Another cooling idea

[mike]

Currently I don't have a need for cooling but I was thinking about it and I came up with this.

What you could do is create a coil of tubing (PVC, Copper, Plastic) and pace it under your gravel or under a UG filter plate. Then you tap into your cold water line for your house and have it run through your tank. Everytime someone uses cold water in the house it passes it through the tank and cools it. It would work similar to radiant floor heat, but in reverse.

I'm not saying it's practical, just possible.

(Message edited by sal_amander on May 30, 2006)

 

[jennifer]

Interesting idea. The problem I see is that it might not decrease the temperature much. Tap water runs warmer in summer, so I'm not sure it would be cool enough to have much effect. I suppose the temperature of tap water varies from place to place. I think copper tubing may be a bad idea due to metal leeching.

 

[mike]

Yes, I don't think I'd use the copper but you could use the stranded nylon like they use in radiant floor heat, but I would think you would want to use a smaller diamater tubing so you could transfer more heat in a smaller area. Like I said, I don't have the problem myself but I can't resist trying to find a solution.

 

[edward]

This is only viable if your water source is underground or in the winter. For example here in PA, tap water cold water temps in the summer can be as warm as 80 F...

Also this would probably be in violation of the health and/or plumbing codes in some regions even though the water doesn't come in actual contact with the enclosure.
The way most places get around that issue is they install a heat exchanger and then have a circulating pump move the water contained in the heat exchanger through the system.

Ed