Has anyone ever heard of [evaporative condensers?] These little gems are
excellent for removing heat from large refrigeration systems. Mostly found
on the rooftop of large buildings.

Stormy:

Most window air conditioners use a "slinger ring" to fling the water onto
the condenser coil. This increases efficiency. The saturated condenser
temperature then will operate at the dew point temperature. Lower than the
dry bulb ambient.

There was a company in Texas called "AC2" who developed a water cooled
condenser for low tonnage use [residential]. The outdoor condenser used a
fan which forced air over a water cooled condenser coil and increased the
efficiency dramatically. The only problem was it had a high water usage
factor and many cities didn't want that. Somthing on the order of 18
gallons per ton per hour. The system had a timer that flushed [exchanged]
the sump water so the TDS [total dissovled solids] would not build up too
high. Thus the higher water usage. Don't know if the company is still
around today.

Zyp

"John McGaw" wrote in message
...
z wrote:
I think my central A/C spends 99% of its energy dehumidifying the
house. The water just goes to water the shrub planted next to the
compressor outside. Why couldn't it at least be sprayed on the
condensor coils?


If the atmosphere is very humid, when you'd get the most condensate, you
would derive the least benefit from it since the high humidity would slow
water evaporation. The opposite would happen when the atmosphere is dry.
It seems that either way there would be little or no benefit derived.

--
John McGaw
[Knoxville, TN, USA]
http://johnmcgaw.com