A/C PRE-COOLER!! holy shit!

[HairlessCaveApe]

Head presure is what reads on the red guage you use with hvac. Its how hvac mechanics mesure the presure on the high side of the ac systen. Basicly its a mesurement of the presure inside the condencer coils. Thats whats in the outside part of the ac system. Inside the house you have the evaporator ("low side"), and outside you have the condencer("high side"). I guess coolin the condenser like this product dose mite cause the presure to drop in the condencer coils. If a hvac tecnition says it dose its prolly true. Too bad, I kinda liked the idea. Mabey a fyew other hvac teknitions could be consulted.

 

[oldgrayhair]

I would think if the head pressure theory is such a biggie, all outside units would be protected from rain, which is much heavier of a water volume than any mister can produce.

Here in FL, it can rain for hours and hours, and we damn sure aren't turning off the A/c

Hmmm, we'll see.

 

[Hawk]

My tap water is like 400ppm. I wonder if hard water would turn my condenser into a giant stalagmite over time. Or would that filter soften my water?

Also, are there any commercially available condenser units that integrate water cooling? If not, why not?

 

[HairlessCaveApe]

I would think if the head pressure theory is such a biggie, all outside units would be protected from rain, which is much heavier of a water volume than any mister can produce.

Here in FL, it can rain for hours and hours, and we damn sure aren't turning off the A/c

Hmmm, we'll see.

That sounds prety logical to me!

 

[yamaha_1fan]

Here is what was posted

"On some systems the drop in head pressure will cause the metering device to not feed properly, that can reduce capacity and make the compressor run hot.

-The chlorine in the water will eat up the coils over time."



I am not an AC tech so I have no idea. As far as rain goes, it does not rain 24/7. When it rains, it also cools the house off itself giving the unit some relief. Plus even if the compressor was stressed during a rain, it would only be temporary, while this idea will be running every time the A/C runs.


Personally I am inclined to think it is safe. You are simply cooling everything off.

 

[oldgrayhair]

You're right Yam, it doesn't rain 24/7, nor does A/C run 24/7, and the mister will only run when A/C is on. And correct chlorine should ever touch a thing, that's covered with any inline carbon filter worth a damn.

I keep the house A/C set at 78, if I can get it to where it runs even less and keeps it at 78, I'm happy.

As I'm not growing large anymore, I'll hopefully have some time to focus on this soon...as well as call in some buddy A/C techs and get their thoughts.

It's obvious to me they don't want this out, less use of the A/C, less service calls, less sticking it to us....less $$$ for them.

I'm also thinking you can take a normal 1/4" feed float valve...bout 10 bucks, and heat and flatten it to get relatively close to the design shown in the video.

Be careful though as I imagine this will void any warranty you may have if you leave it hooked up and actually need a tech to come out and see it

 

[Johnny Rotten]

It all depends on your system and water source.....i don't think that little filter is gonna catch everything.

The head pressure drop could be totally insignificant or it could cause the freon to flash off before the metering valve.....basically killing efficiency.

You could just have a A/C guy come out if your having problems and bump the pressures up....

I really wouldn't do this on any new unit unless you have all aluminum coils like Trane
It could really help out an old junker though...

This isn't something new....evaporative air conditioners...google it

 

[HairlessCaveApe]

Far out! Folks who do this could just rince down their coil every once in a while.

 

[yamaha_1fan]

You're right Yam, it doesn't rain 24/7, nor does A/C run 24/7, and the mister will only run when A/C is on. And correct chlorine should ever touch a thing, that's covered with any inline carbon filter worth a damn.

I keep the house A/C set at 78, if I can get it to where it runs even less and keeps it at 78, I'm happy.

As I'm not growing large anymore, I'll hopefully have some time to focus on this soon...as well as call in some buddy A/C techs and get their thoughts.

It's obvious to me they don't want this out, less use of the A/C, less service calls, less sticking it to us....less $$$ for them.

I'm also thinking you can take a normal 1/4" feed float valve...bout 10 bucks, and heat and flatten it to get relatively close to the design shown in the video.

