"free" home air conditioning

[LeatherneckPA]

I stumbled across this website (http://mb-soft.com/solar/saving.html) and thought some of you might find it interesting reading. I have no clue how I found it. My mind was on another of those "roads less traveled".

[rAcErRicK]

That was really a good site Leather. Thanks for posting it. Fignozzle has a thread going on about the same thing, you two hit on the same thing at the same time. I guess great minds run in the same ditch.

[ryanmercer]

Thanks for sharing

[B00kW0rm]

Thank you for posting the link :)

[TNDadx4]

This is pretty cool. I read through it and if it works like it should (it sounds like it would), then I may want to try that.

The downside is that I've read a lot of bad press as well... condensation (even with a sloped pipe), etc to the point that people eventually abandon their systems.

Do you have a link to Fignozzle?

[LeatherneckPA]

Just find one of his posts and click on his name. It will take you to his profile and you can PM or maybe e-mail him from there.

Perhaps the condensation issue could be resolved by using perforated pipe, like they use for leach fields? Then, if there were any condensation, they would be self draining.

[TNDadx4]

Thanks. I tried searching by his name, but must've spelled it wrong. I went back after reading LeatherneckPA's reply and found it. Hey, it was a long day...lol

The perforated pipe does sound good. Definately something to look into.

Thanks again!

[MadTripper]

Just find one of his posts and click on his name. It will take you to his profile and you can PM or maybe e-mail him from there.

Perhaps the condensation issue could be resolved by using perforated pipe, like they use for leach fields? Then, if there were any condensation, they would be self draining.



Not such a good idea as any ground water would seep into the pipes and drain into your basement or where ever the lowest point ends up.

I looked into this a couple years ago as we were building our home. I haven't ruled it out however you would probably want to set up some sort of maintenance cycle twice a year where you flushed the tubing out with bleach water to kill any bacteria/mold that might want to live there. I think the slope is pretty critical and then removing the water that comes out of the system. On top of this, it would probably be a good idea to include a dehumidifier to pretreat the air. This would keep condensation to a minimum however dehumidifiers can be expensive to operate.

Tripper

[walls0stone]

I'm shocked as to how cool this house is, 73 every day..no matter what it is outside. no ac, just one small fan. we shut the down stairs windows in the morning, and pull the blinds on the south side of the house. but when my Great-Great Uncle built this place in 1900, he knew what he was doing.

[Drawbar]

I have thought about this myself but with a different twist. I have radiant floor heating so I often wondered what would happen if I made an ice house dug down into the earth and then placed a big tub of water in there. I would coil PEX tubes in through the tub and in the winter I would open up the ice house and let the water freeze. Then in the Spring pack the ice house full of sawdust and close it all up so that the 47º ground temp would help keep it cold. Then I could pump that chilled water through my radiant floor.

I am not sure it would work though. At the same time that seems like a lot of work for a Maine home that doesn't get very hot to begin with. ???

[MadTripper]

There is a company that advertises an open-direct system which runs all of your tap water through your radiant tubes in the summer time by way of a few valves and so on. It is supposed to cool things down and I considered it but did not. We do have a radiant system which is a closed setup.

Tripper