Cool Drinking Water System

i do not think running cold water lines to different rooms is a practical solution. the water laying in the lines will get warm and make the water cooler work harder. add one or more coolers in different areas.

Install an inline circ pump so the water is continuous in flow to the chilled storage tank.

Cool water improves worker performance, and is therefore cost effective and a worthwhile investment....You should buy coolers for every section...

Yes, this can be done. If a return line and a small circulating pump are provided, the main line to the rooms can be kept "charged" with cool water.

GA for answering the question asked with a standard industry practice (although I don't know who OT'd it).

For those who don't know, what Tornado mentioned is the design that most of you are familiar with using is the one that provides you "on demand" hot water in a hotel room, it's the same concept.

The problem I can see with this, although we don't know the pipe runs, is that you'd be trying to cool the atmosphere which would increase the cost of cooling, So I would put local cooling points in, they can be plumbed in so you wont need bottles, just change the filters regularly.

Bazzer

If it is the renting type then a refrigerator stacked with bottled water is cheaper

I think your best bet would be to purchase individual water dispensers. The bottles could be refilled from a centralized location. The water is kept at ambient temperature and chilled on demand. Much less expensive than running lines. You may have to hire a person to keep all of the bottles full, but that would be cheaper than having the entire work force stopping and walking to the centralized cooler throughout the day.

http://www.coolerdirect.com/store/p/31305-Avanti-Bottled-Water-Coolers-WD29EC-White.html

Popular on construction sites are insulated coolers. Loaded with ice and fresh water they are cheap and practical.

Oasis has a central system water chiller, that will cool water to be distributed to multiple locations.

Check out https://www.oasiscoolers.com/index.php/products/pressure/chillers.html for more.

I would guess other water cooler manufacturers might have similar equipment.

Good idea but have you thought about the installation costs??

First to ensure that cool water is available each time a tap is opened, then a flow and return line would have to be installed, that requires a circulating pump (already mentioned in a previous post) plus both lines would have to be heavily insulated to prevent losses (or heat gain) of the water, otherwise the refrigeration plant will be work constantly.

Then there is the cost of the plumbing fixtures, the water outlet, the small sink, the drain away to the waste pipe AND maintenance of the whole thing.. not to mention the copper pipe work!!

The cost alone for a multi-storey building with thousands of individual offices would add 10's of thousands to the construction costs, and even more of this system had to be retro-fitted. I've worked in large offices in Dubai, Sudan, SugarLand Texas, Oklahoma City etc.. and to give yourself a break of a few minutes, which is encouraged by all good employers, the walk to the water cooler and a quick chat with your co-workers is good for you. Yes, cool water is a must and is provided, but we also need that inter-reaction with fellow human beings, and a break away from whatever we are doing in that office.

So more centralised coolers on each floor is the real requirement.

FYI... cool water doesn't really "Cool" the body.... the body actually uses more energy and the body temp rises slightly when we ingest cool or cold fluids as the body attempts to bring that cool/cold fluid up to body temp. You drink fluids to prevent dehydration, and would be better off drinking room temp water.... I know, I've also worked in the desert too!

I'll agree with almost all that, but not with
"the body actually uses more energy and the body temp rises slightly when we ingest cool or cold fluids as the body attempts to bring that cool/cold fluid up to body temp."

When the body gets too warm it also uses energy to cool down by sweating, and you can reduce the energy required for that by taking in cool drinks.

When the body gets too warm it also uses energy to cool down by sweating, and you can reduce the energy required for that by taking in cool drinks.

Really?.. and which science lesson taught you that?

I think you need to read a book on the human body.. however while you find that book, let me enlighten you and correct your mistake

In following text is part mine and part sort from medical papers on the human body and the body's action of sweating.. so yes, it's NOT all my own words, but I put in the effort to find this info to enlighten you

Sweating and Evaporation

When we sweat, our skin and clothing become covered with water. If the atmospheric humidity is low, this water evaporates easily. The heat energy needed to evaporate the water comes from our bodies. So this evaporation cools our bodies, which have too much heat. For the same reason splashing water on ourselves when it is hot feels good. Being wet during cold weather, however can excessively chill us because of this same evaporation effect.

from: http://paul-a-heckert.suite101.com/physics-of-sweating-a56641

and...

