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Can I pick your collective brains about an idea for a home cooling solution that I have thought of? (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I'm planning to construct a home sometime in the near future in hot, arid part of the country. Obviously, keeping the home cool is a major concern and I've been considering all available options.

One of the recurrent ideas discussed online is using geothermal cooling. But I think I don't have enough land to implement it. I have a related idea though.

Water supplied during set hours of the day by the municipality is fairly cool even during the summer months and it is a common practice around here to first let it collect in an underground tank and then pump it to the overhead tank as needed.

What if I create a closed loop system of circulating water with two car radiators: one in the underground tank, submerged in cool water and another in the living area of the home with a fan blowing behind it.

Do you think it'll cause perceptible change in room temperature if there is, say, a temperature difference of 10 degrees Celsius between water and ambiance? I intend it to only reduce the load on the air conditioners and/or just delay the use of AC.

What kind of math/physics will be needed to assess if this is a feasibility? I tried looking hard but could not find anyone else discussing this idea, so I'm reaching out to you guys.

Thank you for your time.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sounds similar to the concept of a swamp cooler to me; maybe look up how they calculate efficiency?

Also, swamp coolers are only effective below a certain temp, so you'd need to think about bypassing (cutting the fan and turning on air con) above a certain threshold

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I think it is different from swamp coolers since swamp coolers constantly add moisture to the air in the room which is okay for arid conditions but does not work as the air increasingly becomes saturated with moisture. We use swamp coolers when we can in the initial part of the summers. But they become useless once the rains arrive and the air turns humid.

In the contraption I'm suggesting, does not expose water to the air inside the room. It will work purely on heat exchange principle.