coolerado A/C anyone

[inreplyavalon]

I discovered these in lazyman's CO2 thread and think they are pretty amazing. Does anyone have any experience with them?
I am considering an M30 for a future room and wondering about how they can be set up. I am a bit hesitant to have the A/C outside as this may cause a security concern. I live in an area where A/c's are VERY uncommon. Anyone know if these things can be installed in the room and ducted out, or will that ruin the CO2 amounts? I think they will.

Trying to figure out this sealed room thing for the first time

90% more energy efficient than a comparable A/C and pays for itself in 2 years with energy savings! SOunds sweet to me.
.

 

[inreplyavalon]

coolerado.com forgot that.


appears that the unit does need to be placed outside so i am not sure that could work in my situation, but maybe...

 

[Lazyman]

Yeah there are some good diagrams on their site, I think the only practical way to use them is to place the unit outside. If inside, you have to duct/blow TWO exhausts for it back outside, and they are both 12-14" vents. I'd rather have one 12" hole for the cold/dried air inlet and run the 1gph to waste, screw it. They cost the same as a regular split ac to buy (I'm looking at the Excel Air Xl 5-ton and the Coolerado M50) but are much cheaper to operate. The M50 5-ton is $5K, but only draws 600W @ 240VAC. The Excel 5 ton is $5200 retail and draws 7896w @ 240VAC (32.9a) I just need to find out how well the coolerado's work in rain and cold weather.

 

[RMCG]

Lazy,

Any thoughts on using this system in sealed rooms?

'Intake' from room, cooled air ducted back in, AND working air ducted back in?

or working air ducted to inline fan/charcoal filter?

I would assume everything ducted back in to maintain 'sealed' nature of the room.

Any idea on the amount of humidity that would be generated? Issue for a charcoal filter if that was the route?

Looking at either 2 C30's or a single M50.

Power savings alone will pay for the units quickly.

 

[Lazyman]

Yep I was gonna use it in a sealed room (slight positive pressure) but I'm told they work best in hot/dry conditions, not sure how well or even if it works when it gets cold outside. The units should be placed outside though, since they have 2 12-16" exhausts that need to go outside. If outside you just need a 12" intake for it. Humidity is supposed to be unaffected with these. I would use a carbon scrubber on the other side of the room from the coolerado. I would call their tech line and discuss your weather.

 

[RMCG]

Yep I was gonna use it in a sealed room (slight positive pressure) but I'm told they work best in hot/dry conditions, not sure how well or even if it works when it gets cold outside. The units should be placed outside though, since they have 2 12-16" exhausts that need to go outside. If outside you just need a 12" intake for it. Humidity is supposed to be unaffected with these. I would use a carbon scrubber on the other side of the room from the coolerado. I would call their tech line and discuss your weather.

Pretty sure I am in their target customer base, as far as environment goes(they are just down the street) .

If these sealed rooms are located in a much larger building, where I can draw in air, would drawing from outside still be necessary? What sort of temp differential is required? IE internal building temp is in the 70's, room temp in the 90's. Is that enough?

The warming air would definitely have some stink in it, which is why I was thinking of intake from room, cooling to room, then ducting the exhaust to either a lung room where a scrubber was or just an inline helping push through a filter right into the building, but I think the high humidity would destroy the charcoal filter.

Seems like if I pull from external and exhaust external with only cool air ducted in I would definitely have positive pressure or lose CO2 trying to maintain negative pressure.

 

[RMCG]

May not be scrapping the plans for these things afterall. The more I read and think about these units, they just might be the ideal A/C for my situation.

Something like that, but ducting scrubbed air from the room back to the 'working air' intake directly or perhaps into a lung room, scrubbed again and dehumidified, if necessary, then pulled in to the intake.

Top ducting the carbon scrubbed, yet hot & very humid air up and out of the building.

Electrical usage for the M50 (5ton) running 24/7 is ~$100/mo

Traditional equivalent A/C running 24/7 $600-800/mo

Water usage does come in to play. It uses ~1gal/ton/hr. So the M50, running full bore would use an additional 3600gal/mo. (additional $8-15/mo depending on the season).

M50 uses 1250W / 10.5A @ 120 vs Traditional A/C 7kw @ 40A

Not to mention the potential savings of not having to upgrade electrical service.

Something like this:

It seems the hotter the intake air, the greater the cooling potential.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDdhcYiLS54

Starting at ~2:45 on he demonstrates a 100 deg drop from 'in to out'.


Thoughts?

