View Single Post
  #8   Report Post  
Chet Hayes
 
Posts: n/a
Default Using pool water to cool A/C

The real question here is what's the actual benefit. You're basicly
substituting a fan and air with a pump and water for cooling. While
water is a much better coolant, it's still not clear to me that there
will be a significant overall operational savings. A good place to
start would be to measure the power used by the current fan motor and
compare that to the power used by a pump. If they are similar, which
is what I would think, then the only potential gain is if the water
system reduced the temp of the refrigerant leaving the condesnser more
than the air system. There likely would be times when in fact, the
pool water would be warmer than outside air too.

Even worse, the cost of the modifications will likely not be
insignificant. Plus, you're left with problems like, if the pool is
drained or shut down for some reason, so is the air, warranties being
voided, etc.

The idea of heating the pool with the waste heat has some pluses.
However you get the most heat when you need it least. At the start of
the season and the end, when you need it most, the air will not be
running.

If you want to look further, I would look at marine air systems. All
of them use sea water for the heat exchanger, so possibly the
condenser from a large unit could be used. However, the price of one
of those is many times the cost of your whole system.