Air condition more efficient ?

[Ttystikk]

Yea, dehumidifying can be a real challange. Fortunately, our girls prefer the humidity. Running full capacity, my room will generate 30 gallons of condensate per day.

It's all a balance. I used to adjust the water temp in my fresca sol fixtures to ad more heat to my room to keep the AC running instead of the dehuey. The dehuey would heat things up and then both units would be running and the RH would start to swing.

The more I tried to scale up. The more problems I started to have. That's when I did a 180 and went open hood with proper AC.

Not a dis on your setup. Looks tits! getting dialed and producing is what's important. how we arrive there isn't

I don't feel disrespected at all, indeed thank you for your perspective and thoughtful comments. There are some fundamental differences between running a water cooled air handler and a fresca sol water jacket. These have to do with the ability of the WCAH to effectively draw sufficient moisture from the air.

I dig that you run higher humidity, as I'm a big believer in VPD theory. Again, I get that it isn't everyone's bag, just saying it's how I'm doing things here. I will run my RH as high as 75% @83f in peak bloom, and wow they love it! In order to maintain my RH at that level and no higher- yes, my girls want to push it higher!- I need a larger capacity air handling unit. I will need to cool a room with 8 bare bulbs, so what capacity would I need? Is three Tons enough? Four?!

When doing this with water, you need surface area and a substantial temperature drop. Instead of hot exhaust of any kind, the only output from the WCAH is cool moist air, having just been hot air pulled from near the ceiling.

In this way there is no heat buildup- but there is also no controlling RH without an outside source of heat, be it light bulb or otherwise.

 

[Edo]

Found something great.

www.Opticlimate.com

Seems like the dutch people use that to cool their growrooms in a very effective way.

 

[Edo]

sry wrong address

www.opticlimate.nl

 

[Ttystikk]

sry wrong address

www.opticlimate.nl

I've seen this- it's an air conditioner that emits hot water instead of hot air. It's exactly the opposite of a chiller, but both use a similar AC compressor and technology. To use an Opticlimate effectively, one would need to be set up to utilise all that hot water. Worse, you need an Opticlimate for each growing space, whereas you only need one chiller- the water flows to it to cool, not the other way.

 

[Ttystikk]

Chillers are cool

Chillers are cool

we called em swamp coolers i colorado,
its basically a radiator with cold water running thru it with a fan blowing air thru the cooling fins.
it also acts as a dehuey, water in the air condenses passing thru the cooling fins.
there's an ic member that made one.
but yeah if you have a steady supply of cold running water and how cold it is,
a 6000w gro sounds doable

swamp coolers were everywhere on roofs when i lived near denver.
when i moved to florida I didn't know what an air conditioner for a house was

This is incorrect. A swamp cooler is an evaporative cooler, using evaporation of water to cause a temperature drop. It's useful in arid climates to manage both high temps and low RH. This system uses water AS the coolant, and it loses the water it uses to evaporation as a normal part of its duty cycle. This is why they need to be refilled all the time.

A chiller has an AC compressor and uses Freon as its coolant. It does not utilize the water it cools in any way, other than as a medium to carry heat to it to remove. Thus, unless you have a leak, it won't lose water or need refilling. Further, this chiller can be nearly anywhere you can get a pair of waterlines to it, it need not be inside or adjacent to your controlled environment, which simplifies installation and increases your placement options. Remember also that the hot air it emits is plenty useful all winter, AND CHILLER EXHAUST NEVER, EVER SMELLS LIKE WEED.

Swamp cooling can be an efficient way to cool and add humidity to your open, vented room. It will not effectively cool anything in a closed room, it will simply raise humidity.

Water chilling is a much more efficient way to cool AND dehumidify your environmentally controlled spaces, due to the superior inherent heat transfer capabilities of water over air. In addition, water chilling can manage humidity to put it exactly where the grower wants it, something AC cannot do.

