Using a Freezer as an Air Conditioner

Hi Del,

GA from me.........simple answer, to the point.........and the illustration of the cars was extremely good.

Early attempts at air conditioning were able to do enough by merely allowing cooler matter to be brought inside. I would suggest using ceramic pipe insulation instead of conductive pipe coils and loading the box with ceramic tiles stacked apart as horizontal fins layering the difficulty of heat to intrude for a longer time. (Ceramic coatings and linings might be cheaper alternatives) Most conditioners feel better if the fans create a breeze because we believe the breeze is cooler on a sensory level.

Perhaps drive a conductor into the earth below the chest box pit so that cold conducts onto the box from the colder ground below. If possible cool the ground below by letting the cold spike protrude into the chest heart, thereby letting the ground below become a cold bank extension. (At bedrock maybe!)

I don't know if heat expansion fins in some order above the chest box might add some kind of heatsink advantage but you could test heat release by putting a metal sheet in the earth above with a heat release spike - heat leaves a point better than a flat surface.

Personally I cant understand why the condensers aren't plastic grids through outdoor concrete and the evaporators made from ceramics in indoor walls with grills for fans. I've seen some designs for floor fans but you need to avoid lower ground smells which may be possible these days with ozone filters.

I'm sorry, but you clearly have little to no understanding of thermodynamics!

We feel cooler when there is a breeze, mostly because of increased evaporation of water from our skin.

Cooling the ground below might help if you do it only at night, when electricity is cheaper (if you have an energy meter that knows the difference, which is not likely).

Unfortunately, most of that energy will be lost...

Plastics and ceramics are poor conductors of heat. As such, they are fine to separate hot and cold area to minimize heat transfer, but the fins need to carry heat from the fluid to the air, and so must be good conductors of heat, Copper is still the best compromise between conductivity and cost.

Increased conduction from skin to air, increased radiation into passing matter and increased room convection lifting hot air away. Evaporation is the slower process, sweat carries the heat out and the air recieves it in the above three ways, radiation, convection and conduction; and when saturation cancels the sheer output capabilities then the water moisture could begin to evaporate. But evaporation is minimal and slow! Is it still obvious I have no understanding of thermodynamics?

Del said it but let me be more succinct.

Why is this proposition any different from the many circulated here from time to time concerning the "unused" power from a car alternator to convert water into "HHO" to be fed back into the engine to turn the alternator to produce more power to convert more water to run the engine to turn the alternator.....

Why is it not clear that warm air can only be cooled by expending energy equal to the amount of energy to be removed from the warm air and that mechanical contraptions that do not do that are just that, contraptions.

As a matter of fact, the proposed contraption, less efficient then that power hungry condenser in your back yard, would, if you could stuff enough energy through it which is what you are trying not to do, cool your house except for one little problem. Cooling implies removal of heat which your scheme does not seem to account for.

The bottom line of all these energy saving schemes that we read about is that you don't get nothing (Loss of heat) for nothing.

I am very serious though, being a conscious student of human thinking patterns, about you thinking back into your thinking and trying to tell us why you thought your scheme could enable you to get around the laws concerning conservation of energy.

If you do that I will reward you with one or two ways, depending on where you are, to use refrigeration to cool you without the costs of running refrigeration compressors.

j.

Thanks for your input. Actually I did not dream up this idea. I saw a show on discovery channel that showed a unit on a library in southern California using the same concept that I described, they didn't get into whether it was more energy efficient, but it did work. The point of building this contraption was to freeze the ice at night during off peak electricity hours and using the frozen block of ice with tubing running through it to cool, (sorry remove heat), during the day. The amount of energy expended during the day to cool the building was far less than running a conventional ac unit. Perhaps the energy required to freeze the ice at night is exactly the same as running a regular unit, like I said they didn't get into it, hence my question.

Think about Geo-Thermal energy. A long pipe (200 feet or more I think) down in the ground. The system takes the constant 62 f cool air from the earth and uses it to cool and or heat your house. Might cutback on using your compressor unit as much as well as heat during the winter.

Doesn't Geo-Thermal Energy take hot air from the ground rather than cool air?

...........hot water.......steam.

Geo - thermal. Heat in winter, Yes! A kind of constant. Cool in summer also! (See - frost line). Put a thermometer in the ground (approx. 6 ft.) and see for yourself! Why didn't anyone mention Bucky's cooling machine. Utilizing something, I really don't under stand, called the bernoli effect. ? Probably not cost effective, but who was it that said "Think about the future" ? Oh, yeah, J. N' son's portrayal of the joker in batman movie. I'd like to see more research into Stirling/fluidyne tech. !

Of course Fuller would have had us all living in domes, or domes within domes.

j.

Large buildings may well have kWh meters that take advantage of the lower rates at night. To my knowledge, very few homes do. You would be helping to balance the day/night load, but would still be paying the daytime rate, unless you had your meter changed.

