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Tool Talk Discussion Forum

Geo-Thermal cooling shop

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JK2

07-16-2007 08:43:34




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I have been thinking about cooling my shop by circulating water through a long loop of 1" black plastic water pipe buried 8-10 feet deep and the heat exchanger I use on my hot water wood burner. I realize that the efficiency of regular pipe won"t be as high as HDPE but it is also considerably less expensive. My question is, has anyone done this or know anyone who has done it? If so does it work well enough to be useful?
Thank you
John

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David - OR

07-18-2007 08:29:08




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 Re: Geo-Thermal cooling shop in reply to JK2, 07-16-2007 08:43:34  
To answer your questions, Yes, it will work.
No, it will not work well enough to be useful.

The A-coil and blower in your wood heat system is designed to distribute air at about 120 degrees to heat the shop. The forumula for heat delivery (or removal) via forced air is:

Q = 1.08 * L * (tout - tin)

Where Q is heat flow in BTU per hour and L is air flow in cubic feet per minute.

A typical good sized wood furnace heat system might deliver 80000 BTU per hour. With the shop at 65 degrees you'd need a 1340 CFM blower.

Best case, you might get 60 to 65 degree air out of your heat exchanger if you supply it with enough 50 degree water from the ground (you can't, due to the water flow capacity limitations of the coil and one inch pipe for that matter). With the shop at 75 degrees, you'd get maybe 14000 BTU per
hour of cooling capacity from 1340 CFM or 65 degree air. This is about the same as an ordinary window mount air conditioner. Why not just buy and install one of those if that's all the capacity you need -- it'll be cheaper than digging the ditch and burying the pipe.

Real geothermal systems use a phase-change refrigeration cycle to pump heat "uphill" into (say) 75 degree circulating ground water. They can achieve about a 50 degree outgoing air temperature. With 1340 CFM of 50 degree air you'd get 36000 BTU per hour of cooling, or about 2.5 window air conditioners.

A single 1 inch poly line is the wrong way to do a ground heat exchanger. You want multiple loops of 3/4 inch poly (to keep the loop velocity in the turbulent flow region), and a bigger header (to manage the required total flow without excessive pumping losses). You'd need about 1800 feet of 3/4 inch thin-wall poly for a 36000 BTU per hour ground source heat pump. Probably split it into 4 separate loops of 450 feet each.

If you are cheap, and not using methanol, you can substitute thin-wall plastic poly pipe for the special geothermal underground tubing normally used. You sacrifice quality control and risk leaks developing over time but the thermal performance is equivalent.

PVC is a horrible choice for geothermal transfer. The thermal resistance is much higher than polyethylene, and the walls are thicker. You need about 4 or 5 times as much linear footage for the same amount of ground transfer.

(I use a ground source heat pump to heat and cool my house. I designed the system back in 2003, so I've forgotten some of the details..)

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JK2

07-18-2007 08:01:45




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 Re: Geo-Thermal cooling shop in reply to JK2, 07-16-2007 08:43:34  
I need to bury a water line from a spring anyway so I thought that I would dig the ~2000 foot trench deeper and install some pipe for cooling while I'm at it.

My question is if standard 1" platic water pipe will transfer the heat well enough or if I should spend the extra for HDPE pipe?

I know several people who have similar systems that are used with a heat pump for their houses so I'm fairly sure it will work.

John

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Wardner

07-18-2007 09:00:53




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 Re: Geo-Thermal cooling shop in reply to JK2, 07-18-2007 08:01:45  
The thermal transfer capacity of one type of polyethylene (high density vs medium and low density) is not significant if it exists at all. Efficiencies will improve when using thinner wall thicknesses and smaller diameters.

You can't compare a ground source heat pump installation to your application. Significant energy is added to extract or reject heat thru refrigeration principles. In other words, the output of the collector is amplified.

I am guessing that the black plastic pipe you speak of is HDPE. High density poly isn't a premium product. It just has different properties than other polyethylene which make it suitable for specific tasks. Low density poly (LLDPE) is actually a more expensive material. Most of it is used for making plastic films. PEX (cross-linked polyethylene) is made from medium and high density stock. It is frequently used in heat exchangers because it has high thermal capacity. You don't need that.

You need to weigh the cost of continually pumping water to the output temps of that delivered water. There are people who can do the engineering but "it ain't me, Babe".

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T_Bone

07-18-2007 14:43:10




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 Re: Geo-Thermal cooling shop in reply to Wardner, 07-18-2007 09:00:53  

Wardner said: (quoted from post at 09:00:53 07/18/07) The thermal transfer capacity of one type of polyethylene (high density vs medium and low density) is not significant if it exists at all. Efficiencies will improve when using thinner wall thicknesses and smaller diameters.

You can't compare a ground source heat pump installation to your application. Significant energy is added to extract or reject heat thru refrigeration principles. In other words, the output of the collector is amplified.