Stand alone dehumidifiers are an efficiency DISASTER in your growroom! WTF else do you call something that sits in a space you're trying to keep cool- and spends all its time blowing out HOT AIR?! THIS, the dehuey, is ultimately why AC is a dead end for climate managing growing spaces.

 

[Finklsteinshtkd]

Would you recommend a chiller/air handler combo for a small 2K grow? I have extremely low humidity and it effected my last crop severely. I was going to spend $500 on a 14K BTU portable dual-hose AC unit to put in there but I'm not sure if the air handler would be a better option.

 

[Ttystikk]

2kW in flower could be handled with an open setup, but you would not be able to control humidity very well. I know, I tried it and it was not successful even with an environmental controller.

I advocate water chilling for three main reasons;
1. You put an AC unit in the window and hook up water lines, no tech or AC hoses needed. You do your own maintenance and if the chiller needs service you can put it in your car and take it to THEM.
2. Cost effectiveness vs efficiency; the chiller will be expensive when compared to AC. Don't believe it. You are buying an air conditioning unit AND a dehuey cleverly disguised in one box. Don't be fooled by cheap minisplits. You will save 30% on your electrical consumption vs AC the moment you turn it on, and above 50% when using it as dehuey as well.
3. You get your money back in two ways; one, you're now done buying stuff to make your op cold; it will cool your water, your air and dehuey. For your size op, 8" Icebox units with an 8" muffin fan or maxfan blowing down through it from near the ceiling and a bucket to catch dripwater it's all the 'air handler' you'll need.
Two, not only is it substantially more efficient than AC, especially in high altitude and arid climates, but if you put the unit in your home over the winter, all that heat it's pulling out of your op can go to heat your house! My unit has saved me its replacement cost in natural gas savings alone, on top of the efficiency gains already mentioned.

To set RH in a water chilled room, you set the working temperature of your chiller. Start around 60f... Which will look funny on a chiller. To get 60f, adjust 'setpoint' to 54 and 'rise' to 6. This means your chiller will kick in at 60f and will run until it cools down to 54. In practice, thus means your system will run at 60f, which becomes your room's dewpoint. If you don't know what that is, look it up. You need to know it as a sealed room grower anyway...

 

[the gnome]

This is incorrect. A swamp cooler is an evaporative cooler, using evaporation of water to cause a temperature drop.

ty
read my post 3rd one down down from my 1st correcting myself

 

[Ttystikk]

ty
read my post 3rd one down down from my 1st correcting myself

Sorry, didn't mean to sound like I was dogpiling on your acknowledged mistake!

The idea was to use the post as a chance to discuss water chilling's advantage over AC in terms of dehuey vs swamp cooling.

I'm such a HUGE fan of water chilling as a general approach that I'm going to design my dream house around using water for HVAC.

 

[Edo]

Ttystikk convinced me that water chillers are they way to go.

Some great info, thanks for that.

 

[the gnome]

Sorry, didn't mean to sound like I was dogpiling on your acknowledged mistake!

The idea was to use the post as a chance to discuss water chilling's advantage over AC in terms of dehuey vs swamp cooling.

I'm such a HUGE fan of water chilling as a general approach that I'm going to design my dream house around using water for HVAC.

nah... I knew you weren't giving me flak
its all good
i wish here in florida I had access to water cold nuff for cooling,
we do have natural springs with water in the upper 60s.
seems like a creek deep enough or a small lake /pond deep nuff would do the trick.
Ive heard of using large swimming pools i to get what they need.
that might would be an easy option it for edo in his climate in his non-frozen seasons


what we have is a lot of solar hot water heaters here,
panels up on the roof and the water gets h-o-t in the summer

 

[budleydoright]

Found something great.

www.Opticlimate.com

Seems like the dutch people use that to cool their growrooms in a very effective way.

Very cool. Not very effecient. Drain to waste watercooling would get you hung in my part of the world! Plus it's electric heat. So at night you are running an electric heater to allow the AC to cool the room so that the moisture can be removed all the while your pissing a 1/2 gallon per minute down t he drain.