The ease of heat transfer at night should reduce your power output requirements by allowing the thermal environment under solar activity to be insulated out of your equations.

There is a mild energy advantage since at night the sun is not heating the heat pump output and likely the air that the transfered heat is being dumped into. But this small total energy advantage is not where the savings come from. It comes from the lower power fee per kilowatt that large users get for using power off peak.

Swamp Cooler

http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/home/heating_cooling/evaporative.html

j.

After a little more research, I've discovered that units like my little scheme described are in use. Apparently electricity used during the middle of the night costs much less than during peak hours. As far as the heat removal, not being as enlightened as you, I just assumed that running warm water through tubing in a solid block of ice would remove the heat, using antifreeze to prevent the water in the tubing from freezing.

kramarat As impractical as it is the heat you are removing from the chest you are releasing in your basement to migrate up thru your home. It would be like having a heater running in your basement, heat rises up into the home and you just added to the amount of heat removal "cooling" needed. Jerrell

succinct? - marked by compact precise expression without wasted words

Your freezer and airconditioner both work on the same basic principle: using a coolant to absorb heat from the air . The difference is that the freezer is a closed-loop system that cools a small volume of air to a very low temperature, whereas the airconditioner cools a large volume of air to a moderate temperature . Why then should the freezer be more cost efficient ?

I believe he is thinking in terms of using the ice as a kind of day time heat sink, which he then cools back down at night when the electricity rates are lower. So his plan is really to save on the cost of electricity by using a large portion of his electricity during off peak for cooling, and storing that in the ice to use during daytime heat to cool his coils. Thus he is using an intermediate storage device, Ice, to place his electric demand cycle on a different period than his household cooling demand cycle. The cost benefit really comes to the cost incurred from efficiency losses due to the secondary storage device and and cooling mechanisms versus the cost saved due to off cycle use of electricity. Also, he would need to be able to switch between his using his traditional AC unit cooling coils and this secondary system cooling coils ( i am assuming he would still use the traditional ventilation system to circulate the cool air). Also, there is a cost associated with water losses (some water may be recovered and reused multiple times), though water is usually pretty cheap.

BTU's are BTU's no matter how you slice them. The perceived savings in off peak demand times is offset by the additional conversion system employed.

Why would anyone freeze cheese?

Dubious at best.

Some improvement in efficiency has been realized by using water misters immediately adjacent to the condenser coils of a/c units.

If you want to really save money, turn up your thermostat by 5°C or more......

Check out ice-energy.com, apparently the idea is not completely stupid. While I'm in total agreement that you can't get something for nothing, it seems as if using ice and running the compressor when the ambient temperature is cooler does have some merit. Let's not forget, the automobile was never going to amount to anything beyond a novelty item for the rich.

Hello Kramart:

I went to the ice energy website, their energy/Money -saving claims are based on time-dependent valuation, which means they're using a multiplier for peak hours. Undoubtedly their device uses significantly more energy than a conventional air-conditioner.

Again it comes down to basic physics the greater the temperature difference between the heat source and the heatsink, in this case 0 degree ice and the nighttime ambient air temperature the harder the compressor has to work.

Their only savings is in the much lower off-peak electrical rates. No residential meters that I know differentiate between peak and off peak hours. So a typical residential customer would see a considerable increase in their electric bill.

There was a second problem with your scheme, you would be exchanging heat from the freezer environment into the condition space i.e. the basement which would then seep into the house.

If you want to save energy, the easiest way is to replace your unit with one of the newer 14 to 16 SEER energy efficient models.

If you've got a swimming pool, you can even buy a unit with a water cooled condenser and circulate the water from the pool. Heat your swimming pool a few degrees at the same time you're cooling your house.

http://www.ice-energy.com/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=Ksl203BmdeQ%3d&tabid=54&mid=419

Thanks for the input. I originally posted because I woke up to a seized up fan on my unit and was desperately looking for a way to avoid spending the cash on a new unit. I managed to fix my old one, but eventually it's going to die. My original thinking was that a chest freezer costs $150 plus the cost of some copper pipe. Even if it used the same amount of electricity it would beat the $5000 or so for a new unit. I guess I need to start an ac fund, oh well.

I replaced the fan on my AC unit several years ago. It has bearings that are exposed to the weather, while the compressor is sealed. There is no reason the compressor should not continue to function for many years, as long as the fluid is not lost. I cover my compressor unit in the winter to protect the fan. Just don't forget to remove the cover before turning the unit on in the spring/summer!

My compressor has been running for over 40 years, which means I need to start saving for a more efficient unit, but like you, its just easier to keep paying the electric bill rather than the major outlay for a more efficient unit...

