Do It Yourself

7718 readers

1 users here now

Make it, Fix it, Renovate it, Rehabilitate it - as long as you’ve done some part of it yourself, share!

Especially for gardening related or specific do-it-yourself projects, see also the Nature and Gardening community. For more creative-minded projects, see also the Creative community.

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Can I pick your collective brains about an idea for a home cooling solution that I have thought of? (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

27 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'm planning to construct a home sometime in the near future in hot, arid part of the country. Obviously, keeping the home cool is a major concern and I've been considering all available options.

One of the recurrent ideas discussed online is using geothermal cooling. But I think I don't have enough land to implement it. I have a related idea though.

Water supplied during set hours of the day by the municipality is fairly cool even during the summer months and it is a common practice around here to first let it collect in an underground tank and then pump it to the overhead tank as needed.

What if I create a closed loop system of circulating water with two car radiators: one in the underground tank, submerged in cool water and another in the living area of the home with a fan blowing behind it.

Do you think it'll cause perceptible change in room temperature if there is, say, a temperature difference of 10 degrees Celsius between water and ambiance? I intend it to only reduce the load on the air conditioners and/or just delay the use of AC.

What kind of math/physics will be needed to assess if this is a feasibility? I tried looking hard but could not find anyone else discussing this idea, so I'm reaching out to you guys.

Thank you for your time.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I've read about a system where excess energy from solar panels is stored as energy in an underground reservoir.

I've tried finding an article, so to see if it included your heart pump idea. I think it may be feasible, but I'm not sure how efficient the system would be.

So I'm quite interested, but cannot be of more use, hope someone gives you more of an answer.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I believe this is what you are referring to

https://cavernenergy.com/

What is happening in this process is a cavern is pressurized with air and the air pressure is later used to run a turbine.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Sort of, it wasn't in bedrock, but in a cement resevoir.

But cheers for the source!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In one of the iterations of my idea, I thought of using solar energy to compress air and keep it stored in an underground tank. But it felt more hazardous and prone to failing. I'll explore the link in the other reply to your comment and reconsider it. Thanks.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

To be honest, that pressure storage is from the link the other guy came up with. The idea I've read about was about storing thermal energy in underground water, more akin to your original plan.

But I could not find the link to where I read about that, unfortunately.