Dont buy a chiller ... use a heat exchenger

[mike31154]

Originally Posted by harlequin01

interesting topic, what is the highest temperature you get during a very hot summer day?

Here in the Okanagan it's not unusual to be in the mid to high 30's outside for a couple of weeks straight at the height of summer. The central air in my older home hasn't worked since I moved in, yet I'm able to stay reasonably comfortable using a portable air conditioner & by opening all the windows overnight. I don't require a chiller for my fish tank. Due to the clear skies during these hot spells, it cools off substantially overnight, similar to a desert where it can drop to near freezing. Some folks simply seal up their homes 24/7 & run central air all summer. Don't think I could afford the hydro bill & if BC Hydro has their way, prices will rise substantially over the next few years. Time to invest in some solar panels & get the wind generator on the roof.

[RuGlu6]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

I guess the whole point of this, and I refrained from saying it in my original post, as it has been said numerous times over the years.

we all know when it gets hot we can have problems, and we all know that the areas we live in get hot, some more than others, but we end up complaining about tank times every year, and a lot complain about die offs. so what do we do, we come up with some 2 buck inefficient way to cool our tanks. yes in a emergency in a power outage, you have a heck of a good way to bring your tank temp down.

but here is my question to you, and any others looking at this.

we spend thousands of bucks on our corals and fish, but yet we balk at spending 2 to 400 bucks on a chiller that will do a much more efficient job and will come on and turn off automatically with out you having to be home.

does this make sense to you?

Steve

Yes, what you say makes a lot of sense, and i respect your opinion i do.
Agree wit a lot of what you saying:
2 buck system yes,
Inefficient not so much , it is efficient and it works. (how would you know if you don't try? when i built it i didn't know until i did. Now that i know it works i can share it with people "open source idea" sort of thing)

Automated; yes chiller is more automated however, because it is more complex it is less reliable. My system is less automated, But its automated enough to keep steady temperature. I have flow valve for flow control and "automated" heater in the sump which will turn on when water gets too cold. So it is efficient cooling and semi-automated. I get flow valve closed just enough to not get it too cold to prevent the heater to turn on too frequently.
My system with no moving parts is so simple and therefore way more reliable then a chiller. Plus its absolutely silent compare to a chiller that can be pretty noisy and chiller will expel heat in to your room that is already hot.

I am actually very proud of this idea its simplicity, reliability, cost effectiveness and its being environmentally friendly.

Outside temp does not go from +30C to +18C overnight in that regard this system is pretty good and stable once you set it, its good for a week or so.
If you out of the house for a month its a different story.

I also respect your choice in having a chiller there is absolutely nothing wrong. Some people build huge tanks in to their houses and spend close to 100k on it, there is nothing wrong with that, but is it a good model for everyone?
My choice is not to have a chiller and there is nothing wrong with that ether.

I wold like to thank some people on here who do like this DIY idea for support and also thank you for a PM.

So if you decide to try this, use about 25 feet of tubing (to make a coil) for every 50Gal of water volume to make a coil in the sump. If you look at the picture of the 25 foot coil it takes very little room in the sump.

For emergency cooling you don't even have to have a sump , you can submerge the heat exchanger coil tubing in the display tank for a week or so when it gets too hot.
The important thing is to have heat exchange tubing coiled loose, to have it all completely submerged, and to have it in a highest water flow area if possible.

Cheers.

[Reef Pilot]

Originally Posted by RuGlu6

Yes, what you say makes a lot of sense, and i respect your opinion i do.
Agree wit a lot of what you saying:
2 buck system yes,
Inefficient not so much , it is efficient and it works. (how would you know if you don't try? when i built it i didn't know until i did. Now that i know it works i can share it with people "open source idea" sort of thing)

Automated; yes chiller is more automated however, because it is more complex it is less reliable. My system is less automated, But its automated enough to keep steady temperature. I have flow valve for flow control and "automated" heater in the sump which will turn on when water gets too cold. So it is efficient cooling and semi-automated. I get flow valve closed just enough to not get it too cold to prevent the heater to turn on too frequently.
My system with no moving parts is so simple and therefore way more reliable then a chiller. Plus its absolutely silent compare to a chiller that can be pretty noisy and chiller will expel heat in to your room that is already hot.

I am actually very proud of this idea its simplicity, reliability, cost effectiveness and its being environmentally friendly.

Outside temp does not go from +30C to +18C overnight in that regard this system is pretty good and stable once you set it, its good for a week or so.
If you out of the house for a month its a different story.

I also respect your choice in having a chiller there is absolutely nothing wrong. Some people build huge tanks in to their houses and spend close to 100k on it, there is nothing wrong with that, but is it a good model for everyone?
My choice is not to have a chiller and there is nothing wrong with that ether.

I wold like to thank some people on here who do like this DIY idea for support and also thank you for a PM.

So if you decide to try this, use about 25 feet of tubing (to make a coil) for every 50Gal of water volume to make a coil in the sump. If you look at the picture of the 25 foot coil it takes very little room in the sump.

For emergency cooling you don't even have to have a sump , you can submerge the heat exchanger coil tubing in the display tank for a week or so when it gets too hot.
The important thing is to have heat exchange tubing coiled loose, to have it all completely submerged, and to have it in a highest water flow area if possible.

Cheers.

This idea has my interest. My chiller ran a lot last summer, and undoubtedly contributed significantly to my hydro bill. I have an Apex incl temp probes, an IO Breakout box and a couple water solenoids. So I could completely automate a cooling system, just like my chiller.

But I don't have a lot of room in my sump. I assume your tubing was just standard RO type. I wonder if there is another thinner wall type tubing available from somewhere that would take less room and maybe even better heat exchange capabilities?