I replaced my fan 2 summers ago and the relay box last summer. It turned out not to be seized, it was a mystery problem. Took it apart, spun the fan by hand, put it back together and it's been working fine since. I have a 1988 Sears unit. It kills me to think about buying a new one. A friend of mine works in hvac and told me the new ones will last about 10 years max. I was just exploring possible alternatives and figured here would be a good place to throw it out there. Thanks for the post.

Mine is a 1967 Carrier. I moved into this home in 1970, so the AC was almost new. It blew a fuse somewhere in the mid-70's. I bought the replacement and two spares. Still have both of them; just checked, and I even remembered where they are! I did have to repair a pipe connection and refill the freon (the last tank of freon 22 still available) about 10 years ago, and replaced the fan a few years back. but so far its running fine!

Same thing: I just replaced my 30 year old Kenmore washing machine a few months back, and they told me to expect to get 10 years out of the new one. I guess that's what we get for accepting Chinese imports. I'm at the point that I will gladly pay double, if I can get something made in the USofA.

My wife sleeps days, so she needs it cool to sleep. My financial situation would have to get pretty bad for me to stop using the AC! In fact the AC was probably the most important factor that made us choose this house over others that were more attractive, but didn't have AC.

I can't complain, electric bill is about $150-170 per month in summer for a 2000 sq ft house. I heat with wood in the winter and electricity is less than $50 a month from November until about late may. Propane for hot water and cooking, the tank gets filled once a year. I'm always looking for an easier or cheaper way. Doesn't look like the chest freezer is going to cut it.

If you are using a tank hot water heater dump it. Install what in England they call a geezer although in your case not as on a sink.

Here we call them flash boilers and although not common they are usually available at a good plumbing supply house, at least here in Atlanta.

Turn on the tap and the flame on the flash boiler lights and in very few seconds you have hot water.

They used to depend on a pilot which was a waste of fuel.

Now no doubt opening a hot water heater valve brings in an electronic igniter.

No need to waste money keeping a tank hot.

Another way to save money. You could zone a hot air system but that is not the best answer.

The best answer is little parabolic reflector gas heaters in each room. That is something I saw and used in England when I lived there many years ago.

Actually I had three rooms. With a quick connect gas outlet in each room I just carried the heater to where I needed it.

j.

I've added a hot water circulating system(hot water lobster) for less than $200 and retain the tank heater. I've added a cold only tap to the kitchen and wash room. But a tank-less system is not economically feasible by comparison because the geezers as you say, have only an 80% efficiency.

No Kramarat,

You don't need to start an AC fund, at least as long as you are willing to accept being comfortable as opposed to being cold.

As has been pointed out here your body has it's own cooling system, e.g., it sweats and the sweat evaporates using your body heat to do so.

You can enhance that and for North Carolina enhancement, unless you are a freak for being frozen, will do.

Install in the end of the building facing into the attic a 48" exhaust fan.

Install somewhere in the middle of the hall between rooms in the ceiling an electrically operated louvre with the same area as the fan. Wire it so that when the fan is turned on the shutters open so that air can pass from your rooms into the attic and out the exhaust fan.

Open windows sufficient so that in any room you may be in air passes over your skin cooling you.

You get the idea. It is way, way cheaper to run a large fan than an air conditioning compressor.

This works. I have installed a number of such units in folks houses here in Atlanta in the days when I worked as an electrician. Do it yourself and it should cost you no more than about two hundred dollars. That new compressor would cost you at least a thousand.

There is another way to use that fan system.

Look up swamp cooler. We used to use those in a huge bakery where I was a maintenance engineer. All it consists of is passing the air stream through a water screen. Again all you are running is the fan and a small pump for circulating the water through the screen.

j.

I've got an attic fan that I use when the humidity drops. I've got a friend in Atlanta and the humidity doesn't get quite as bad there due to your elevation. We get nights in July and August where the temperature stays around 80 and the humidity stays around 60-70%. I'll either be spending money on a new unit, or on replacing sweaty mattresses.

The luxury of owning a large home with attic and basement is that you can create indoor climate activity. If you insulate the basement as a cooler then storing ice all summer long starts to become viable and if any heatwaves hit just buy more ice. After that a simple ventilation system could vent cold air to any room in the house. A well insulated house takes out large quantities of external climate, basically your looking for a zero pollution car thing but in this case it's the zero climate loss house. Obviously it's not going to register with conventional ideas yet, but it's achievable! You can install cheaper hybrid systems but it's a question of accepting your trade offs!

Obviously it's not going to register with conventional ideas yet, but it's achievable!

You've a mouthful there

I mentioned to my plumber I wanted to place the furnace inside the heated envelope and he thought I was losing it.

Think about it, most homes and businesses have the heating unit in the cold basement or equipment room and run through an uninsulated area into the finished home or commercial areas.

We had quite a conversation and after realizing the benefit the plumber said this with a tied in solar collector could make geothermal prohibitive at face value.