Now you could capture the energy and heat a pool or hot tub. Most refrigerant systems have been made to work well at 100F.
A water cooled ac is indeed just a chiller in reverse.

You can buy a coaxial heat exchanger and replace either coil on your unit. Easy to make if your handy.

In addition, water chilling can manage humidity to put it exactly where the grower wants it, something AC cannot do.

I'm curious why you think an AC evaporator coil is less effecient than a watercooled heat exchanger at dehumidifying. My AC coil has refrigerant at 40F which is much colder than most people run an icebox style heat exchanger. I capture over 30 gallons of condensate a day between the 2 units. To cool my room with Iceboxes would be much more difficult. And I would still need either a heat source at night or a dehumidifier.

Until you get into a watercooled airhandler, I don't think it scales up well. Plus my AC is a system within itself, not part of another system. It is simple and almost foolproof. There are very few weak links (pumps, hoses, etc..). I don't have to manage or maintain it like you do a watercooled system. All of my focus is now on growing instead of the growing system.

 

[Ttystikk]

Very cool. Not very effecient. Drain to waste watercooling would get you hung in my part of the world! Plus it's electric heat. So at night you are running an electric heater to allow the AC to cool the room so that the moisture can be removed all the while your pissing a 1/2 gallon per minute down t he drain.

Now you could capture the energy and heat a pool or hot tub. Most refrigerant systems have been made to work well at 100F.
A water cooled ac is indeed just a chiller in reverse.
[URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=20521&pictureid=797404&thumb=1]View Image[/URL]
You can buy a coaxial heat exchanger and replace either coil on your unit. Easy to make if your handy.

I'm curious why you think an AC evaporator coil is less effecient than a watercooled heat exchanger at dehumidifying. My AC coil has refrigerant at 40F which is much colder than most people run an icebox style heat exchanger. I capture over 30 gallons of condensate a day between the 2 units. To cool my room with Iceboxes would be much more difficult. And I would still need either a heat source at night or a dehumidifier.

Until you get into a watercooled airhandler, I don't think it scales up well. Plus my AC is a system within itself, not part of another system. It is simple and almost foolproof. There are very few weak links (pumps, hoses, etc..). I don't have to manage or maintain it like you do a watercooled system. All of my focus is now on growing instead of the growing system.

Quickly, the chiller keeps all of its Freon related components inside the box. Only water moves around the system, easy enough to work with. Further, it can be easily disconnected and carried into a repair shop, which speeds repairs and maintains privacy. AC will be an extremely effective dehumidifier- around here, the complaint is typo much of a good thing. Chilling addresses this on a smaller scale with Iceboxes, and like anything else needs appropriately sized air handlers too properly scale Finally, AC will not chill your RDWC.

Water carries heat and cold with much greater efficiency autism air, and imparts something else to the equation; thermal mass. This thermal mass comes in damn handy, as it can help regulate the temperature of the system as a whole, reducing swings. But, there's more;

I placed my chiller in my office for the winter, to heat my home with the 'waste' heat from my op. My overnight room is down for maintenance, so it isn't contributing heat to the system on a subzero night in Colorado! House is getting cold, fast! What to do?

I simply set my chiller temperature down a few degrees, and it kicked on, dutifully pumping that heat up from the reservoir and the RDWC and putting into my house to keep it warm. I haven't run my furnace in three winters now, saving easily $1000 a season.

But wait- didn't I just trade heat for electricity? NO- I MOVED heat, remember? It came from my system, do the next day when it warmed up, I just returned the chiller to its original setting and let the unit take a break while the system soaked up the excess capacity for awhile. This meant the chiller did not run when it otherwise would have. Effectively, I used my chiller based grow op cooling system to arbitrage heat between my house and my op to save myself heating costs and maintain the comfort of my home in deepest winter.

I don't know about y'all, but I think that's pretty cool.

