Chilling my chiller

[KathyC]

My tanks are nice and cool but I'm not

My office is in the basement of my home and my 3 SW tanks are also in that same room..makes for an interesting place to chat on the phone ..over the sound of compressors and pumps and water flowing...
I can live with all that but the heat coming off the 2 chillers is way too much to deal with.

Before you ask..nope, no AC down here. I only have 1 window and I absolutely refuse to block it with an A/C unit..so that's not a possibility.

The smaller of the 2 chillers (1/10 for my 33g cube) vents into a closet that adjoins my office ('closet' is 8 x 12') and that one doesn't bother me muchas it doens't come on as often as the larger chiller. The closet also has 2 sets of louvered doors ..one is 3 x 6' , the other is 6 x 6'..so the heat does vent out of the closet.

It's the bigger chiller for my 120g that is causing the majority of the heat issues. It is a Pacific Coast CL650 1/4 HP unit. It does a great job keeping the tank at a steady 79 degrees but the heat coming off the back of the unit is a toasty 92 degrees...argh...add the high humidity level from all of the tanks and one tiny little window...I'm sure you get the picture...

One night I got into a discussion with Warren (Pecan2phat) about venting chillers and he gave me some really great info and some links. Thanks Warren!! :hug:...and the plan morphed into the following to suit the design of my home/chiller...

This isn't done yet..so bear with me please

Picked up these parts at Home Depot (of all places...)

and a bunch of 4" duct work...mostly rigid stuff and some flex dryer hose for the 1 bend I needed, and of course a dryer vent 'door' for the outside of the house (no pic on this yet, it was dark outside..lol)

This pic is a little weird as I'm not ready yet to move the chiller to it's new location below where the duct work comes into the house(this is under a counter in the corner of my office)...so a cardboard box of the same dimensions was used to configure the 'box' that will capture the heat from the chiller.

Clearly it's not quite finished yet...but it's getting there!
The top part was a vent designed for a chiminey or something and the edges were then bent down and more sheetmetal added so that it makes a snug fit around the (stand in) chiller. Obviously it needs more rivets but you get the idea :spin:


Kind of hard to tell from the picture but the 'box' is 10" x 16" and the hot air only has to go straight up the vent pipe about 5 feet before it is OUTSIDE (yippee!!!!!) of the house.
The inline duct fan pictured above moves 80 cubic feet of air per minute and hopefully that should be enough to keep the 'heat' of the chiller from popping it's own fuse

The other unit pictured above is a thermostadt that will be attached onto the 'box' and adjusted to turn on the fan as soon as the chiller starts generating heat higer than when it's simply 'on'.(I don't personally do electrical work, I stand back & watch )

I will be getting something appropriate to wrap the vent pipe in so I don't heat the room up further by default..and so far it looks like my current hoses will reach the new chiller location and therefore my current supply pump should also be similarly adequate. I do have a slightly stronger pump just in case...

I can't wait for it to finally be cooler in here again!
I'll post some better pics of the vent box when that cardboard box is removed and all the rivets are in place.

Thanks for looking !!

 

[qy7400]

Looks good, this project should also help lower the humidity as well if the upstairs has AC and reduce the chiller use as the hot air is no longer heating the room and tank.

 

[KathyC]

That is correct, the bulk of the heat is being produced by the chiller, but the chiller is a necessity when the MH's come on...kind of a catch 22 I have going
Thought about a dehumidifier also, but it would be running 24/7 with all of the tanks in the house...lol
This seemed like the best solution short of moving the unit itself outdoors!

 

[cali_reef]

I don't remember where the CL650 draws fresh air to cool the compressor, you might want to pull the hot air from where it is designed to exit rather than from the top. You are "disrupting" the designed cooling air path which will make the compressor to get hotter and less efficient. 80CFM and 4" duct may not pull enough air, take some exit air temp readings before you put the "hood" on and then take a reading of the ducted air, I would think you want to keep the two fairly close.

