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I have developed an alternative air conditioning system that works even in the hot summers of Gilroy. I hope to get the attention of PG&E who should love the idea as well as other local inventors.
To summarize how it works, I use 360 concrete blocks to store the coolness of the night air and then blow it into the house in the day time when it gets hot. I’m time shifting the coolness of the night into the daytime.
Additionally I have drip lines in the concrete blocks so I’m using wet concrete. That increases the thermal mass and it provides evaporative cooling which greatly increases the cooling power of the system. The hotter it gets the better it evaporates water. Think of it as a personal cave.
Gilroy California is a small town about 25 miles south of San Jose California. Gilroy is somewhat known for the hot summer days setting records for the area. But at night the temperature usually drops in the range of 55-60 at night. This isn’t something that would work in Georgia, but west of the Rock Mountains it’s ideal.
The system was very inexpensive to build. It uses simple controls – no computers – and it works pretty well. Runs off a standard thermostat, a hose timer, and another timer to run it at night to coll it off from 12 midnight to 6:00 am. Had to use a couple relays to activate the fans and 2 damper valves. it uses about 12 gallons of water a day.
Because it uses just fans and water the electrical draw is far lower than an air conditioner. It also saves power at the hottest part of the day when PG&E really needs people to save power. This system works up to about 105 degrees. If I had used bigger ducting and 500 concrete blocks it would work all the way up to 110 degrees. that’s how hot it got here this summer in Gilroy. It is not August and only hard to use the air conditioner for 3 days this year for 1/2 hour a day.
If this system were incorporated in new construction it would save enough power so that PG&E could build less power plants to take care of peak capacity. Hoping that PG&E is interested in green alternative energy systems that save a lot of electricity.
More Pics: http://ctyme.com/pics/aircond/
what if it never cools off at night? it’s been in the 80s at night in southern Illinois. how do you get the humidity out of the house?
jc
You’re looking at a distinctly unusual climate, there, with low humidity and sharp changes in daily temperature. There probably won’t actually even be much mold around, to start with, because there isn’t any place for them to live… err… wasn’t any place for them to live. The slime factor may get interesting presently. In any event, not exactly a practical solution unless you live in a high desert zone.
What makes you think PG&E is going to fund everyone building a big heat sink near their home? Sell to the free market.
Just another tulip in the bouquette: I thought it was a bit Rube Goldberg when I first saw it but my company built another large building and it costed out to use an “off hours chillder plant” where we bought electricity in the early AM hours and made ice cubes. Then during the day when electricity rates went up, we cooled the building by running chilled water everywhere.
Now–thats inefficient until you throw in “market inequities” and so forth. We also would turn on our own emergency generators during high peak times to further our market based incentives.
Follow the money—and it paid for itself in about 10 years. Still going strong now.
As to Perkels design–philosophically more pure using just the physics involved. Seems to me to really be effective the Mass of the storage would have to at least equal the mass of the home if not by 3-4 times more?
That sun is monstrously hot.
It took balls to submit this article. Its just another self promotional attempt to make the blogger-engineer leap. Clearly the gap is much wider than anticipated. Pass the marshmallows & sticks before flame out.
No its not.
Next you know, he’ll want to be a lawyer.
So what if he did want to be a lawyer. What exactly is your point?
Is it the “leap” that gives you the concern, “make the blogger-engineer leap”?
Is it just doing something different then you expect, making a change that gives you concern?
What is it; what is your point?
Does everyone have to abide stickily by your definition of a blogger, what ever that is?
Finally, what is it about you, that any blogger should care you have “issues”?
6 questions. You haven’t a clue, and will likely stay that way.
Thomas Jefferson used the same principle in the design of Monticello. So it is not new. Many years ago I saw a report of a similar unit using buried granite gravel under the house’s driveway. Piping containing refrigerant moved the heat back and forth. The side benefit was that the driveway never had snow in the winter.
Why would you move the cold from the driveway into the house?
I have noticed again that the water coming from my kitchen tap is significantly cooler than the air temp in the house. Now–if there was some way to run the entire water supply of the neighborhood thru a radiator/heat exchanger in my house, I could have free air conditioning and most people wouldn’t even notice the heat gain to their own usage.
I wonder what volume of water over what temperature difference over what length of time it would take to cool my house with city water?
There must be a chart for that available on the web?
Yet another man who invented solar power.
Did you know 99% of American homes are designed incorrectly?
They put the air ducts in the cold zone of the house, resulting in a 25% increase in energy consumption.
The housing industry has gotten lazy, and to keep homes cheap yet still give the homeowner the useless marble countertops they want, they have engineered a home to be absolutely terrible in energy savings.
If a home was simply built to have air ducts in the warm zone of the house (the part you live in), either through cathedralization of the attic or though a double thick ceiling, it would save more energy than all the attick insulation, storm windows and high SEER units put together.
A swamp cooler with concrete blocks. I guess it might work in arid areas.
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