A/C Condenser Evaporative Cooling Assist

Chum lee wrote:

dclark1946 wrote:

Chum lee wrote:
Yep, it works, but only in hot dry climates when you have a relatively pure inexhaustible water source. Try that in the desert in any MH. Come on guys, you have ask yourself WHY ALL the major HVAC manufacturers DO NOT do this for their factory installations. It's all you 100 mpg carburetor, fuel additive, free energy, Banks chip tuning, tweaky guys who want to talk endlessly about these things. (with NO long term substantiated evidence)

Chum lee

The quality of the water is not an issue since you are not spraying water on the condenser coils. You are pulling hot ambient air over a wet pad and part of the pad moisture evaporates which cools the air before it passes over the condenser coils. The water that does not evaporate returns to the reservoir and is pumped back up to the top of the pad. You only have to replace the water that evaporates from the pad. In the example I gave in Dallas we had 113 deg air temp one summer and the air leaving the Aspen pad was 85 deg. That dropped the compressor high side pressure and reduces the power consumption. For a 95 deg day the electrical consumption was reduced about 14%. Even better I was not losing BTU capacity as the temp went above 95.

Well, we'll have to disagree on that. Eventually the dissolved solid content of the water precipitates out on the pads, (or someplace else) unless you flush the system regularly. That's why you have to replace the pads. Lived in the deserts SW for years. This is no news. I suggest you take/pass a college level general chemistry class. Not a sales/marketing class.

Chum lee

Theoretically you are correct however we have a significant amount of minerals in our Dallas water supply and from a practical standpoint it was not an issue. I operated our evaporative cooling home central A/C assist for about 6 years each full cooling season and replaced the pad at the beginning of each season and the cooling remained effective over the season.

If you recall, the earlier residential central A/C systems condensers were water cooled. The heated water was pumped to a redwood cooling tower which sprayed the water downward at the top of the tower and the water dripped down the wood tower slats partially evaporating and cooling the water which was then collecting at the bottom of the reservoir and then pumped back to the condensor. These systems were more efficient compared to the air cooled systems introduced later. The major issue with the cooling towers was algae buildup requiring periodic draining and flushing and addition of chemicals to minimize algae growth.

With regard to taking a college level chemistry class, I have a MS in electrical engineering so yes I have completed college level chemistry. I was inspired to investigate this technique to improve residential A/C efficiency after discussing this with mechanical engineers that worked on the same government DOD program I did. They were building their own version of this type of cooling system.