 ·
A large restaurant here did that for about 30 years, until they ran out of water.
In humid climates, it takes really cold water, about 45 deg, to dehumidify the air.

Most large commercial buildings are cooled with recirculated water chilled by large central refrigeration machines connected to cooling towers.
 
#3 ·
Prairie land cooler

I'd seen the remains of a old cooling system, involving a windmill/pumpjack, a above ground cement cistern tank with bentinite bottom and 3/4" galvanized steel pipe running water to the shop where it was run through a old truck radiator with a old rusty steel box fan (air exchanger) wired to the face of it, it had a check valve and a return to the cistern tank my guess was they primed the line and it siphon fed? :-\ it could have had a pump of some sort but not shure as part the line was missing.
 
#4 ·
I remember hearing of a Rancher down in central part the county that had a simular set up with a flowing well supplying cool water to a tractor radiator in the shop with a solar powerd fan running.

I guess you could use a rain barrel or horse tank on the north side the shop in the shade and a 12volt yard fountain pump with the return hose back to the rain barrel/ horse tank, operate a solar powerd fan off a couple solar panels to run on a sunny day.
 
#6 ·
I believe that is called a swamp cooler . There are companies that build them for commerical use. They are limited by the humidity and there is a chart as to how effective their use is in different parts of the country. Service stations around here used then along with waste oil burners for heat at one time.
 
#7 ·
Miami, Ft lauderdale area, swamp coolers are what they used in homes up into the 50s & 60s, working people. ear
 
#8 ·
Swamp coolers cool air by spraying water directly into the airstream. Some of the water evaporates, absorbing heat in the air.
Water temp is about the same as the air temp.
The result is cooler but more humid air.
Works great in dry climates; not so good in humid climates.
I would be amazed to see one be very effective in Miami (Fla?)

Do the same thing with chilled water and its called an air washer.
Water in the air condenses on the cold water droplets, lowering humidity and temperature.
Popular in textile mills.

Either can be a source of legionella, if not properly maintained.

Cornbelt's neighbor's setup does not rely on evaporation, only on a temperature change in the water and airstreams. The greater the difference in the two temps, the greater the cooling effect.
 
#9 ·
PowPow,
I never saw one, they were probably calling what they had by the wrong name. My pop was telling me about what my aunt and uncle in Lauderdale had, I'm certainly not sure but what you said makes plenty good sence, I was thinking in that direction already. ear
 
#10 ·
Here they use a closed cooling tower and a ID coil with a fan (air handler -furnace etc) . The fans with a ring of nossles to mist are different. Misting fans . Agri supply and Kings Dominion both have misters. There is quite a large project in Va. that is using a large number of swamp coolers in an effort to cool over a million sq. ft. . The units are verr high tech but still swamp coolers ( they don't like that term on site ::) ) and they are seeing Va. humidity and high heat for the first time this summer. Keep in mind no water from the systen is released into the air stream . The problem is the units won't chill the air enough to remove moisture so it condenses on the concrete floor and other surfaces enough to puddle enough to be a comcern. There is a company that produces swamp coolers and they can tell you how effective their product will work in your area. In Va. its around 40% of the year .
 
#11 ·
Hatchery where I once worked had several swamp coolers up on the roof. They each had four sides and four bags of excelsior wicking up from a shallow tank fed by a float system. Of course they didn't care how much humidity or condensation they got since the birds needed it. The excelsior bags got changed once a year and were usually sorta moldy, but it felt good to be able to stand underneath and get momentarily cooled.
 
#12 ·
You can also use a cooler for the reservoir. Freeze salt water in bottles. Put in as many as the cooler will hold and have the same amount in the deep freeze to rotate out. Put water in the cooler. Use a pump to cycle the clean water through a radiator with a fan on it. Put a little liquid soap in it to decrease the surface tension of the water. A gallon of windshield washer fluid will also help with the same and keep algae from growing without being corrosive to the copper, brass or aluminum.
 
