Venting into a pool.

[thirtyshort]

Ok so here's the deal. I got a hell of deal on a foreclosed home. This house is completely tore up and has to be gutted. There were 3 reasons I was attracted to this house 1) large garage 2) it has a pool which needs major repairs and 3) the house itself needs to be gutted. I figured that since I basically have to start from ground zero on this house the neighbors would be a whole hell of a lot less suscpicious of me bringing in building materials for my grow like closing of the garage etc since they can obviously see the house being redone. I also figured the same deal with the pool, since they can look over the fence and see the pool is clearly messed up they won't think twice about it if they see me tying into the pool to run a water cooled ac they'll just figure I'm fixing up the messed up pool.

Now my question is about venting the hot air from the aircooled lights into the pool water just under the water feature in the pool (water feature is supposed to look like an errupting volcano) via a big ass burried pvc drain pipe say maybe 12" diameter pipe. Would this be feasable or would the exhaust fans get fucked having to push the air through the water?

 

[resinryder]

If the pipe is under the water , water will flow into it. Get the pipes exhaust above the water level and you shouldn't have a problem. Blowing air into the pool is like farting in a bathtub, the bubbles will give it away unless hidden. Especially with the exhaust from a 12 inch fan. Put your pipe in place above the water level, install a 90 degree fitting(or other fitting) and blow the air just over the surface of the water, the water feature may hide it that way.

 

[samba]

I have to say, I'm not following you here dude...
aircooled lights into the pool water
Why? or actually, WHAT!?
Why not vent to attic?

 

[thirtyshort]

I understand if the pipe is underwater that water will flow into it. I didn't give that much thought because the pipe would have to come from underground and up over the water line to get into the water feature itself. I also thought of the farting/bathtub thing lol. That's why I came up with the idea to vent it into the middle of the water feature. Figured the water feature uses a pump to create the bubbling volcano effect so I could possibly get away with creating the bubbling from the exhaust fans alone or at the very least add to the errupting volcano effect.

 

[thirtyshort]

I have to say, I'm not following you here dude...
aircooled lights into the pool water
Why? or actually, WHAT!?
Why not vent to attic?

16k makes a whole hell of a lot of heat to pump into the attic.

 

[Lazyman]

LOL, you can't pump air into water that way man, even a great fan can't overcome the head pressure even 2 feet of water creates. Use water cooled lights, water cooled CO2 burner, even a interior heat exchanger (heatexchanger.ca) but no, you can't air cool into water, it wouldn't work.

 

[mrdizzle]

you cant use a pool to run a water cooled A/C. 3 days later your pool with be steaming. as for the lights, vent out the roof

 

[thirtyshort]

you cant use a pool to run a water cooled A/C. 3 days later your pool with be steaming. as for the lights, vent out the roof

This is actually an area where I have experience and there are a few tricks my cousins and I implement here to keep the water in the pool from getting hot. As of right now we run 12k uncooled with a water cooled 5 ton running off the pool.

With this next grow the garage is bigger and needs 16k vs 12k so that along with being able to lower the lights closer to the plants is why I would like to air cool. Although venting into the attic makes me paranoid the benefits of lowering the lights more and being able to run more lights on the same size ac might just win out over the paranoia.

 

[dreadvik]

I see the pressure being an issue too. How about building a jacuzzi in one corner of the pool and have a few nice high up jets bubbling out air to soothe your back?

You are making me wish I'm someplace warm again I could so with a free heated jacuzzi!

 

[deepforest]

please explain how you can run a water cooled a/c on a pool and not have it get to hot in a couple days? cause i know ive talked to a few people with the same problem and if i could figure it out it would make things alot easier. drain to waste isnt ideal on city water

 

[NorthernKronic]

If you are gutting the house I would convert the chimney or add a large chimney that you can vent out of.. I know plenty of people on here who are venting 10+k of lights out of their regular chimney no problem..

As for the lights blowing into the pool.. Not going to work.. Way too much pressure. Think about how much all of the water weighs in the pool, think of all that weight fighting your fan.. You'd end up with a fan full of water.. and even if not it would look pretty damn suspicious having a boiling pool in your backyard no matter where you are..