72 deg and sunny here today. I can see snow on mountain tops about 50 miles from me out of my bedroom window this morning.

 

[ellebelle]

72 deg and sunny here today. I can see snow on mountain tops about 50 miles from me out of my bedroom window this morning.

Show off.

 

[KathyC]

I don't remember where the CL650 draws fresh air to cool the compressor, you might want to pull the hot air from where it is designed to exit rather than from the top. You are "disrupting" the designed cooling air path which will make the compressor to get hotter and less efficient. 80CFM and 4" duct may not pull enough air, take some exit air temp readings before you put the "hood" on and then take a reading of the ducted air, I would think you want to keep the two fairly close.

72 deg and sunny here today. I can see snow on mountain tops about 50 miles from me out of my bedroom window this morning.

Hey Pierce..sounds nice out there! Lucky you
The chiller draws fresh air in through the front. The 'box' is 10" deep (where the hot air comes out) and 16" tall...and it was designed to encompass the entire back of the unit. The rear exhaust vent is 8 x 10" and situated near the lower part of the unit.

I am thinking about adding a clip on fan or small box fan near the front of the unit to help push air through the chiller to keep the compressor cooler AND to help push the warmer air up the duct piping so the inline fan doesn't have to do all of the work.
As I mentioned there is only 1 bend in the piping (where it crosses the sill plate of the house) so hopefully the movement of the air will be unimpeded.

Does that sound like it should work?
Do you think a 2nd 80 cfm added to the piping would be helpful?
Will also do as you suggest and measure the air temp at the exit of the pipe. The air temp on the exhaust air 6" out from the rear of the chiller is 92 degrees...argh..
Thanks for the suggestions and should also say thanks to you as Warren told me it was YOU who came up with the plan for his chiller vent

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

cannot remember where my calculation goes, but me and dr random have decided to use a high end pc case fan instead of the in line duct fan because of the flow while working on a similar the cooling project. Oh we void the warranty by direct wiring to the controller board.

 

[KathyC]

cannot remember where my calculation goes, but me and dr random has decided to use a high end pc case fan instead of the in line duct fan because of the flow while working on a similar the cooling project. Oh we void the warranty by direct wiring to the controller board.

Thanks Wingo..do let me know if you find the calculations
I've never had to measure air before ..lol

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

Oh also since you are making a hole in your house, you may also consider the kind of ac that use a hose to exhaust and and intake. I know Sharp makes one. They come with flexible hose but if they re dragged to far away and makking too many turns, the efficiency will go way down. However, if it's like your chinney /chiller thing-going straight up, I think it will be good to check it out.

 

[KathyC]

An update...learned a lot about moving hot air with this project!

After my chiller was relocated across the room closer to the outside wall for ease of venting, the DIY vent box was attached. Keep in mind this also moved the chiller about 2 feet away from where my desk is...
While it was 92 degrees coming off the back of the unit into an open room, once it was condensed it into the ducts it was even worse and the temp of the air being exhausted outside was a toasty 120+ degrees and the heat that eminated off the ducts was awful!
So we upped the size of the inline vent fan to 180cfm...and that didn't help enough either and I was now getting baked while working at my desk..

Plan B
Soooo meet my new best friend...

This bad boy is 9000 BTU's of delight The amount of water it is drawing out of the air is incredible (about 5g per day so far) and while I said I wouldn't close off the only window I have in the room, I agreed to after seeing the way it vents (forgot to take a pic..will get around to it..). I can easily take the vent hose out of the window to access fresh air when I want, and it only takes up about 4" of the window, so I still get some sunlight
As for that spiffy hole I now have in the side of my house...that will be getting a reversable fan installed so that I can either exhaust air or bring fresh air into the room with the flick of a switch

As an added bonus I scored another receptacle for my cube tank as another circuit breaker had to be added for the A/C. Ahh finally somplace to plug in that last Koralia

All cool now!

 

[bad coffee]

Hey kath, if loosing the light from the window is a problem, remake the window piece for the ac out of 3/8" acrylic.

B