"Lloyd E. Sponenburgh" lloydspinsidemindspring.com wrote:

"Existential Angst" fired this volley in
:

Cut, if A/C mfrs would outfit the condensing heat exchanger with a
water
jacket,

Yeah, but then they wouldn't work with air. There has to be intimate
contact between the condensor tubing and the exchange medium.

If they were to outfit them with "Siamese" condensor tubing, so one line
carried refrigerant, and the other a liquid exchange medium, AND put fins
on the array -- then it would work, but would be quite a bit more
expensive.

The typical water-cooled condenser has the refrigerant tube
threaded inside the coiled water pipe, so it is surrounded by
flowing water.

On a side note: With a little re-wiring of the controls, a large window
unit AC makes a dandy monster-scale dehumidifier. Just situate the whole
affair inside the conditioned space (instead of through a window or
wall), and run the condensate outside. The wasted energy also heats the
space (some).

I have dehumidified large industrial drying rooms for cheap that way.
The only problem is the typical window AC has the condensate rigged
to flow back to the condenser fan and get slung around, to extract
an evaporative cooling effect from the water. It probably wouldn't
be real hard to defeat that, however. But, it would take a little
hacking.

Jon