Chillers....

[lefkonj]

My tank has been up for over a year and a half now without a chiller. We have begun changing the temperature we keep the house at, winter its cooler and has resulted in a big savings in our bills. So now for the summer we want to do the opposite but I know i will have to add a chiller. The cost of the chiller will easily be covered by the savings we saw during the winter. Additionally I am aware that there will be an increase in electricity by powering on the chiller but i can not imagine that is anywhere near as much as running my AC units more.

I was looking at the JBJ 1/4HP unit so that my 180 would have no problem maintaining the desired temperature. Are people happy with these units? I say one of the chilling coils online but not so sure about that compared to a real external chiller.

Thanks

 

[mnat]

Just realize chillers can put out impressive heat which you will need to plan for.

 

[Hockeynut]

Is your house on a crawl space? If so you can make an inexpensive geo thermal chiller that will run off your controller and a single pump if interested let me know and I will sketch it for you it is very easy to build and will use very little electric.

 

[lefkonj]

I love the creative thoughts. No it has a full basement. I will most likely get a chiller and just continue to run the ceiling fan so the heat from that gets moved out.

 

[Hockeynut]

No problem just figured I would put the thought out there

 

[jgraz]

Is your house on a crawl space? If so you can make an inexpensive geo thermal chiller that will run off your controller and a single pump if interested let me know and I will sketch it for you it is very easy to build and will use very little electric.

Hey Hnut you have a PM

 

[Zippy69]

I would like to see the geothermal sketch.

 

[Hockeynut]

Ill sketch my idea later after work thanks for the interest

 

[Hockeynut]

Before I start with this I just want to say that this plan is just that, a plan. I have never built this design so I cannot say how we'll it will or won't work. I am a contractor by trade and have built lots of new homes in my 30 years of contracting some of those homes have geothermal heat and AC. With that said I have been intrigued with geothermal principals. It is relatively simple the ground keeps a semi constant temptature when you dig below the frost line. So why not use that constant temp which in nj hovers around 55 degrees. My idea is to plumb a line from my sump ( pump in sump) down through the floor system into my crawl space cut a hole in the concrete dust cover which usually is only about 2 to 3 inches thick dig a 3' wide and 3' deep hole in the soil below. In that hole wrap hose around a cylinder of some sort maybe large PVC or a small garbage can. I would wrap with space between wraps as much as I could fit, come back up and pack the soil around and inside the cylinder. Close the hole back in and repair concrete and run back into the sump.
You would plug the pump into your controller and set it to about 80 degrees. When controller turns on water flows and cooled by the 55 degree soil.
No heat in your living room and only a pump to run.
Things to consider as the hot water warms the surrounding soil it will run less efficient but I believe it will keep up and still cool with water enough to work.
Another point is that you would need a powerful pump to move the water through all that hose and with a powerful pump comes heat in the sump so I would try to run the smallest pump that would work.
I would also want the water to run through very slow to get the most contact time.
Right now I am running MH on my 90 if I do not switch to LED I will build this this summer if I switch I probably won't need to with the AC in my house. So here is a scetch of my idea let me know what you think, ideas to tweak this design are wanted and welcome Solent me have um...

 

[whitesquall]

I was going to do geo thermal for my reef a couple of years ago, but my design incorporated a stainless steal or titanium coil in the sump as a heat exchanger as apposed to running tank water through the hose. Here is the two reasons, #1-if the circulation pump shuts off for any extended period of time, like at night when the lights are off and your home AC can keep tank temp in normal range, the water sitting the the tube will build up sulphur, then the next day when the lights come back on and the tank water heats up needing cooling the stagnant water with sulphur will start to pump into your tank and can kill your inhabitants. "sulphur smells like wroten eggs. #2-I would run RODI water through the hose with hopes of it having less surface tension (thinner liquid) which would result in better heat exchange at both the sump/coil and in the ground/hose.

 

[Hockeynut]

One question why will the hose build up sulphur? how would I penetrate the hose?
On the second point coil with rodi water then it would require a in sump coil which I felt could be a problem you know salt water can rip apart even the best stainless. Good points though, do u think that there is a type of hose that the sulphur would not penetrate?

 

[whitesquall]

Hockeynet, I do agree not all stainless steel is created equal, My plan was to preferably get a titanium coil (same as a drop in style coil chiller).
Sulphur would not penetrate the hose without physical damage, but it will build up in the oxygen depleted saltwater that's been sitting in the hose for several hours without circulation.
Same reason why its bad to disturb an old sand bed, it will release sulphur,Ammonia,Nitrite and Nitrate which the sand bed processes at different depths and oxygen saturation levels.
Sulfur does disipate, but when the concentrations are high it will harm living inhabitants.

 

[Hockeynut]

I guess I wasn't thinking the water would be sitting in the hose for too long especially in the summer months, in the winter time I guess there would be no need for chiller cause I've been running all this winter without one and it's been fine in the summer it would probably be running most of the day and off in the evening. I was thinking that that wouldn't allow it to sit for long enough to cause a problem?

 

[lefkonj]

I know this thread went towards the geo-thermal but figured i would share.

I purchased the 1/4HP JBJ Chiller. The first big thing I had to do was redo my Carbon/GFO reactors and UV because I was going to be replacing those pumps with a Mag12. So this meant a lot of new plumbing. I created a manifold that would take the feed from the Mag12, then split of to the chiller, UV, Reactors, return. Each output has a ball valve so i can control flow. Took me about 5 hours yesterday to get the plumbing right and hung behind and underneath the tank. When all was said and done it works out nicely and everything has the flow it needs.

Now for a funny part. I have a APC battery unit that my Apex and energy bars plug into so that with the typical brownouts I can control the devices that are left on and to shut things off so they don't flip on/off/on/off. I went out for some shopping (wife chores) and came home to my tank not running. The Chiller turned on and as it began going drew too much power for my APC. Of all the things to forget this was mine. So i did a quick calculation and my APC is rated for 1300W and the draw was about 1350W. Time for a best buy run for a second UPS.

Just figured I would share.