Be careful though as I imagine this will void any warranty you may have if you leave it hooked up and actually need a tech to come out and see it

78 WAY too high for me, we like the house to be COLD, but 74 is the best we can reach

Our A/C runs non stop in the summer. Maybe at night it may shut off for a moment but I dont think so.


This head pressure thing is just what I heard. I have no idea how an A/C unit runs or what this means.

As far as the chlorine goes, I am on a well so it wouldnt phase me because we dont use chlorine.

 

[DIGITALHIPPY]

78 WAY too high for me, we like the house to be COLD, but 74 is the best we can reach

Our A/C runs non stop in the summer. Maybe at night it may shut off for a moment but I dont think so.


This head pressure thing is just what I heard. I have no idea how an A/C unit runs or what this means.

As far as the chlorine goes, I am on a well so it wouldnt phase me because we dont use chlorine.

i was more worried about the water corroding everything inside the unit myself.
dam i dont have the luxary for that comfort stuff, my thermostat is off 99% of the time, unless im in the house and it over 85.... i only run the a/c for a few hours tops. usualy i turn it off untill i steart to sweat again...

anyways so the corrosion was my problem, all the water across the condensor coils might cause heat/cold stress/cracks, or corrosion holes.. copper corrodes easy... but a/cs are made to be outside, in the rain, so there probably protected in all the "right areas"...??

 

[Johnny Rotten]

anyways so the corrosion was my problem, all the water across the condensor coils might cause heat/cold stress/cracks, or corrosion holes.. copper corrodes easy... but a/cs are made to be outside, in the rain, so there probably protected in all the "right areas"...??

Copper doesn't corrode easy....thats why its used. It is the fact that most coils are copper AND aluminum and it is the corrosion of the weld that kills efficiency.

Rain water isn't nearly as hard as most peoples ground water, not to mention the fact of how many people will hook these things up who also have a water softening system. Sodium is a great at corroding. I've seen year old a/c units near coastal areas than have completely bare copper coils with a pile of aluminum dust in the bottom of the unit.

A/c's are meant to be rained on occasionally, not operate in a extremely moist environment's ALL the time. You'll probably have more problems with contactors and circuit boards going bad than anything else.


Your a/c guy will love you if you get one of these. He isn't the power company.

 

[rr14]

nice. My hoa pays for water, not that this thing will make any kind of dent in that bill... For $100, I'd just buy one and use my time on one of my other projects where I could potentially save more money.

 

[GreenScreen]

what if you just used water that was treated with say bleach or something would that help slow corrosion..? because i have free water so this could be very beneficial to me also

 

[yamaha_1fan]

The drop in head pressure you will see is about 20% which in no way will have a negative result.. It simply allows the unit to work more efficiently..



The chlorine will not eat up the coils whereas it is evaporated for the most part and will not adhere to the coils.. We also have a water treatment filter that uses a polymer the distort the geometry of mineral particles so they will not stack and adhere to metal..

response from coolnsave regarding the head pressure and chlorine issue.

 

[Johnny Rotten]

If you have a TXV type metering valve, you'll definitely have no problems. If you have a piston type metering valve, pressure drop could cause flashing off pre-piston. You need a solid line of liquid refrigerant from the metering valve back through to the outside unit. You will hear a intermittent whooshing sound in you A/C if it's happening. Of course there gonna tell you you'll have no problems, there trying to sell you the thing.

 

[Cannabis]

There are a lot of reasons to disregard the fear that wetting the cooling fins & coils is dangerous.

First off is the fact that air conditioners don't turn off thermostatically, when outdoor temperatures create sagging pressure in the refrigerant.

Second are the existence of no thermostatic control on the average compressor fan. If the temperature itself isn't a factor as noted above, yet there was a problem with cooling the refrigerant too much, the fan would have thermostatic control: so the hot, compressed side never lowered too far in temperature due to overcooling.