[banditpowdercoat]

Possibly not so good for those of us on Septic systems either. Would be introducing a lot of extra water on the system. But I have toyed around with the idea quite a bit. Even using a old car rad with 12v fan as a outside heat exchanger. But what fluid to use in the cooling loop, that won't freeze? Car antifreeze would be devastating if a leak occured.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by RuGlu6

Agree wit a lot of what you saying:
2 buck system yes,
Inefficient not so much , it is efficient and it works. (how would you know if you don't try? when i built it i didn't know until i did. Now that i know it works i can share it with people "open source idea" sort of thing)

not intending to say don't use it, yes for down on the coast/Victoria or north where people have cooler climates it is a good idea for occasional heat waves, but I did try this very same thing oh probably about .. what was it Brad, 15 years ago when I was the cheapest reefer on the planet?

anyways yes it is horribly inefficient (doesn't mean it won't work though) plastic has more insulating properties than not, and its heat transfer is pour compared to other stuff. plus the non recovery of the cooling medial makes it inefficient.

in my first house in Victoria I had no physical way to use a chiller, no AC int he house, tank was in the middle of the front room and no where to hide the chiller or vent the waist heat. so I had 200 feet of 1/4" line that I would go from he kitchen to the front room and back to the sink, the rest being coiled in the sump. I did this for weeks at a time in that house as it was poorly isolated, I had lots of MH lights ect.... and yes it did work. when I bought my next house in Vic, I had a 4' crawl space and where I put the tank I could cut small holes and run lines under the stairs to the crawl space. this is where I put the chiller, no noise, no anything, wouldn't even know it was there and kept my tank to a 0.3 degree temp swing. with the poly tube system I was always watching my temp and adjusting the flow.

up here in Kamloops, I would have to be pretty crazy to use tube as a regular cooling system as our water is ok up to a specific volume then it is unjustly expensive, and if you didn't have central AC the amount of cooling you would need would be crazy. most days from June to end sept mid oct are in the high 30's at my house and I get lots of day in the low to mid 40's and unlike Vernon it doesn't cool down much at night and yes Kamloops is a semi arid dessert. usually the lows are low 20's.

so as I said, everyone should have a 100' roll of polly tune, for the 10 bucks it can save a tank during the unexpected heat wave, and for some people if the water prices are right and the heat not to extreme might work good, other it might not be enough.

I will be the last person to say an idea is bad, just look at some of the stuff I used to post 15 years ago. I may point out some issues, or make some suggestions though...

I just remembers, for a while the craze was using chloroplast sheets to make tap watter chiller plates that was kinda cool to. another thing people were doing is digging big deep holes in there back yard and putting coils int hat also then making a closed loop geothermal cooling set up.

Steve

[mike31154]

Some interesting info I read in the local paper since it's 'water wise' week here. Not saying this would be the same for everyone, but food for thought. "Running a tap for 5 minutes can be equivalent to running a 60 watt bulb for 14 hours". As mentioned, your idea works fine, but as far as efficiency? Folks would have to do a bit of math depending on where they live to see if this method would really be as efficient as an alternative such as a chiller or fan blowing across the water surface.

One way or another you and I (the consumers) end up paying for the power to run the large pumps municipalities, cities or other water providers use to get potable water to our tap. Aside from or regardless of the actual abundance (or scarcity) of water, it still has to be pumped to your house. And in BC, that often means uphill, meaning plenty of head pressure to overcome. All you folks with sumps know what that means. Multiply the fraction of a horsepower of your little pump by several thousand (or more!) and it puts things into perspective. Then there's the issue of how that power is produced, in BC mostly dams, elsewhere.... coal, nuclear.... If you don't have a water meter, the city raises your property tax or the landlord raises the rent to cover his/her expenses.

[RuGlu6]

Originally Posted by mike31154

Some interesting info I read in the local paper since it's 'water wise' week here. Not saying this would be the same for everyone, but food for thought. "Running a tap for 5 minutes can be equivalent to running a 60 watt bulb for 14 hours".

If you take time to read my OP, you will find that i am not "running a tap", a slow drip of 2-4 drops per second is far cry from running a fully open tap.
When you have a car rad with fully open tap running thrugh to cool a house that's different, but at least the guy was watering his grass at the same time, got to give him a credit at least for that.

[Reef Pilot]

And when I was cooling the solarium/house with the car rad, I didn't have the tap wide open either, just enough to make the water sprinkler work so I could water my grass. My point also was that it didn't take a lot of water flow to provide a lot of cooling with the rad.

As to which way costs more to the environment, running water or using electricity to run a chiller or air conditioner, I don't know...

I do know that at our cabin at the lake, we have the best solution. We have solar power for lights and small appliances, etc (no hydro connection). Fridge, stove and hot water runs off propane, and costs us about $40 per year. And in the late evening the cabin gets shade from the mountain side trees, so it is cool enough to sleep. In the daytime, when it is hot out, we just jump in the lake to cool off. When it is cold out, we burn wood (no shortage of that out there) in a fireplace.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Reef Pilot

Fridge, stove and hot water runs off propane, and costs us about $40 per year. .

man either you don't use it much or you have super duper high efficiency stuff. most propane fridges will burn 100 bucks of propane in a summer by themselves.

Steve

[Reef Pilot]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

man either you don't use it much or you have super duper high efficiency stuff. most propane fridges will burn 100 bucks of propane in a summer by themselves.

Steve

We don't run it all the time, just when we are there (or know that we will be back in a couple days). It is not a large fridge either. But yes, it is very efficient, and always amazed just how little flame it takes to keep everything cool, incl the freezer. When you put your hand over the little chimney, you can hardly feel any heat at all. My guess it that a propane fridge would probably cost less to operate than a normal home electric one (but I could be wrong).