Pumbaa wrote:
I just got blasted for putting this on alt.hvac (apparently they
don't help do-it-yourselfers) so I hope to heck that I don't irritate
anybody on this ng.

Hi All,
I am not an HVAC guy, just a home owner with a question, I
believe this is the place to find an answer. I live in Memphis TN,
pretty dang hot in the summer, pretty mild in the winter. I have an
in-ground pool, it is roughly 26,000 gallons. I also have a garden
variety AC, it is a 2.5 ton unit. My question is this, could I use a
water cooled heat exchanger as opposed to the standard over-head fan
air-cooled condenser? The water would be chlorinated pool water. It
seems to me that I could kill two birds with one stone here. I mean
the A/C and the pool pump are going to be running anyway, why not
give it a try? I know that the temp gain from a 2.5 ton unit won't
be that much, maybe a few degrees per day, but what the heck, I am
just wasting the heat now (as if summer air needs to be any hotter).
Also, on the hottest of days the pool gets up to 90 degrees all by
itself, I figure on those days I can just run municipal water through
the heat exchanger and discharge it on my lawn, water here is CHEAP,
so that is no concern and it would not be that often. Also on those
hottest of days I would think that even 90 degree water would
condense Freon better than 100 degree air, perhaps making life a
little bit easier on my compressor. I think that the real advantage
would come early and late in the pools season, that's when the water
is a bit chilly for a swim but the ambient temp is just high enough
that the A/C is running. Any input from the ng here would be great.
And, I know that I cannot use an aluminum exchanger, the chlorine
would eat it up (chlorine levels in a properly maintained pool are
about
1.5ppm, however, when you shock the pool once a week it jumps to
about 5ppm for a while), I'm thinking copper or plastic (if such a
thing exists). Thanks
Craig

I don't believe the pool is a large enough heat sink to help much. I
doubt if the chlorine would get along with the equipment well at all and you
better have a very large dry lawn for the lawn watering thing.

If you want to do it, I think you are going to need to do it right and
use one of the established systems using a much larger heat storage tool,
like ground water or the ground itself. These would need to be carefully
sized to meet your needs and you would need to have available good ground
water or the right size and quality of soil conditions. Also I don't know
how well this would work out in your area.

--
Joseph E. Meehan

26 + 6 = 1 It's Irish Math