Wardner hit the nail on the head on this one. On liquid heat exchangers you need as thin of thermal transfer as you can get to obtain maximum efficencey.

John, Take on the mindset that cold is only the absence of heat. Cold only occurs at absolute zero (minus 360�k). You need to think this way to keep your thoughts correct as your designing your system.

Chilled water cooling has been used many many years with great efficencey in commerical buildings. I personaly would think along the lines of using a chilled water tank and use my liquid heat exchangers there. If you have external ground source cooling available, then Wardner has a smoking deal available in his other post with the pics.

If your thinking external tank cooling then you might give some consideration to solar heating as they can use the same liquid/air exchanger at the supply plenum with very little modifications.

Besure to use only BTU's for all heat calculations. You can not compare tons of refrigerating effect of a refrigerated compression cycle(RCC) to chilled water tank system. Pretty hard to beat the RCC system.

Most liquid heat exchangers feeding a liquid/air exchanger use a 4� differiental controller for pump control. This is just about right for bleeding all available heat off an exchanger before the next pump cycle needs to ocuur.
Don't fail to over look night time cooling when using a cistren. Another good use for that solar hot water collector on a dual system.
T_Bone

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Pooh Bear

07-17-2007 22:05:10




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 Re: Geo-Thermal cooling shop in reply to JK2, 07-16-2007 08:43:34  
I was thinking of just getting a large diameter culvert (3ft+)

and burying it in the ground standing on end to make a deep cistern

and then pump water off the bottom up thru a radiator and return the

water back to the top of the cistern. It should work ok.

Now if I can just figure out how to dig the hole.

Pooh Bear



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Wardner

07-17-2007 12:30:19




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 Re: Geo-Thermal cooling shop in reply to JK2, 07-16-2007 08:43:34  
third party image

third party image

I got 75 miles of this medium density polyethylene tube. It was used in a heat exchanger to make ice at night for daytime AC loads.

It is on eBay now. Punch link. If it doesn't work, search eBay for "Calmac"

If you want just the coil, I'll sell it outside of eBay. One coil and attached manifolds is 235-250 ft long by 7 ft wide. 56 tubes in a coil. Price is $400. I'll be on the road next week and can ship to anyone between Boston, Topeka, and LA. $0.15 per mile from Boston. Email is open. There is enough for everybody. I have 28 coils (and tanks).

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Mattlt

07-17-2007 08:11:57




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 Re: Geo-Thermal cooling shop in reply to JK2, 07-16-2007 08:43:34  
I'm curious about this too. Seems like you would be circulating 50-55 degree water, depending what your ground temparature is.

I remember an article in Farm Show a number of years ago where a guy buried lengths of 4"+ solid tile line and heated/cooled his barns by blowing air through the lines.



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Errin OH

07-17-2007 07:56:17




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 Re: Geo-Thermal cooling shop in reply to JK2, 07-16-2007 08:43:34  
Sounds to simple. I would look at what you can expect from such a system though. I couldn't tell you for sure if it would work or not but I think it will take a bit more than a small heat exchanger, or a few fet of pipe, buired in the ground. Here is a link that describes the process. I have several spread sheets to calculate the load but have yet to get them figured out. Fancy formulas and all????? But a simple number that keeps coming up is something like 10,000 btus per 300 - 3000' of pipe (horz)depending on ground conditions. Thats the part I haven't got figured out. Calculating ground conditions. Verticle is a little better, 300 - 600' per 10,000 btu. However, I am sure ground water (wet ground) would help keep the needed lenghts on shorter end of the scale. If you could sumirge a heat exchanger in a pond (10' or so) it would likely work very well. But then you would need to calculate the dissipation rate to see if you would have enough volume to keep cooling or just heat up the pond.....

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Charles (in GA)

07-16-2007 17:48:45




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 Re: Geo-Thermal cooling shop in reply to JK2, 07-16-2007 08:43:34  
Sounds like you are talking about a close system with a heat exchanger both in the well and in the shop and a pump to circulate the coolant/water in the system.

Charles



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mjbrown

07-16-2007 09:35:36




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 Re: Geo-Thermal cooling shop in reply to JK2, 07-16-2007 08:43:34  
I agree with the well idea if you have one. Water from the well thruough a clean car radiator in front of a box fan then back down the well. You would have to have a way to drain away the condensation tthat would collect on the radiator..



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Coloken

07-16-2007 11:06:32




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 Re: Geo-Thermal cooling shop in reply to mjbrown, 07-16-2007 09:35:36  
No, not back down the well...I meant to Bury a heat exchanger in the well.



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circus

07-16-2007 10:38:29




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 Re: Geo-Thermal cooling shop in reply to mjbrown, 07-16-2007 09:35:36  
Check for legality prior to returning water down a well.



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Coloken

07-16-2007 09:22:05




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 Re: Geo-Thermal cooling shop in reply to JK2, 07-16-2007 08:43:34  
How about PVC pipe? Any chanch you have shallow water where you could get into a water well?



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