I believe that in many cases, the placement of furnaces and water heaters is based upon keeping CO and unburned fuel/vapors out of the house.

In our 1962 home, both are in the utility room, and are propane fired. We commonly have significant odor in or coming from that room. Both units have been replaced a couple of years ago with newer, more efficient units. I think the odor is now entirely from the water heater. The furnace has forced aspiration, but the WH does not. One of these days I'll get around to installing a small fan with a thermostat near the WH flame to ventilate the closet when the WH flame comes on...

I have installed a CO sensor near the floor in a hall not far from the utility room; it has never indicated sufficient CO to trigger the alarm.

My water heater is in the basement and vented all the way through the chase up through the attic and through the roof. Maybe the codes weren't very stringent in 62, but I think a vent over your wh up through the roof would eliminate the odors. Mine is just 4" galvanized pipe. By the way the made in China capacitor that I installed yesterday for $13, has failed and of course there is a no return policy on electrical items. Does anyone know where I can buy a capacitor for $60 that will last for 20 years like the original. This one worked perfectly for about 30 hours.

http://www.illinoiscapacitor.com/

If you know how many farads it is you might be able to just pick up a super start capacito from your local ac shop

That's what I did, it's the capacitor for my particular unit, but it's Chinese crap.

The earlier post for illinois capacitor should help. If you post capacitance and voltage numbers of the original part, we might be able to help.

As I remember it the Japanese "crap" of yesteryear turned out to be the finest optics and electronics available on the planet.

You just happened upon a bad capacitor or just may have installed it improperly although starting capacitors are not usually polarized.

You should be able to pick up a good capacitor at the electrical supply house and spend a lot less than the OEM one you bought that failed. Just take the original with you if its capacitance is not clearly written on it.

j.

I have installed a CO sensor near the floor in a hall not far from the utility room; it has never indicated sufficient CO to trigger the alarm.

Reasoning for placing alarm near the floor is flawed, try placing at about nose level

I actually thought about that as I was writing the post, but for some reason I was thinking of Carbon 14, which of course is present, but in very tiny amounts. I read and followed the directions when I installed the unit last year. But you're right: with a molecular weight of 28, CO is slightly lighter than air. Whoever wrote the directions must have been thinking of CO₂, or perhaps of radioactive carbon, as I was.

Thanks

dkwarner For safety sake read the directions to your CO detector, I believe that the remaining oxygen will settle to the floor and the CO will settle on top of it. This being the case your sensors need to be mounted higher and try to find a place with low turbulence, away from return air ducts or sources of convection up drafts that could be carrying a supply of oxygen past it. Good luck and put safety above all else. Jerrell

Actually you want an area where there is air flow. CO will mix with the air and the detectors are only looking for CO. There is a better chance of picking it up in an air stream than waiting for a pocket to build up and finally reach the detector.

A combination combustible gas/ CO detector should be on every level of a home. Especially near the sleeping areas. In the heating season the warm air will rise taking along any CO or gas if present. The upper level will go off first. I would of lost a family of friends, if they did not have this arrangement. The furnace heat exchanger cracked during the night and combustion gases were recirculated causing the production of CO.

If you think the odor is burn product and possibly CO I wouldn't be talking about things I would do in the future.

You may not have much future.

Either bring in a professional who knows what a properly burning flame looks like or find a good color picture of such here on the net (After ascertaining that your monitor colors are accurate) and see what it should look like.

Carbon monoxide is entirely odorless, although a unit that gives off odors might also be giving off CO, and can very quickly be fatal.

It matters not where the unit is situated, only that it have a stack that develops proper draft and conducts burn gases outside the house.

Incidentally, it also is required that there be enough air present so that sufficient oxygen ensures complete burn. In that regard it is advisable to port outside air to the burn space.

Again! Don't play with this. If there is any doubt, and what you say puts doubt in my mind, don't wait.

j.