#14 ·
Swamp coolers work well in low humidity climats like the desert southwest. Not Florida or the southeast. I was born & raised in Florida in 1945 and all I ever saw used was large fans of one type or another. Even in commercial buildings. Until the 60s when buildings started to have centeral ac units built in them. Our family bought a window ac unit in the late 60s. We mounted it through the wall though.

When I moved near El Paso, TX I learned about swamp coolers. They work well in that climate.
 
#16 ·
That is basically what is used in schools here , a water resource heat pump. A boiler and cooling tower combo keeps water at a constant year round allowing heat pumps on one side of the building to operate in cooling and the other side in heat. What it is condenser water as opposed to chilled or hot water.
 
#17 ·
Back in the 60s a West Texas BBQ joint had brush piled up on the roof for shade and had sprinklers spraying the brush. Real wet in the building, and musty smelling, but much cooler than the West Texas sun. ear
 
#19 ·
Here in Phoenix Az a "Swamp Cooler" or "Evaporative Cooler" works well and extremely cheap when the Dew Point is below 50*. My electric bill is $225 using the swamp cooler. It can go over $650-700 easily with the "Air Conditioner". Swamp coolers have come a long ways. There is a two stage that dehumidifies the air slightly (stage 1) and then runs the air threw the special 8"-12" wet pad (stage 2) that helps in humid weather. The water is recirculated from the reservoir to inside the dehumidifier(over sized plastic radiator) and over the pad. I have a Master Cool one hp squirrel cage fan and a 1/40 hp pump in mine cooling 2,300 square feet. The average usage is about 4 gallons of water per hour. Wish i had the first stage. I suffer as long as i can before turning on the $air$. That means taking the wife out to eat when its to hot to cook. Like all this week.
 
#20 ·
Off topic. when I was a kid you could spot people that were on a car trip because of the canvas bag of water hanging from the front bumper.
the water wicking through the canvas evaporated which cooled the water.
 
#22 ·
#24 ·
I knew a guy years back who was going to install PVC conduits in his concrete floor slabs for a new house he was building. The house was next to a canal into the ocean and he was going to pump the cool sea water through the slab. Not sure if he ended up doing this or how well it would have worked - PVC is a poor thermal conductor and I don't think the concrete floor slabs get that hot anyway. Maybe if he pumped the sea water through a heat exchanger on a window into the house this would work. He'd have to use metal piping in the heat exchanger (for good thermal conductivity) and then have the high maintenance for clearing out any sediment or corrosion that built up over time.
 
#25 · (Edited)
I have never lived in a home with AC and don't intend to. It makes my arthritis act up. I live in swamp cooler country which is just a name for evaporative coolers. I have a big one on top of my house. In my garage turned into a shop the garage side is uninsulated and there is a window mounted evaporated cooler to keep it nice in the summer. The other side is well insulated and that's where I do my small tinkering and reloading. It has a window mounted AC unit. No air currents around the reloading bench to bother me and since I'm not in there for long periods of time I don't get achy.


Evaporative coolers work by running water over pads usually made of shredded aspen but also some other materials and the fan sucks air thru the pads and blows it in to the house. I've never seen a home system that spray waters into the air. I put up a mister array on the patio several years ago. It will cool you off with the side effects of making you unable to see thru your glasses and becoming wet after a time. I took it down after a couple of years. I now use a portable swamp cooler and have added a mister arrangement that mists well water onto the pad which greatly increases it's efficiency but causes the water reservoir to run over after a while. It spreads out on the patio and on really hot days I kick off my shoes and put my bare feet on the cool concrete. Nice.
 
#26 ·
I have a friend who built about a 12x12x10 foot shed from rough cedar 10 inch thick walls filled with saw dust. It sat on an insulated concrete floor with copper lines on it. In the coldest part of the Wisconsin winter he'd start running water in the shed an inch or two at time and of course it would freeze. By the end of winter he had a block of ice the size of his shed, he'd seal it up tight and when the heat showed up he would circulate water through the copper pipe and through a radiator in his duct work. It was cold enough to condense and get the humidity out of his house. Last I knew he was working out a few kinks in the rig. I've lost touch with him but might have to look him up to see how it worked out. I've always wondered how long his ice lasted. Around here we've got snow piles that make it into May out in the sun.
 
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