 

[Finklsteinshtkd]

What size chiller would I need for an 8" ice box? Do i need a res for the chiller or do the lines just connect directly from chiller to air handler and back again? What size pump?

Thanks..

 

[budleydoright]

I don't know about y'all, but I think that's pretty cool.

I think all this shit is cool! Got to love this shit.

Talk about an ineffecient hobby though. If I were growing tomatoes I wouldn't even produce 100 dollars a years worth!

 

[Gelado`]

I grew through the summer last year and my power bill was high because of the need for air conditioning; both heat and humidity were high and the airconditioning was working full-time to keep them under control. I'm now only going to grow in winter; the heat from the HIDs keeps my place warm and the air is drier, so I don't even need to use my dehumidifier on the days when the humidity dips! This saves me power and keeps me warm when I need it most.

I should be all done harvesting by April; I'll shut down and start back up again in December. I'm only going to keep my moms alive under CFL during the hottest, most humid part of the year!

 

[Edo]

From what I understand now, to run a water chiller you need a rez, iceboxes, a pump and the water chiller itself.

Read about the cooling liquid Freon, where exactly is this liquid? In the water chiller?

So basically the cold water runs from the chiller to the iceboxes, where it gets warmed up, than back to the rez, from the rez to the chiller where the water gets cooled down by the Freon liquid?

 

[Ttystikk]

What size chiller would I need for an 8" ice box? Do i need a res for the chiller or do the lines just connect directly from chiller to air handler and back again? What size pump?

Thanks..

Size your chiller for the amount of heat you need to remove from your op. Size/number your Iceboxes to make sure you can move that heat from your growroom.

There are several ways to set up the cooling water circuit, but as usual only one is the best; run a separate water circuit for cooling, use a sizeable reservoir, place your circulation pump just downstream if the reservoir so it never runs dry, place your manifold to distribute water downstream of the pump, make sure all your water return lines go back to the reservoir.

Consider four lines from that manifold for a one room op; one for RDWC, one for the chiller and two for Iceboxes in the room. If you're running two rooms, add another line for RDWC and two more Iceboxes for cooling the second room. In my experience, one Icebox is good for one bare bulb or two sealed and vented hoods' worth of heat.

 

[Ttystikk]

I think all this shit is cool! Got to love this shit.

Talk about an ineffecient hobby though. If I were growing tomatoes I wouldn't even produce 100 dollars a years worth!

If you're making the light and heat to heat your home anyway, then it isn't an extra expense. Yet electricity is far more costly than natural gas for heat... the answer to efficiency is in getting more than one use out of a given energy purchase.

I'm investigating the use of fuel cells to convert my electric bill into a gas bill at the rate of about $40 per hundred; roughly for every $100 in electricity I buy from the utility, a fuel cell would give me the same power, having used only $40 in natural gas to do it. Your mileage will vary based on local utility rates. AND I STILL GET THE HEAT, to heat my home and all of the other strategies mentioned above.

One more bonus; these fuel cells make pure CO² as a byproduct of converting natural gas into hydrogen for the fuel cell stack to use in making electricity. Don't suppose y'all could find something to do with that?!

 

[Ttystikk]

I grew through the summer last year and my power bill was high because of the need for air conditioning; both heat and humidity were high and the airconditioning was working full-time to keep them under control. I'm now only going to grow in winter; the heat from the HIDs keeps my place warm and the air is drier, so I don't even need to use my dehumidifier on the days when the humidity dips! This saves me power and keeps me warm when I need it most.

I should be all done harvesting by April; I'll shut down and start back up again in December. I'm only going to keep my moms alive under CFL during the hottest, most humid part of the year!

The current value of our crops makes spending even thousands a month through the summer on electricity a trivial expense compared to the return on one good crop, and affordable even on the mediocre returns of substandard growers.

A chiller would effectively cool your op, and you could also rig it up to cool your home. I did, and it worked great! Turns out that people aren't nearly as difficult to keep cool as thousand watt light bulbs, who knew?