Third is the already lack of noted protection from rain. If the cooling fins weren't meant to get wet, there would be warning labels; well worn documentation of problems stemming from it; covers sold for air conditioners, competing to provide the ''best protection from damage due to pressure drop" etc.
There would also be a well-known checklist in shopping for air conditioners, dictating ''make sure your air conditioner isn't installed in an area where it can be damaged by rain or lawn care sprinklers."

Nobody's ever heard of that, because such warnings don't exist.

The construction that maybe they don't get wet frequently in rainy climates is also not well considered: in fact one of the primary reasons compressor-based air conditioning is so prevalent around the world is it's ability to dry air, even when it's raining or highly humid outside. They are designed, to run in the rain.

Since Birdseye invented the compressor based air conditioning unit around a century ago, there have been plenty of opportunities to improve them. They've undergone improvements; one of those improvements has never been to try to keep them dry in all these years.

Water out of the ground can arrive at say, 55 degrees. But due to the evaporative cooling effect, if the air outside is dry as a bone, another 20 degrees could be knocked off that if there wasn't heat being added from the fins & coils. So let's say the environment the refrigerant inside sees - the temperature the refrigerant gas itself contacts as it presses out against the metal, is ...oh, let's say 40 degrees.

Ever heard of - anywhere or any time in your life- a special air conditioner installation in a factory, printing press room or hospital... an operating room or anywhere in one - so the air conditioner compressors couldn't be exposed to lower temperatures than 35? We're talking about cooling one because it's so hot here.

I haven't heard of keeping a.c.s warm, but I don't deal with compressor maintenance on a daily basis. But I can tell you this: I work on air conditioned rooms on mountain tops, where temperatures year round rarely get to 50, and it rains there, regularly. Cold rain mixed with hail. Yet, the air conditioner must keep chugging away or that high powered equipment can overheat. Not all the time but the point's there.

I don't think there's a problem actually likely to occur. Because the physics of a compressor just don't react with huge pressure drops, based solely on temperature of the fins. In actual, very fact: the EXISTENCE of the COMPRESSOR is to ensure at least adequate pressurization before it cuts off, bypasses, whatever - and the compressors in air conditioning units most certainly cycle. Part of that compressor's circuitry is a pressure switch to turn it off when OVERPRESSURE conditions are reached. Underpressure just doesn't occur when surrounding temps are hot, regardless of how the fins are cooled.

If you're fairly young and don't know how things work, keep in mind: ever see an air conditioner with a 'rain shroud'? Ever hear of your, or someone else's a/c failing due to an improperly placed sprinkler?

For those of you who've done construction: ever been laying a landscape watering line and had to re-route, or heard landscape guys complaining of having to re-route, a sprinkler line/head? It's rare. And it's not because the sprinkler sprays into the cooling air path, it's because it shoots into the circuitry area & sometimes they'll make one fail, but even that's rare. Because companies know about this and put the circuitry out of the way so exactly such things don't happen.

Ever hear of ANY air conditioner failing due to rain? They tell you to clean the things with a water hose if lawn clippings/dust clog the fins. Ever hear of the warning ''make sure you wash it down when it's off because over-cooling from water could cause a pressure drop failure? No.

Ever hear of a grocery store or other commercial environment with a special shed for the compressors?

I'm not saying you couldn't under pressure one, but I'd be looking again if someone told me it's dangerous to cool the cooling fins.

Something else comes to mind. These guys are putting these units out on the open market. Now; if this was 1908 instead of 2008 I'd be a lot more skeptical, but when someone like what's his name there, Mr. Ecology puts his name out on a product, there's a certain amount of common sense that says he's already been to the mat with the anti-green crowd; he lives in L.A. & he's no fool. If the people are peddling them and recruiting some high(er) profile movie/green living guy to help them that's a secondary indicator you might be ok.

Now; that's the non technical analysis and it's got some apparent, empirical merit.

I'd believe the guys just on the combined merits of those.

Has anybody got or can someone dig up some specs for the lowest operating temperature for a piston valve refrigeration unit? I'm always on for the technicals.

I believe Johnny's description of the symptom: how to detect the low pressure condition - but can anybody find some info for when that condition can be expected to become a statistical possibility? I don't know; and I'd like to. I'll look around myself and post up whatever I find even if it's nil.