I have spent much time ( several years ) thinking about using a chest freezer as a source to cool the a coil in the home a.c. unit . I kind of equate it to the old instantaneous gas fired hot water heaters of the 1950`s they worked well the hot water was instant and would put out hot water for as long as you opened the tap for ! the gas jets were enormous and they used a tremendous amount of gas ( it was far more efficient to store 40 gallons of hot water ) your a/c/ unit is exactly the same it relies on a big compressor using 220 volts drawing many amps that instantly provides cooling to your a/c unit. and every time the a/c unit turns on the start surge load uses a lot of electric 220 volts at many amps . the plus is the cooling is instant ! The savings in using a chest freezer is ( you are storing cooling ) say you have a 21 cu ft freezer ? you have a containment vessel inside the freezer ( plastic drum ) ? it is filled with water / antifteeze mix ? it holds 55 gallons or so ? with an insulated copper pipe coming from the bottom of the vessel to the air handlers a/coil with a fluid pump that energized when the thermostat called for cooling along with the blower and a copper return line flowing back into the top of the containment vessel. the only short coming here as I see it would be you would need a day for the freezer to initially cool the antifreeze mix ( in power outages for extended periods the a/c would need 6- 8 hours to cool the fluid . on the plus side the compressor is running on 110 volts and drawing a fraction of what the a/c units 220 volt compressor draws. the run time on our a/c unit in Florida , on the hottest days is seldom ever longer than 20-30 minutes . Im not sure as to the temperature that the current a/coil in the air handler gets down to to properly ( dehumidify ) it cannot be much lower than 30 degrees ? as the coil would ice up ? the savings comes from continuously cooling and storing a large quantity of liquid working off 110 volts and a relativly small ammount of amperage verses using 220 volts and a high amperage draw and surge to ( instantly compress high pressure gas to be blown through an orface to expand and cool ) the instantaneous water heaters are just that they are instant ! and when they turn on (( they use a hell of a lot of energy )) a whole house electric instantaneous water heater ( requires (2) 220 volt lines ! (( but it operates like your a/c unit it is instant )) your tank water heater is not instant it stores hot water ( it requires 1 220 volt line )

I'm still working out this idea, and I still believe I can make it work and save a lot of electricity. Although I'm thinking more along the lines of having copper cooling coils frozen within a large block of ice in the freezer. The coils would be filled with antifreeze mix, circulated by a small pump that would be activated by the thermostat, and tied into the coil in the duct.

Another advantage, is that the entire thing would be in my basement, which remains fairly cool all summer.

Another advantage, is that the entire thing would be in my basement, which remains fairly cool all summer.

It won't stay cool once you start using it as a heat sink for the heat removed from the rest of the house. Remember that any refrigerator/freezer does nothing but use electrical energy to pump heat from inside the box to outside the box (which in this case is inside the basement). The copper coils, pump, and fan or fans constitute another refrigerator to remove heat from the house and take it to the freezer, which then pumps it into your basement. Now that the basement is warmer, less heat will move naturally via conduction from the house to the basement (this amount will be very small if the floors are well insulated), so the freezer will have to run longer to keep up, heating the basement even more.

I never took any thermodynamics classes, so I'm willing to admit that I may be a little naive on this stuff.

My existing chest freezer is in the basement, (full of food), and it's maintained at around -10°F. It adds next to nothing to my electric bill.

Now let's consider that I like to keep my house around 70° in the summer time. The thermostat kicks my existing 4 ton, 220V unit on at around 74°, give or take. A unit that is sitting outside in near 100° heat. The return air to my air handler is 74°, and it cycles until it reaches 70°. This is a lot of on/off cycles in the course of a day.

My thought is, to place a box within a box, in the chest freezer, run copper coils through it, tied into the condensing/cooling coil in the duct coming from the air handler, fill it with water, and have it frozen at -10. The copper tubing would be filled with an antifreeze mixture, which would be moved by a small in-line pump, which would be activated by the thermostat.

I would expect that a certain degree of melting would take place within the block of ice during the cycling phase. But considering that the ice is frozen at -10, I would think that any melting that took place would be quickly refrozen by the surrounding ice, thus eliminating a frequent cycling of the small 110V compressor in the freezer.

I could even do the initial freezing of the ice block in the winter, when my basement is very cool. I can't get my head wrapped around why this wouldn't work. The biggest potential problem I can think of, is that my house may get too cold, too fast, and I won't get long enough cycles to remove the humidity from the air.

I probably should start a new topic, but I've always wondered how heat could be stored. Living in the coastal North East of the USA, heating and cooling is done. I would love to be able to save some of the heat from summer for use in the winter. This kind of approach would certainly not work for Phoenix Arizona, Mumbai India, or Helsinki Finland. At one time I thought that this approach was what heat pumps and geo-thermal reservoirs were doing.

Check about heat storage using brine solution, heat exchange via solar collection and heat exchanger, store heated brine in buried concrete tank (septic works). Possible heat retention of 500°C. Dance?

To clarify the thermodynamics - because the condenser of the freezer will be inside the house, the arrangement you describe is no different than trying to cool your house by leaving the refrigerator door open.

Yes, the ice in the frezzer will initially provide cooling for the air unit, but eventually the refrigeration unit in the freezer comes on to try and cool down the inside of the freezer. The "coldness" from inside the freezer will be transfered to your air unit, but the heat released from the condenser coils on the freezer will reject about twice as much heat into the house as well.

The net effect is you have created a large heating cycle inside your house. The overall house temperature will continue to increase the longer you run the system.

The only way to get net cooling from a refrigeration cycle is to have the condenser unit outside of the space you want to refrigerate. Your existing A/C unit is set up with the condenser outside to get the rejected heat from the cooling cycle outside of the conditioned space.

