Natural water cooling...

Currently, I'm in a second floor apartment, so this would obviously not work too well...However, in the past years, I lived in a rural area with personal wells, including hand pumps for the gardens, etc. The water for these garden wells (sand points, only driven down ~20') supply incredibly cold water even during the hottest days of summer. A local mechanic used this water run through a large radiator to cool his garage and used the discharged water to water his grass at the same time. Even if one could make a relatively large res. (even like a 5 or 6 gal bucket) and bury it in the ground a few feet under (3-5', it's still quite cold all year), couldn't you get a decent supply of 50-60°F water? There is an issue of pump head to get the water up, but even if the pump was a bit noisy, it wouldn't matter, as it's buried.. What do you think?

well, the only way it would work for us, is if we used a 5gal bucket and distilled / af . Using straight well water has too much ewwie stuff like iron which would totaly ruin a good system. Good thought i had kinda the same , to put a long series of pipes out in yard or run rad in garage. problem is that parents dont like the fact with water and electricity

SK8 said:

well, the only way it would work for us, is if we used a 5gal bucket and distilled / af . Using straight well water has too much ewwie stuff like iron which would totaly ruin a good system. Good thought i had kinda the same , to put a long series of pipes out in yard or run rad in garage. problem is that parents dont like the fact with water and electricity

Click to expand...

The thing to do would be to make a long coil of pipe like a large coil spring and dig a relatively deep hole with a posthole digger. 8' is relatively easy where I'm at (VERY sandy). The only real issue would be seeing how fast, if at all, the surrounding earth would warm up around the tubing.

You might want to pm Bladerunner, he's some experience with this idea, and might have some helpful advice. He has a site here with an outline of how his system is set up.

craneage2001 said:

Currently, I'm in a second floor apartment, so this would obviously not work too well...However, in the past years, I lived in a rural area with personal wells, including hand pumps for the gardens, etc. The water for these garden wells (sand points, only driven down ~20') supply incredibly cold water even during the hottest days of summer. A local mechanic used this water run through a large radiator to cool his garage and used the discharged water to water his grass at the same time. Even if one could make a relatively large res. (even like a 5 or 6 gal bucket) and bury it in the ground a few feet under (3-5', it's still quite cold all year), couldn't you get a decent supply of 50-60°F water? There is an issue of pump head to get the water up, but even if the pump was a bit noisy, it wouldn't matter, as it's buried.. What do you think?

Click to expand...

The underground reservoir won't be able to keep the temps that low if you run your system all the time.

Wont work here in Canada, the water will freeze.

This system, even if it works, is impossible in my current situation...It was just one of those things that I was curious about...

9mmCensor said:

Wont work here in Canada, the water will freeze.

Click to expand...

The reservoir should be below the frost line, so it shouldn't freeze. If you did this you would want to lower the freezing point anyway, with antifreeze or windshield washer fluid.

lol, winter here u could jsut toss ur rad out the window and it would freeze! Foot and a half of snow today, good stuff.

Mikeonatrike said:

lol, winter here u could jsut toss ur rad out the window and it would freeze! Foot and a half of snow today, good stuff.

Click to expand...

Yeah, but if you could get this to work out correctly, one would have good consistent, cool temps all year...

Below the frost line, the soil temperature is a near-constant ~56 degrees farenhite. This is an EXTREMELY constant temperature. In fact, my old HS used this very fact to heat half of the building during the winter, and cool it during the summer.

It is quite feasable. The only problem is finding a pump with enough head (maybe use two?), and making sure to bury it below the frost line.

Hmmm, im pretty sure you can get a system like this to heat and cool homes. In the summer it cools water and in the winter it warms it. I dont remember what they were called, but it looked like a big coil stuck 15 feet into the ground. It would be even better if you could find an aquifier and sink soem pipes into that. This would be most feesible in Florida I guess...

EDIt: Now that i think about it , this would be terribly feasible. To reduce stress on a tiny fishtank pump, why not make 2 loops that meet in a single well insulated resevoir, such as a styrofoam bucket. Use a heavy duty pump to pump it underground and cool it and then deposit it in the bucket. This water would mix with the warm CPU water and cool it... Not terribly efficient, but simple to make...

Here's my underground cooling. It gives me 10-15C water.