Cooling your house with geothermal pond loops

[GF]

Im am thinking of experimenting with the idea of setting up a closed circuit to cool my house with.  The pond I have near my house is about 1 1/2 acres in size and is about 18' ft deep.  The idea I am looking at is taking coils of pipe (pex,etc), and sinking them near the bottom, then by using flotation devices on the top portion of the coil expanding the coil in the water, the length of the expanding coil could be set by attaching stainless steel cables to the top and bottom of the coil.  Has anyone done anything like this?  I have seen where they run the lines back and forth on the bottom, but was wondering is the same results could be done with a coil.   I currently have a 2 1/2 ton central heat and air unit and would need to have the equivelent or greater cooling capacity of the current unit.  With the current rising cost of energy, I would like to find an alternative cooling solution.  Any ideas and feedback is greatly appreciated.

[farmerdoug]

I think they try to stay at the bottom as the water is warmer as you get closer to the surface.

[GF]

I was looking at the coil desing for a simpler install design.  I may look at expanding the coil sideways, this way it would all be in a three foot or less range in the bottom.  If the right weight was used if you need to do maintenance on the system the system could be filled with air to float it to the top (unless is has a hole in it).

[Fla._Deadheader]

Not sure about the water cooled idea, could help some.

  Have any of y'all heard about Solar Chimneys ???  It's a hole or two, cut in the ceiling and extends up through the roof. There is a cap to allow air out but not water in.

  The house we built, in Arkansas, had one we put in. When the walls were studs and no sheathing, I was cutting some boards with a skilsaw. Noticed the finer dust rising up into that chimney and the larger dust fell to the floor.

  We installed a 20" Box fan in the hole, to push more air out. Opened the windows and ran the fan. Worked pretty well. We were surrounded by trees and had no breeze, except for the occasional tornado.  ;D

[pappy]

FDH,
We do about the same thing here... Just open up the fold down stair unit to the attic,, open the doors and the air just flows right on up and out the ridge vent,, we do this in the evening when it's cooler outside..


GF,
Talking to a friend the other day where he helped another friend of his lay out two black plastic well line pipes , one feed and one return into a cold running brook  ( creek  ;)  ) pumped the cold water up to the house and circulated it through an old cleaned out radiator from a truck with a 20" box window fan blowing through it and was used for cooling down the house...  The guy told him it works great..   8)

On even another note about "Have any of y'all heard about Solar Chimneys"... I saw where the Maine DOT built a new privy at the scenic overlook just down the road from here...  They installed a 12" black pipe from the concrete holding tank underneath like a chimney... When the sun heats the pipe it creates a draft and sucks the gases out ... I've yet to stop in on a hot day ta see if it smells in there ... ;D

I know pics we need pics   :D

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

GF

I tune pianos for a college which decided to use geothermal cooling in
a brand new auditorium.  It uses water transfer from drilled shafts (I think)
to circulate up into the cooling system.  The problem they had was that
the temperature differential did not reach the level to create water condensation
on the cooling coils.  The relative humidity in the building went way up, since
the system was not removing excess water in the air.

The lesson I took from this, is that geothermal cooling is excellent as a way
to supplement a conventional system.  The conventional system helps take
out the excess humidity.  In good ole Georgia, we NEED THAT BAD!
I bet you could cut your current demand by 40%, if you used the cold bottom water.
Your air circulating fan will run more, but your compressor would run much less.

[submarinesailor]

GF,

Have you looked into using a "Slim Jim:" cooling system.  In all my reading on different types of geothermal systems, I have only heard of one dissatisfied customer. 

Here is the link to their home page:  http://www.awebgeo.com/SlimJim.asp?page=SlimJim_Projects.asp.

BTW, I hope to meet with the owner and patient holder at the big energy in DC in early October.  I plan on asking him for his side of the story about that customer.

Bruce

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

Even though the applications of the Slim Jim panels are for heat
exchange for conventional compressor set-ups, I bet they would
be great for the job.  I assume that they are stainless steel, which
means "not cheap."

[PC-Urban-Sawyer]

Even though the applications of the Slim Jim panels are for heat
exchange for conventional compressor set-ups, I bet they would
be great for the job.  I assume that they are stainless steel, which
means "not cheap."

The site says they have SS (304 and 316) for fresh water and recommend titanium for brackish water. And pricing for the 315 and titantium is provided by quote if requested... So, yep, it wouldn't be cheap but it looks like a very high quality product / system...

[Reddog]

Or just use a water to water heat exchanger. Pump pond water thru and cool the water loop from the house.

[Dave Shepard]

I'm thinking of doind something similar with spring water. Where does one learn about the required temperature differentials, dew points, relative humidity and other pertinent information? Thanks.


Dave

[Dave Hanny]

I'm thinking of doind something similar with spring water. Where does one learn about the required temperature differentials, dew points, relative humidity and other pertinent information? Thanks.


Dave

Bump for this question.

[sawdust]

GF

no idea if you have a basement or not. I do, in the summer I seal up the house tight on real hot days and pull the front off the furnace which is in the basement. I turn on the fan only and block off the upstairs cold air returns. This forces the hot air down the stairwell into the basement and the cold air gets pumped into the upstairs. I can make the house uncomfortably cold this way.

sawdust.

[RSteiner]

At work we are using a pond to act as a condenser for a large chiller that produces cooling for process water and air conditioning.  The water is pumped from the pond to a tube in tube heat exchanger.  The system works very well.  The only thing that we had to do was install a large bag filter unit to catch the silt and small creatures that get pumped into the system.

After a rain storm there is a fair degree of silt that gets disturbed.  In the winter the water is cold enough to use without running the air conditioning compressor, we just have to make sure the water flow does not stop for too long as any exposed pipe will freeze.

Randy

[jeffreythree]

GF, the pond geothermal works.  Check out Pondboss Magazine's forum (not sure if I am allowed to put up a link to them from here) and they have a really long thread on it and a couple of other shorter ones.  They usually use a long length of tubing tied up into a huge pile of coils, weight it with cement blocks, and drop it in a deep enough area.  One guy runs an open system, but he is getting a lot of build up in the pipes now.

[KENROD]

 Yes. The method you described will work. Pipes on the buttom would be best, but elevated coils will work about as well. I would try to keep them ten ft. or deeper for better heat transfer.