98.6° Fahrenheit is considered a normal human body temperature. 97.5° to 99° Fahrenheit or 37°C is considered a healthy body temperature range. (The body regulates to keep this temperature as the "Core temperature") The average adult loses .07 L of water per day through sweat but depending on heat or exercise intensity, can lose as much as 2.5L each day. Sweat must convert into vapor in order for evaporative cooling to take place. How, then, does this process actually take place in our bodies each and every day, and how can a sock promote evaporative cooling? The answer can only be properly illustrated with a brief look at basic science. The body's temperature is regulated first by the rate at which skin radiates heat and, second, by the evaporation of sweat vapor off the skin. Perspiration, the movement of sweat through pores in the skin and panting (evaporation, this time, through pores in the mouth) are common temperature regulators in warm-blooded animals. Both processes are controlled involuntarily by the brain.

Sweat glands are embedded in the middle of the dermis (the layer of connective tissue that lies beneath the outside epidermis). Their ducts penetrate the epidermis to the outside and excrete sweat. Capillary blood vessels and nerve endings pervade the entire dermis. Respectively, they work to feed the skin's muscles, sweat glands, and blood vessels and are responsible for the body's sensations of touch and heat. Located under the dermis is the layer of very loose connective tissue that fixes the skin to the body. This layer, though not technically part of the skin, houses many fat cells. Sweat glands and the skin's capillary blood vessels work in tandem to allow the body to thermo-regulate itself. This is formally known as Homeostasis. When the body is too warm, the flow of perspiration from the sweat glands to the ducts on the surface of the skin increases.

As we learned before, as perspiration evaporates, heat too is removed from the surrounding tissues as liquid particles transform into a gas. The desired effect, of course, is a general cooling of the body's surface. At the same time, the capillaries in the skin dilate, which catalyzes an intensified flow of blood to the skin's surface. Because blood rapidly loses heat by radiation to the outside, the greater the blood flow to the skin, the greater the heat loss. Conversely, when the body is too cool, the capillaries constrict to reduce blood flow to-and heat loss from-the skin.

from:http://www.drymaxsocks.com/sweatandcooling.php.

So what have we learnt here.. that sweating is an automatic process controlled by the nervous system.. and heat from the body is conducted away by the evaporation of the fluid excreted onto the skin to control the temp of the body by removing excess heat from the blood vessels in the skin.

So I'd like you to explain to me how sweating uses energy, as we know if the body uses energy it produces heat, if the body get to hot, it sweats.. so if I believe your comments & follow your logic, sweating will not cool the body, but actually make it hotter!!

I am so glad you're not my doctor!!

Dear Brich, if you visit my house, you will find that entire bookshelves are taken up with books on the human body. That was, after all, my professional interest. It might seem to you that generating sweat does not of itself require much energy but it is not a zero energy process, nor are the associated processes of increased cardiac output and redistribution of blood flow. We may not be in the kilowatt-hour range here, but it is worth remembering that the nutritional calorie is a physical kilocalorie. Regards, Peter

Now you've changed what you said.....and expanded on your original statement

Producing sweat is a ZERO energy body function as sweat is a substance excreted freely from the skin as the body core temperature increases, however to get to the point that the body HAS to sweat, energy has been or is being used by the body in the form of exercise or some other method.

Please read the following article from the "Discovery" web site

Does drinking Ice water burn calories

For anyone trying to lose weight, this question is an exciting one! If you simply want to know if your body burns calories warming up the water, the answer is yes. But if you want to know if drinking a lot of ice water can help you lose weight, or keep weight off, this "yes" needs to be qualified with some calculations.

First of all, calories are case-sensitive. There are calories and then there are Calories. Calories with a big "c" are the ones used to describe the amount of energy contained in foods. A calorie with a little "c" is defined as the amount of energy it takes to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water 1 degree Celsius.

What most people think of as a Calorie is actually a kilo-calorie: It takes one Calorie to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram of water 1 degree Celsius. So when you drink a 140-Calorie can of cola, you are ingesting 140,000 calories. There is no cause for alarm, because the conversion applies across the board. When you burn 100 Calories jogging a mile, you are burning 100,000 calories.

So, considering that the definition of a calorie is based on raising the temperature of water, it is safe to say that your body burns calories when it has to raise the temperature of ice water to your body temperature. And unless your urine is coming out ice cold, your body must be raising the temperature of the water. So calories are being burned.

Let's figure out exactly what you're burning when you drink a 16-ounce (0.5 liter) glass of ice water: The temperature of ice water can be estimated at zero degrees Celsius. Body temperature can be estimated at 37 degrees Celsius. It takes 1 calorie to raise 1 gram of water 1 degree Celsius. There are 473.18 grams in 16 fluid ounces of water. So in the case of a 16-ounce glass of ice water, your body must raise the temperature of 473.18 grams of water from zero to 37 degrees C. In doing so, your body burns 17,508 calories. But that's calories with a little "c." Your body only burns 17.5 Calories, and in the grand scheme of a 2,000-Calorie diet, that 17.5 isn't very significant.

