"water" air conditioning

I would like to install a radiator in the intake air of my furnace ( see drawing) and I have 2 questions
1. Is it possible to buy a lead free radiator that I could install (otherwise project is a scrap)
2. is there any problem here that I don’t see
I plan on putting a drain tray hose to drain (one foot away)
I figure with the water we use and the fact the dc motor in the furnace is always on low (.25 amps)

A water air conditioner is called a swamp (evaporative) cooler and is easy to install and easy to maintain.

I'm not sure if that is what you are trying to build or what?

If your idea is that air moving through the radiator would cool the house like an air conditioner, I think you are in for a great disappointment. Best you look into a central air conditioning system.

Gary Swart said:

If your idea is that air moving through the radiator would cool the house like an air conditioner, I think you are in for a great disappointment.

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Yes. I sometimes get ideas like this, such as trying to use the hot water going to the bathroom to help heat the floor. What you have in mind *might* add a little warmth to the water going into your water heater when both the hot water and your furnace are running, but merely cool water there is not going to be enough to cause the condensed moisture required for noticably conditioned air.

Alberta, no A/C, what to do?

A big roll of Pex costs little (e.g. $50), and you can satisfy your curiosity by making a coil out of it, a spiral, and running your cold ground water through it as the first part of your house supply line. Placing the coil in front of the air intake of your so-called "furnace" (which is OFF in summer so it is just air recirculation), and making air go through or over the spiral tubing-- is that what you are thinking of doing?

In your dry air climate, it might work to lower the house temperature by a degree or two, if everything works exactly according to plan. Many factors will work against you: house size, how dry or humid the air is, how leaky the house is, how you build the air-cool enclosure, how much contact the incoming air has with the cool pipe, etc. Damp or humid air cannot be cooled with a system as basic as this, since h2o molecules in vapor form contain a lot of stored energy (heat energy).

If you run cold water Pex up against the subfloor of your ground floor, you'll have cooling in the floor too. That is called hydronic. That may work well, since it works by permanent contact with the matter being cooled. Getting air to cool by running it "loosely" over pipes is not going to have a big impact.

Try it and post how well it works.

david

1) Yes they do have lead free heat exchangers. You should start by looking at boiler sites.

2) I have some questions about your question.
What are you planning?
Running water through your heat exchanger and then to your house hold?

I would suggest you to a different site that talks about low cost AC.
http://mb-soft.com/solar/saving.html
But the basic setup that they talk about is the ground temp is cooler than the air temp in your home. If you can draw the cooler air (using pipe) or water (using pipe) out of the ground and be able to use it to cool your house.

I do use a water system that they talk about. I would stay way form the air setups that they talk about. If you want to talk send my a PM.

got_nailed thank you so much i can see the error of my ways and seeing im going to redo my landscaping next year the under ground air systen sounds perfect. the minamal amount of air cooling with the water system is not the way to go. thanks

ps will post the Results next year

sjcrawley said:

... the under ground air systen sounds perfect.

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I do not know the details, but just yesterday I heard about a guy who has large PVC pipe underground all around his house as a source for cool air.

The under ground air looks good but I keep thinking about he mold that can grow. I would do a bit of reading before I went that rout.

I’m using the water setup. I have 4 1000 gallon tanks about 80’ apart. 2” PVC form tank to tank. It cools upstairs and down stairs of my house unless it hits 100* + for a few days. I should have put in a 5th or 6th tank but I didn’t know that then.

Edit…
I do live off grid so if you have some off the wall questions I might be able to help you out or send you to some good sites full of info.