 

[Cannabis]

Ok here's a little something. I looked around & found this link to a pdf describing winter operation conditions of some standard air conditioner type.

During page 3 of the PDF there's discussion of compensation to maintain adequate pressure of refrigerant. There's discussion of of the advantages & disadvantages of the compensation method described; it's technically oriented to someone used to working with refrigeration component terms; but anyway they discuss giving one an extra 15% shot of refrigerant, making one operate adequately down to 0 degrees F. reliably. Then it says a 30% over fill should make one operate down to -20.

That makes me figure a standard shot of refrigerant should keep one operating adequately in say, 35 degree ambient temps. I just picked that number as a speculative low; but remember: if you're pondering using one of these, you can't cool the entire fin/coil set down that low.

And even if you could: remember you can't: this problem is a function of the area surrounding the actual valves down at the bottom of the unit working in these low temperatures.
Just spraying the cooling fins & associated coil sections just isn't the same thing.

The Link

Anything else I find I'll post it up. If you find it, post it

 

[Johnny Rotten]

Well, your arguing with an A/C tech and your theories are swiss cheese, buddy. You've even got the basics wrong. It hurts my head to read your ramblings and I won't waste my time correcting them.

Anyways, I've heard stories of a/c units in New Orleans running for a week underwater so they'll do it. I'd say go for it but weigh your options depending on your situation.

 

[Cannabis]

Ok digital here's the bag. The way Begley's film shows it being installed isn't the way they recommend. Their recommended way is putting the misters out 6 inches from the surface of the coils.

It's cooling function is actually based, though, on what the Begley video said: they build a pillow of cooled air around the unit, and whatever few droplets don't evaporate by the time they arrive are evaporated off on contact and cause deposits.

They mitigate those deposits with a poly phosphate based filter treatment to reduce the sticking when they hit; but they say you'll have to dose the fins with some dilute acid about once a month to keep the scaling to a minimum.

They've been selling them for three years.

They got some kids at Tulane University to go through a long, somewhat useless mathematical tail-chasing activity, had their professor sign it, and called it a rigorous study. What it boiled down to was projecting the ease of the load on the compressor at 20% and 70% humidity based on the theoretical math surrounding discharge X quantity droplets in a stream of air; they did actual tests in a controlled environment & verified their math was on.

The company claims 50 micron droplets. The kids divided the mist they were actually able to create into three major size ranges: approximately 365 or so, 600 or so, and 900 or so microns. WAY above the 50 microns the company claims.

They did rate of fall projections for droplets at various wind speeds & stuff like that; they basically gave the kids several whopping math workouts, shooting projections for all three droplet sizes, including rate of fall, time of evaporation, etc, etc.

There's a few more points I'm gonna mention then I'll go.

the entire principle of the thing is indeed the cooled-air pillow around the unit. I figured when Begley said it he wouldn't have had sense to say it without being prompted regardless of the piss-drizzle demonstration.

I'll run over the givens & when you read the thread I post you'll see why i'm pre-loading a few essentials for ya; the thread in the professional HVAC forum where these guys argue with the cool-n-save guys is a mess... you'll see.

You've pretty much got to have their, or some equivalently effective, scale suppression filter. If you don't, you're going to be descaling big time.

They claim the paddle valve as being special. They claim once you're in possession of that paddle, life's different. That, and their filter. They claim their filter as real. It's got a 5 micron screen but the real deal is the polyphosphate they lay on the water to take the bite out of the calcium. It's a poly-whatever with a strong phosphate component; and they paid some guy to design it, and for a bunch of test runs till they got what they claim is a good scale suppression filter.

They've got like.. 2 full engineers, a mechanical engineer, and some guy who's an Electrical Engineer & a Business Administration degree.

Umm.. the Tulane study's real, but worthless. It boils down to '' the microns you are able to sling with the rig as sold are way too large'' and ''the thing works like a motherfucker.'' The microns claim is for real, you guys saw the spritz in Begley's video, and the ''works like a motherfucker'' is actually ''it works'' in real life.