A lot of valid answers.

Two things I wish to add.

1: Air Conditioning is called that for a reason. Its main purpose was to de-humidify and cool the air. Humidity is the big factor. Think of the desert. 26 deg C at 30% RH is quite nice. 21 deg C st 65% RH is miserable.

2: Aside from all the other answers, how big of a freezer do you intend to use? One ton of cooling per hour equals 12,000 BTU's. Therefore you need to do the equivalent of melting a ton ice per hour. Where I live ,that cool a very small house for one hour.Capacity would be an issue.

Interesting thought process

Well, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch, but there may be ways to lessen your expense to produce cold air. Unfortunately, using a chest freezer isn't more efficient than your A/C unit, unless your A/C unit is an older model (not as efficient as newer ones), slack on freon, or for some other reason doesn't perform well.

Thanks for the good information, here in North Carolina, they will not only not sell me the refrigerant, but I can't even buy my own unit. This is pure ass robbery. The distributors of the units won't even give me a price for just the unit unless I am a licensed installer. My initial problem ended up being the starter capacitor for the fan, which cost $13 and I put it in myself in about 10 minutes. I will check into the internet companies when the time comes, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's somehow illegal to ship into this state. When the time comes, I will find a way not to get ripped off, even if it means driving to another state to get the unit. The only reason I came up with the chest freezer idea, is that I took a bag of chili out of there last week, put it in the kitchen sink to thaw, and at least 2 hours later it was still covered with frost sitting at room temperature. Bringing it up created a firestorm on here. I keep the chest freezer at -10 F. I for one think that the ice idea has merit, even if my particular thought won't work, I'm not done looking into it. Thanks again for the info.

Great pair of posts! I've often wondered about those legalities...

I'll definitely be checking into that, just in case my unit decides 42 years is enough!

Reminds me of a "$2000 circuit board" I recently repaired for one of our CNC mills. Given the specs, I could design from scratch and build the board for less, with a handsome profit. It would have cost me somewhere between 30¢ and maybe 70¢ to buy a replacement capacitor to repair the board, except that I already had one on hand.

Thanks again, What an eye opener. I ran into the same problem several years ago when I wanted to buy flex pipe to run propane to my new stove. " We can't sell that to you unless you're a licensed installer." What a freaking racket! I fix all of my own stuff and just figured I was screwed if I couldn't even buy the stuff I need. One question, with the precharged plug and play systems is not necessary to purge the lines with an inert gas?

No purging involved. They are sort of like a hydraulic fitting where each side of the connection is sealed under pressure and only open up to each other when fully connected.

The down side is its an O ring seal and thread connections so its often the first place that develops a leak. I typicaly JB weld the threads and external side of the O Ring fitting areas just as I am about to connect them. The fast set JB weld epoxy is cured before the system runs and stays outside of the O ring so there is no real concerns with system contamination. Although the lines normally come with some type of small built in filter before the expansion valve so if you did get a small bit in the line it will harden and get trapped before it can plug anything.

SO far I have never had one leak yet!

Thanks again.

First $5,000.00 US is way off the mark for AC replacement unless you have a mega sized house.

As for installing it your self; this not for the average handyman. I do no know how your equipment is sold there, but up here the refrigerant lines sets have to be brazed in. A refrigerant filter/ dryer must be either in the unit or field installed. Than it is evacuated down to at least 100 microns. The units are pre-charged for 15', beyond that, the balance of the refrigerant has to be weighed in and the unit set up by measuring the sub-cooling on the liquid line.

The only way that I see you doing it with less than $40.00 in common tools is that you are still using pre-charged line sets, coils and condensers with self piercing couplers. These are baned here, as they lose some refrigerant while connecting them. With the new R-410a refrigerants and their very high pressures, I doubt that they will stay with them.

I posted a simular thread awhile back using a chest freezer like you're wanting to. I was using an old condensing coil salvaged off a 4 ton air conditioner as my radiator to pump my cooling fluid through and then back to a coil of copper tubbing which was in a water bath in the feezer. The medium was water and antifreeze so you could take it down below freezing. I recieved some good responses with the main concern being with the hot air passing accross the radiator coil in the house trying to warm the fluid the freezer wouldn't be able to keep up or run all the time running your electric bill up anyway. Sundanzer sells a 12v freezer that can run off solar panels, since I build my own solar panels I keep the cost down there. My RV frig. uses a 200 watt heating element. or run off propane. You still have the problem of the warm air accross the coils over working the freezer. When I lived in California I had an evaporation/swamp cooler which didn't cost much to run at all. Now that I live in Texas with all the humidity I have to go to an indirect evaporation cooler which blows the cooled air accross a heat exchanger instead of directly into you house raising the humidity level. To keep costs down I built my own cooler. for the heat exchanger I used corrugated roofing metal. With two sheets attached, opposed to each other, creates a row of tubes. Take a number of these, stacked and seperated with a 3/8" inch or so gap from each other by using the thick corrugated foam gaskets that you can get for the metal sheets creating a bi directional air flow heat exchanger. After done it measured 4ft. long, 2ft. tall and 4ft. wide. The dang thing works, of course it doesn't put out as cold as an air conditioner, but could it be used as an air pre cooler before this chest frezzer idea so the freezer doesn't have to work so hard and will condition the air further. All pumps, and fans are 12v and runs off solar panels and back up batteries for night time use. If the freezer unit is an ammonia and water unit you would prob. want to keep it housed outside for safety. Just an idea.