But let's say you adhere to the "eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day" nutritional recommendation. In 64 ounces of water, there are 1,892.72 grams. So to warm up all that water in the course of a day, your body burns 70,030 calories, or 70 Calories.

And over time, that 70 Calories a day adds up. So, while you definitely shouldn't depend on ice water consumption to replace exercise or a healthy diet, drinking cold water instead of warm water does, in fact, burn some extra Calories!

from:http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/diet-fitness/weight-loss/question447.htm

Now please don't tell me that as the body burn calories, the body does not produce heat!! Furthermore I hope you're not going to debate the facts as produced by the "Discovery Channel"

Sorry, Brich, but every metabolic process, including sweating, requires energy, even if it is a tiny amount by internal combustion engine standards. That energy is derived from food, the body's fuel. If you have difficulty with the idea that the human body might expend energy in cooling itself down, then please remember that a refrigerator does exactly the same thing.
As far as the Discovery website goes, the facts are entirely correct, and I have used much the same arguments myself when lecturing on malignant hyperthermia, which is a very rare drug-induced condition in which the body generates excessive amounts of heat. Nevertheless the point remains that cool drinks cool the body down a fractional amount, which means, if the body is at the overheating stage, that sweating is fractionally less necessary, which means that the body expends fewer calories.

Cheaper solution would be to provide workers with insulated water jug which is having storage capacity of 3/4 liters of water. This jug can be filled by them and taken to their rooms.

We had a cheap centralized water cooler on the farm. It was the earth. Pipes were all underground to prevent freezing in the winter. So it did not mater if you were in the house, out in the yard, working in the green house there was always cold water at the tap. So, if your not in a multistory building this should be easy enough to do. On the backside the maintenance will be a problem should there be a leak.

What a concept!!

I still drink water from the hose. I guess I'm getting old. When I was young, the main requirement for water was that it was wet.....................not ice cold.

Yes... water when you drink it is to re-hydrate and it does not cool someone down. You may feel cool for a short period of time.... if you want to get cool.. stick you wrists into cool or cold water.. then you will cool down.

What was done.... 1. Ran pipes near to the A/C ducts in Admin/Engineering area 2. Insulated pipes into factory 3. Did same from Shipping/Receiving offices at other end of building. 4. Had a fridge or two with personal canned soda and small water bottles. 5. taught folks to hold can/bottle 20-30 seconds and switch hands.... body temp plummeted in 2 to 3 minutes.... they loved it all. They came up with 'break time is cool'. Go figure?

That is nice and all but what happens in the winter time when the chiller is not called for or at night when there are low load demands. The water fountain load will not be enough to run, or constitute the running of a main chiller.

Install a pony chiller, heat exchanger and storage tank to dampen some of th high load demand days to ensure that there is plenty of water to drink. This needs to be a stand alone solution.

Keep a small deep freezing chest or a mini-frig in every room just to hold a water bottle fitted with plastic dispenser . This will eliminate the burden of going to the 'water hole' each time and keep the employees in situ. You can find this system in most hotels..

Alternatively you can place mini-electric water coolers in every room..

Not sure this would work, but when I worked for Penn Central (before they went bankrupt) we had a system there that used an air venturi to chill drinking water. All you would need would be a source of compressed air in each room along with the warm water. As I recall, It would produce no more than a 40 degree drop in the water temperature. But in a hot railcar, even 40 degrees less than the ambient is quite a bit.

If you were designing something like this, I'd use a solenoid to cut air flow when not needed as the venturi does use a good bit and does make some noise.

How many people? how big an office and drops for the cool water supply faucets?

Shift A = 500 employees

Shift B = 200 employees

Shift C = 150 employees

Total Departments = 25

Okay here is another alternative to keep water cooler even if continuously used. Pass normal water into the water dispenser through a pre-cooler fed by normal potable water from some source so that pre-cooled water enters the dispenser and thereby compensates for cooling loss due to continuous or heavy use. Precooled water can be led to the dispenser with the help of installing another dispenser or water cooler at some height than it so as to make water flow down by gravity to the water-can or sump of the lower dispenser.

