A few reasons:

1: The coil would take up a lot of space in the sump that Hightower did not have.

2: If the coil was in the sump, there would be no way to control the flow rate. I wanted to be able to adjust as many variables as possible with this system as it was my first one and I wanted to be able to tweak it if need be.

3: Stainless steel will corrode if alternately exposed to saltwater and air. By putting the coil in a barrel, we ensure that it will be submerged at all times.

4: It's cooler

Karl

WOW! well thought out!

Another question i have for you is that, does it matter how long the actual cooling coil is? will it affect performance if it is longer? i would think the longer the coil, the more powerful the unit have to be...

The longer the coil, the slower your flow rate needs to be to absorb the same amount of heat from the water.

You can use a shorter coil as long as your flow rate stays high.

If your coil is just dropped into your sump, you have no way of controlling your load. Hightower has a valve on the line feeding the chiller barrel so that we can adjust the load on the condensing unit.

I assume that it is working good. I haven't heard anything to the contrary yet. Hopefully he'll see this and give an update.