Thanks for the post. I said earlier about taking a bag of chili out of the chest freezer that I have, frozen at -10 F. If I pour water on the bag of chili it immediately freezes solid. My theory was that if I had coils running through the inside of the freezer, filled with water and antifreeze, place the freezer right next to the air handler/furnace in the basement and run the coils to the cooling coil on the outlet side of the air handler in the duct. I would fill the freezer slowly with water and let each layer freeze until full, creating a solid block of ice at -10 F. I would use a small aquarium pump to circulate the water that would kick on with the thermostat, (this is a non pressurized system). My theory, that a lot of people think is wrong, is that any meltage that took place during the cycling phase would be refrozen by the surrounding ice in between on cycles. Of course eventually the compressor would kick on, but it would be a 110 volt compressor, not starting from scratch with warm water, but maintaining the block of ice at -10, which would most likely happen at night when it's cooler and the time between on cycles would be much greater. The aquarium pump to circulate the cold water mixture would use almost no power. In regard to the heat created by the compressor in the basement, I have a chase that runs from the basement to the attic and the attic has a thermostatically controlled fan at one end blowing out the end to control heat buildup up there, plus my basement is underground and surrounded by dirt so it stays relatively cool down there anyway. I don't feel like arguing with the other people on here, but if this system worked according to my theory, I'd be willing to bet that it would be more efficient than the 4 ton, 220 volt monster in my yard. Sorry for rambling.

our out side As unit is a heat pump. You are pumping the heat back out side.

When heat is adsorbed by the media I am going to assume Freon, then it is release out side by allowing the state to change. As it turns from a gas to a liquid it gives off heat. The only way you can improve the efficiency of this process is to cool the air next to the coils out side. I can think of several ways, I just don't have any idea which is better. Spraying a cool mist of water should lower the them of the air, but it uses up water. Having the heat pump coils buried in the ground would help be cause of the heat difference. It is really easy to add heat to some thing that is 50 degrees cooler, then it is to add heat to some thing that is 1 or 2 degrees cooler.

The ground temp differs in a lot of places but my guess is your area is around 55 degrees at say 5 feet. The best part is in the winter time a heat pump used to heat your home uses that 55 degrees to get heat from, where the one outside in 20 degrees has to really work to absorb any heat to warm your home. Using you freezer will just use more electricity because it is a heat pump as well. The heat has to go some where and unless your freezer is out side your just pumping it back in to the house. I like having a heat pump but a swamp cooler works a lot better here. I am in a very dry climate areathat means the air can absorb a lot of water. If you are in a very humid area a swamp cooler will not help you. When hot air is exposed to water it will pick up the water giving the water heat.

Because a swamp cool is always blowing new wet air in you have to have a window open for it to go some where. The amount of energy put in to an AC has the fans so you are equal there. It uses some where from 1 to 20 gallons of water and that depends on how hot it is and how big a swamp cooler it is. The large one I have here will use a lot more then the little one I used 2 summers ago. The biggest difference is your are not running a compressor that uses a lot of energy to be able to capture the heat. If you have allergies then a swamp cooler may not work for you, I have a minor allergies to some pollens but not enough to make a big difference for me.

Guest Your system is designed to run as efficiently as possible with the technology of the time it was built. If you do things that make one portion of the system function differently then it has an effect on the rest of the system that can increase the cost of operation. If you condense the freon quicker than the system design then you will cause the compressor to cycle more frequently and the start cycle draws the most amps. If the system can run almost continuously the long run cycle reduces the overall operating cost. You can do more to lower the cost by having your system sized properly and fan speed correctly set to maintain long run times and reduced starts. There is much more involved than just removing the condenser heat more rapidly. Jerrell

Ok, lets expand on the idea.. What would it take to make a freezer system work? First of all the freezer needs to be relocated outside with a rain cover. The size of the area to be cooled would change the size and BTU's of the freezer would need to maintain. Lets say that we built a tank to drop in a 25 cu ft deep freezer and there were thru tubes in all directions of ¾" for the freezer to circulate and remove heat from the center of the container enabling a solid block of ice. Within the container there was copper tubes coiled filling the entire tank and both ends terminated outside of the freezer with the small circulating pump and antifreeze system discussed before. Now this system is tied to a small expansion tank/ fill reservoir to fill the closed loop antifreeze system. Now the entire tank in the freezer with air passages on all sides and bottom and the air passage tubes thru the center was filled with water (allowing for expansion). So now we have under 20 cu ft of water and the freezer is capable of 3500 btu per hour. (150 gallons for calculations) 7.5 gallon water = 1 cubic ft