This method will also do away with the tedious exercise of bringing cool water to every office. I think your idea behind this is to save workers time wasted going to the remote cooler and waiting for water to get cool. You can overcome this difficulty with the above stated method through minor modifications and at relatively much cheaper cost,

Can i see image or video of this type of method for better understanding....???

You put up the idea you provide video. i put up the idea on urinators and present my video on link:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQkmiebEpMM

or type on www.youtube.com " men making each other pee - funniest commercial"

sorry i can't design it for you. However, a simple knowledge of engineering should be enough to make that arrangement.

Inter coolers and precoolers are commonly used in industrial refrigeration, particularly in two-stage or booster gas compressing systems. The idea behind my scheme is almost the same viz feeding pre-cooled water to the cooler or coolers so that water gets cooled continuously without people waiting beside it. In other words you can call this arrangement a cool water booster system instead of gas.

You just have to hookup a cooler placed at some above the the main cooler so that precooled water always passes down by gravity to the main cooler and into the faucet. Piping or tubing can simply be got insulated,,,by proper insulation but try to keep the tubing within reasonable length.

Yes . Excellent idea! Next we put a urinenator because the more they drink they more they need to pee.This can further increase additional 20% efficiency.

One word Water fountain

Water fountain in & out.

I have two experiences with a chilled water system--my high school had one installed and my ship, the USS Forrestal, had one installed. crap grows in water like this. crap grows in the little bubbler machines as well, but I've only seen it once and never tasted it. I think it has something to do with the replenishment rate of a tank holding hundreds of gallons and a tank holding a couple of gallons. Water coolers are designed to provide continuous supplies of chilled water, though of course after a few minutes the water isn't quite as cold. They are designed to precool the incoming water by wrapping the supply line around the drain several times. I don't think it's realistic to think that a large centrally located chiller would provide more cold water than a small local unit. It might be more efficient, overall, but as someone mentioned, you'll warm the chilled water on the way to the bubbler. You could recirculate the water in the pipe so there would always be chilled water at the bubbler, but think for a minute about the yards of copper pipe between the chiller and the bubbler. Every inch of it would be covered with dew. You would have to put very high R-factor insulation on it or you would have a constant rainstorm inside your walls. Two pipes, thick with insulation, if you're recirculating it.

How do the chillers perform in a centralized system? The sailors would not drink from the bubbler water and often used the sinks set up to capture the overflow as ashtrays, trash cans, and spittoons. Next to the centrally chilled units, electric water coolers were installed so that men wouldn't go to the sink in the head with their greasy, asbestos-coated mitts and capture water in their cupped hands to drink. High school kids called the centrally chilled water "frogwater" and that was a good description. It smelled of cut grass and pond water and you could almost taste the tadpoles swimming in it. Once in a while a greenish-gray strand of algae would appear in the bubbler and build up into a blob in the bottom of the sink. The Forrestal chiller was far forward in the #1 mechanical space, which was part of my general quarters station (and the equipment belonged to me, as a member of the Air Conditioner and Refrigeration Shop). It was about five feet in diameter and five or six feet long. There were two heat exchangers, one where a tiny Trane system chilled brine below the freezing point of water and the tank itself where the chilled brine was run through stagnant water. Although the water in the chiller came from the same fresh water desalinization system as all the other fresh water on the ship, it had a distinct flavor. It was frogwater. Once in a while a stoned, drunk, or inattentive sailor would allow the desalinization tank to break vacuum or let the water level rise too high and the entire ship was blessed with salt water for drinking. Climbing up out of a hot, steamy main engine/boiler space at the end of an 8-hour watch, there is nothing like a few gulps of saltwater to refresh you. There was a coke machine--the kind that for a few coins would deliver a paper cup and six ounces of cold coke. It, too, was salty. The centralized chiller was also affected, but it held hundreds of gallons of water to titrate the salt with. So for a few hours, you could drink frogwater to survive.

I, too, was concerned about bacteria in a water distribution system. I maintained the water system for a marina, we sold potable water to the boats, and used the same water throughout the marina.

It was my job to maintain and document chlorination of the water. The local health department would take random samples to insure the safety of the water.

Bad drinking water is no joke, you can make a lot of people very sick, very quickly.

For a factory of 1000 people, plenty of good water is important. I would recommend drinking fountains with cooling devices capable of keeping up with demand.

You'll be pleased to know today's sailors don't face this anymore. The chilled water systems are now closed loop with heat exchangers at the required points, thus keeping the potable system and chilled system separate. The water on today's ships is cleaner and better tasting than what comes out of nearly every home faucet in the US.