 

[Lazyman]

Yeah you need to have a fairly dry and warm environment for them to work, if it's cold and rainy/snowy it seems they won't work well at all. WHere I live we have very wet winters so I scrapped my plans to buy one. Oh well, would be best for someone in a desert climate.

 

[rr14]

is there a chart on the effects of humidity and temps coming out of the unit? The guy in the video alluded to a video on that, but I couldn't find it on youtube.

 

[globel]

the Coolerado look like pretty standard "Packaged Air Conditioners". Except some have the hybrid water cooled feature. I can get a 3.5 ton packaged conditioner at 18 seer for around 1000$ from a wholesaler..

 

[Lazyman]

The Coolerado has NO compressor though, and no 220VAC. DIY install and much lower operating costs. In the right (arid) environment it's durn near perfect.

 

[PoopyTeaBags]

Cant these units stay in a basement or in a utility room? it wont be humid or wet in any of those....

 

[Lazyman]

Hey PTB, good to see you. Technically yes, but then you have to have two 12" ducts running outside per unit,one for intake and one for bad exhaust. Good exhaust stays inside. If ducting more than a few feet you gotta put booster fans on em, yadda yadda. 12" ducts is some biiig holes in a rental.

 

[RMCG]

That's why I am thinking about using this in a lung room.

Scrubber fans dump hot air into lung room.

Coolerado intake pulls from lung room, vents cooled air back into room and hot/humid air outside. Yes, a 16" vent coming out of a rental would look interesting. Any way to calculate airflow loss of a duct reducing from 16" to 8" or 6" over say 8'-10'?

M50 has a 20" intake and 16" 'working air' duct out.
Intake is 1250 cfm, working air @ 780 cfm and conditioned air is 900 cfm.

This thing can cool air down to 95% - 120% of wet bulb temperature.

80 deg temps and 60% rh calculated wet bulb temp is 70 degrees.

90 degree intake and 20%rh wet bulb is ~55 degrees.

A cold rainy night (50 degrees/70% humidity) would still cool down to 45 degrees.

With a variable speed motor on a thermostat, it should quickly nearly equalize intake air temp(hot room air) and desired room temp, and wind down, only needing to speed up to knock it down a few degrees at a time to keep it constant.

Basically, If you can keep intake humidity low, ~50%, this thing would be effective up to ~100 degrees. Any hotter and you would need to drop humidity down to continue cooling.

If I am only pulling exhausted room air, humidity should be in check as the room would be set to 50% and intake air would continue to drop as its just getting recirculated between rooms.

As long as you can push more than 1250 cfm of filtered air into the lung room, the flower room stays under negative pressure, the lung room stays under slightly positive pressure.

 

[smurfin'herb]

These are really cool, but I rely heavily on my a/c to lower the humidity of my grow in the summer months. If i got this thing it doesnt affect humdity, so I would have to get a dehumidifier setup goin as well, which will in turn add more heat, therefore making the coolerado work harder....

 

[watercooled@]

Sound like hyped up swamp coolers to me. If it's humid they'll be useless. Too bad :-(

 

[RedRain]

best thing to do is use a WATER COOLED AC.there is no outdoor unit.

they come in ranges from 1-7 tons...only drawn back is they need water to cool the condensate coil. they work great I have been using them for years.

if you have any AC q's feel free to ask, I do this for a living. I can even tell you how to run your AC in defrost mode so you can run it 247 even in cold climates. Your AC will not freeze up and will work great all year round.

best thing to do is tell people you have a heatpump!

you can insulate the compressor of the ac to dampen some of the noise, or spend the extra cash and go for a pimped AC,,,ie york affinity models,,,

 

[RMCG]

best thing to do is use a WATER COOLED AC.there is no outdoor unit.

they come in ranges from 1-7 tons...only drawn back is they need water to cool the condensate coil. they work great I have been using them for years.

if you have any AC q's feel free to ask, I do this for a living. I can even tell you how to run your AC in defrost mode so you can run it 247 even in cold climates. Your AC will not freeze up and will work great all year round.

best thing to do is tell people you have a heatpump!

you can insulate the compressor of the ac to dampen some of the noise, or spend the extra cash and go for a pimped AC,,,ie york affinity models,,,

What if this unit was inside like in the pix?

 

[RedRain]

What if this unit was inside like in the pix?

do you mean the watercooled ac? the watercooled ac units are about the size of a medium refrigerator, and they normally sit right in the room with the girls, or you can duct to the room.

 

[RMCG]

do you mean the watercooled ac? the watercooled ac units are about the size of a medium refrigerator, and they normally sit right in the room with the girls, or you can duct to the room.

The coolerado. Like pix in post 7.

Sorry for being terse, posting from my mobile.