Uh.. trying to think, oh yeah; they actually did get Energy Star rated.

Energy Star is a government overseen & monitored, but industries consortium run standards organization; so it's pretty hard to pay somebody off, because it's people's competitors who authorize their entry into the fold.
If people are bullshitting, they keep em out so they can keep their own energy star status, up. Energy Star's not corrupt & their certifications are real, if reasonable: for the Residential A.C. class stuff, 14% better than average energy performance is the final word on the numbers, and they meet it, at least.

One individual where I'm going to link you who did private tests, managed to eek ~20+(ish) percent out of one of these units by changing the misters out to finer ones, but not 30% savings no matter what he tried.

I found a couple of reports on units purchased not working perfectly: one had a flapper valve that didn't close all the way on shutoff, so it dribbled some water,

and one had the misters clog; although the guy above who changed out to finer misters didn't have that problem so go figure.

There seems to be basically, one 'real' thread on these things on the net, & it's at some HVAC forum, and it's 29 pages long. As with any forum where the average person is.. well, it's like a bunch of monkeys trying to fuck a football till about the last 6 pages, when the two engineers from the Cool-n-Save company finally got it through their heads that evaporative cooling air, drops it's temperature: and when an air conditioner sucks that air in, the air conditioner thinks it's running during an 80 degree F. day, not a 100 degree F one, and does about 20% less work.

I thought dopeheads were stupid.. 29 pages. To explain that you can go out on a misted resturaunt patio in Tucson, and it'll actually be, 76 degrees instead of 90 under the misters, while you have your enchiladas.

There's an electrician on there named MadeinAmerica; he winds up banned; he can't understand what the definition of a watt is.
There's basically a bunch of a.c. installers all congratulating themselves they're the smartest motherfuckers they ever met, ON and ON till it's hilarious..

About page.. I don't remember.. 6 maybe, one of the guys from the actual Cool-n-Save company comes in and starts talking to them, and 20 pages after that, they all finally stfu and admit '' oh yea... it's cooler standing under a mister even if it's drying so fast you're not getting wet".

You'll see when you guys go read it, I just figured I'd prompt everybody it's like reading a dope site thread where everybody's congratulating themselves their way of growing pot is the very, VERY best: page, after embarrassing page it goes on till finally..

"Uh..ahem..oh..Oh I get it now. Sorry I was cursing you and calling you names. But you've got to understand.. we're professionals here..and uh.. we're all really, really smart and uh.. well, yeah; I guess you guys are right."

So:
Pillow of air, cooled by the evaporative effect before it actually hits the fins, to the degree they can make it happen; to the degree they can't, they've got a dosing filter to stop the calcium from sticking to the aluminum

the paddle valve is the patentable component central to their schtick, along with the filter; both of them are requisites for successful deployment without massive de-scaling or wiring an electric irrigation valve to the compressor leads through a transformer.

Don't deploy it the way Begley's local "a.c. expert" did: they recommend a 6 inch standoff, assumably with landscape irrigation stakes. I didn't find out about that. I figured if a bunch of people have a hobby fucking with the D.E.A. they could figure out how to spray water. Maybe not. Who knows..

Mister heights are supposed to be enough, obviously, that you're watering metal, not grass.

Once a month de-scaling expedition.

You may want to be prepared, to go spend 4 bucks on a few finer, lower flow misters.

Trying to think of anything else; I think that's it.

The Tulane Study

and finally,

The mother of all moistness threads

 

[Johnny Rotten]

Jesus, if they didn't understand that, they don't understand the basic theory that allows an a/c to function.

Pressure and temperature are relative to each other. When you raise the pressure of freon to it's superheated vapor you also raise the temp., when you remove the heat, it condenses to subcooled liquid. When the subcooled liquid hits the pressure drop of your metering valve, it flashes off (changes state) and drops pressure as well as temp. Water is doing the same thing around your a/c. It is turning to vapor and lowering the temp around the a/c.

The theories are sound. I might try to make one of these as i don't really care about my a/c.....I've got two replacements sitting in my back yard. I might play ball and test this one out.