Take advantage of the fact that you are gutting the house.. You have every option on how to vent out all that heat.. Just need to think more about it.. Hope it works out for ya

-N.Kron

 

[foaf]

Unfortunately I know all about pools, spend way more time maintaining mine than swimmins.

I think you can use the pool to cool all sorts of things, and sure it will get the water warm, but all that surface area where the pool contacts the earth dissipated it. It costs a fortune to keep our pool warm with a huge gas heater, pools love to lose heat. Even warm water can be used to cool lights and co2 and air conditioners.

I dont see why you want to vent into the water, maybe I missed it. It wont help the odor, and if you are trying to hide the sound, depending on where the pool pump room/pad is, you might could dig a trench to there and vent among the noisy pool equipment.

 

[thirtyshort]

please explain how you can run a water cooled a/c on a pool and not have it get to hot in a couple days? cause i know ive talked to a few people with the same problem and if i could figure it out it would make things alot easier. drain to waste isnt ideal on city water

It's pretty simple really just a little back yard good ole redneck ingenuity.

What we do is use (3) 50 foot long rolls of 7/8 copper line used for ac's and join them together to basically end up with a 150 ft long serpentine which sits inside of a deep freeze. The hot water leaving the ac enters the freezer and spins around the 150 ft roll of copper then exits off into the pool. Works wonders.

 

[BonsaiBud]

What you could do to save a bunch of money: Just use a water pump and car radiator and a regular AC in summer. In the winter you may just pump pool water through the car radiator. Duct the hot air from the lights across the car radiator with a big inline fan. If you need more chilling: like in the summer, then you can install some used window AC units to cool the the air from the lamps/top of grow area. Use a blower to blow the air from the hot side of the AC through the radiator. The pool will warm up.

Now, how to keep a swimming pool from overheating in the summer? Use a pump and fountain. That will give you evaporative cooling. An added benefit will be that the chlorine from your pool will gas-off just enough to destroy any lingering odor that might have leaked from your grow area after the carbon scrubber didn't get it.

If you have the money:

Then get a water source AC. Use a pool fountain to help cool the pool: one pump just for that; keep each system separate and simple. For max energy savings, you should air cool the lights with a blower and duct work. Blow, or suck the air across the pool-cooled car radiator and use a separate water pump to circulate that. Finally, install the water-source AC as you normally would in the grow room. You could mount the air-handler (evaporator coil) downstream of the car radiator in the ducting system. That would give you best energy efficiency. Use an independent set of water lines and pump for the water-source AC to the pool. The mixing effect in the pool will make for lower water temps to both AC and radiator than if you tried to tie them together in series.

 

[StealthSniper]

If you aren't planning on using the pool for swimming, I'd frame in the pool (if it's large enough), create a tunnel from the home to the pool, and put my grow there. Vent out of the ground via a man hole into a garden shed or other, or even vent back clean air from your hoods into the garage or house. Cover the pool with grass (reinforce properly) and no one will have a clue. With no obvious signs inside the house leading to the pool, you will ultimately have a very covert op.

Unfortuantely if you're in a climate that gets snow, you will have a "square" patch on your lawn that doesn't melt . . . LOL

Stay safe

 

[Me2]

you cant use a pool to run a water cooled A/C. 3 days later your pool with be steaming. as for the lights, vent out the roof

It depends how big the pool is and how much water it contains. An open pool loses a shedload of heat..you`ll be hard pushed to make it steam

 

[Aeroguerilla]

you can disguise a very large heat signature by using a heated pool.

 

[P-NUT]

wouldnt you burn up your deep freezer running the 150' copper tubing through it. also would that work in florida? especially during summer. would a pool cover help during summer?

 

[thirtyshort]

no it doesn't burn up the freezer. yup sure does work in florida. remember you're not trying to flash freeze hot ass water just cool it off as much as possible before sending it back out to the pool. as far as using a pool cover I would think that would just keep the heat in but I could be wrong.

I love water cooled ac's nothing beats a water cooled ac in the event you a have a nosey ass neighbor.

 

[BonsaiBud]

I was thinking about the problem of a pool getting too hot.
The thing to do in that case is to keep the pool shaded. The quickest way would be to put up a tall trellis or fence along the south side and grow morning glory all over it. If need be, you could shade the east and west sides and even hang a shading-mesh-cloth over the top.

Hots of good stuff here people.