Dont buy a chiller ... use a heat exchenger

[Reef Pilot]

I am not sure you really have to waste that much water, as you can slow the flow just enough to cool the sump water. The reason I say that is that in a past house, we had a solarium off the deck that could get quite warm in the summer sun. So I installed a DIY air conditioner using a similar principle.

I got an old car rad from the scrap yard, and built a window like frame, complete with shutters (no ghetto look) to house the rad on one side of the solarium. On the other side, I installed a good sized exhaust fan (also found at a scrap yard), to draw outside air flow through the rad. I modified the rad ports to fit a garden hose, which I would connect outside. The output of the rad then went to a sprinkler for the lawn.

I controlled the flow with the outside water tap, and was surprised how low a flow was needed to provide very good cooling from the rad. We also opened the patio doors to the house, and it would be cooled down as well. I usually had the flow higher than needed for cooling, just to get enough water to make the lawn sprinkler work.

Anyway, the DIY air conditioner worked great, and the bonus was having my lawn watered, which was also needed during prolonged warm spells.

BTW, temps hit 31 C today here in Langley.

[mark]

I had tried similar to warm the source water for the ro unit. Thought higher temperature better rejection rate, don't think it did anything so removed, plastic not being the best for heat transfer. Did get lot of tubing out of it for other projects.

[RuGlu6]

Originally Posted by mark

I had tried similar to warm the source water for the ro unit. Thought higher temperature better rejection rate, don't think it did anything so removed, plastic not being the best for heat transfer. Did get lot of tubing out of it for other projects.

Plastic is definitely Not the best material for heat transfer. But it works on small water volume like mine (65 Gal +sump).
My tank is 23.5 C rock solid even when its hot outside. And that is on slow drip rate.

If you search for NEU you will find that they use heat exchange principle as well.


they use same principal but they extract heat from sewer and storm water via heat pump and thrugh heat exchangers heat up water for Olympic village and SE False Creek. They make tons of money and are being able to keep heat and hot water rates below what BC Hydro charges to do the same with electricity.

If you ever get to go to any of the mechanical rooms of the building that is hooked up to NEU and look at the size of the heat exchanger that serves 4 or so story building you would be surprised how small it is. Its approximately 3 feet high by 2 feet wide !. This is not a joke. Obviously its not made out of plastic, and its thermally insulated, my point is, its very efficient.