If 1 btu = 1 deg of water temperature change per pound

And ice Fusion requires 144 btu per pound

A gallon of water weighs 8.33 lbs

And 12000 btu = 1 ton of cooling

With a useful temperature of 64 deg

Then 1466 btu per gallon to reach ice stage

1466 x 150 = 219,900 btu for ice storage

219,990 / 3500 = 63 hours to complete ice storage..

@ 3 tons of cooling needs (average house) @ 12000 btu per ton = 36000 btu per hour

The ice in the freezer is equivalent to 219,990 btu

So the 3 ton usage would return the ice to 65 deg. Water in about 6 hours.

This could work if you had 10 freezers.. but 10 freezers = 36000 btu per hour.. LOL....

Hmm starting to sound like a household AC unit

One day I will have the last laugh on this one. If not, I will be willing to post laughing at myself.

The only way ice storage is beneficial is operating at night electricity rates.. It's a good idea but not practical.. This would be a better use of discussion focusing on wind or solar power.

This process work great. It needs to be outside. Mine is in the garage attic next to the air handler. I used a big freezer chest that is energy star. I uses like 100 dollars a year to run. Run 100 feet of copper back and forth though it but space it out a little the the heat transefer doesnt tranfer into the next pipe. Use 1/4 inch pipe. The engery transfer is more efficient. Smaller diameter. The last foot needs to run straight down and 90 degree out the bottom. Entrance is in the top. The pump will sit directly outside the freezer and need to run slow with a timer. It should run in 1/2 hour intervals. The exit piping can be piped a short distance into the duct work. Inside you need to use a small evaporator made for water. Google it. Place it in from of the AC evaporator. It helps with the heat transfer and is efficiant. Get a High efficiancy blower motor for the air handler and let it run all day. It will use peanuts for electricity. The time water circulation will run no more that an ac unit but will not over warn the water. In fact it will stay freezing cold. Colder than you actual ac evaporator. Build a raised area in the floor of the freezer with copper drin tubing running out the bottom through another pump on a switch for a drain. You wont need it but just in case. This cools my 4000 sq foot house to 78 in florida and drops my utlility bill 300 dollars a month. Build it well and neat and it will work great. As for the other negative number cruchers. Tell them to piss off. Its trial and error. The even better part is the air is not so dry inside. Make sure you use antifreez in your water as well cus it will freeze faster that it will thaw on a timed system. Good luck.

It's good to see that your experiments worked. What cubic feet size freezer did you use? I was thinking about using a 12 volt model that would run off solar panels. Thanks for your input

This guys full of it.. I think he spent too much time in the attic!!

Shut up, or put up. Do not slag some one behind the guest shield, join!

I find your experiment interesting. I would like to discuss this more on this forum. So why don't you sign up and join the rest of the Zoo.

check out my DIY air conditioner that utilizes my freezer: video and information about it here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny78k9AimWY if that link is broken search "Do it yourself - 35usd air conditioner utilizing freezer" in youtube cost 35usd to buy and 30minutes build time

Guest, I stumbled across your today post to an old thread.

My response is; Are you kidding me? What makes any of that a good idea?

The heat removed from the refrigerated cavity gets released to the room, then the heat removed from the box is removed from the room by the tube (sort of), then heat generated by mechanical loss... Argghhh.

Hey doorman,

I've been seeing these posts too. Haven't been responding because my ass is still chapped from starting the thread in the first place.

While it's nothing like what the guest posted, I'm still working through ideas in my mind. I'm not going to elaborate, but, I do keep an 1800 sq ft house warm with one of these and it's been 20° outside. And cold can be stored easier than heat. Maybe someday...........

Good afternoon kramarat.

I don't think your idea is silly; I have been around a few that operate just about as you have described. These have all been hospitals, detention centers, shopping malls... as the others have said, large consumers using off-peak energy. Did you watch the video posted by the guest? THAT is a waste of bandwidth, $35.00, his effort, plastic tubing, and my time.

It is warmed up to -2⁰F today; forecast for the weekend is around -20⁰F or so. Air conditioning is not a real big deal around here most of the time.

Yes, that was a waste. Besides, here in NC, removal of humidity from the air is at least as critical as cooling.

I'm just mulling over ideas at this point. Similar to the big units, but different.

We'll see..............hope lawnmower boy didn't take my advice, although I have jumped my lawnmower from my running truck before without trouble. Probably won't do it again.