Cooling Water

It would help tremendously to know what kind of flow rate and volume you need when you draw the water.

This makes all the difference in what kind of approach will work. Is it all 500 gallons taken out at once, or slowly over a whole work day?
 
Futbalfantic said:
I'm no engineer. But I think the cheapest venture over the long term would be to drill a 400ft well and run the water down into it and use the earth as a heat sink. Will save a lot of money on electricity costs, no moving parts, no maintance. May help with winter time warming too
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technically he'd have to warm the water then. But there's a ton of options to do that.
 
RatLabGuy said:
It would help tremendously to know what kind of flow rate and volume you need when you draw the water.

This makes all the difference in what kind of approach will work. Is it all 500 gallons taken out at once, or slowly over a whole work day?
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We pull 8-10 gallons at the time. Example, I test one cylinder, fill it with 8 gallons of water, test/stamp/empty that cylinder and get another ready to fill (approx 10-15 mins).
 
Our building circled in red. The town wouldn’t let us put down a well. And our space is very limited. We use the whole outside area to park.

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RatLabGuy said:
technically he'd have to warm the water then. But there's a ton of options to do that.
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Use a mixing valve with the higher temp water already supplied?

LBZ_Duramax said:
Our building circled in red. The town wouldn’t let us put down a well. And our space is very limited. We use the whole outside area to park.
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Put it under the parking lot?
 
LBZ_Duramax said:
We pull 8-10 gallons at the time. Example, I test one cylinder, fill it with 8 gallons of water, test/stamp/empty that cylinder and get another ready to fill (approx 10-15 mins).
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Just to be clear - you need nice high pressure to pull that 8 gallons fairly quickly (this is just loaded as fast as possible), then you have 10-15 minutes of waiting time, during the testing, before the next 8 gallons starts to pull?
Sounds like you only need a super cooler with say a 10 gal tank to chill 8 gal at a time, with say a 12 min time to do it. If you're only bringing it down 20 degrees, that shouldn't be impossible. One of our super smart engineers here with thermodynamics math training could work out what you're looking at to do that.
 
@LBZ_Duramax - Knowing you and your business, I know your shop is climate controlled for these tests. Could you not fill the tanks the night before and let them acclimate overnight, then run your test in the morning? This may not be feasible for a production test facility like yours, or may not be allowed per the DOT standards. In a previous life the company I worked for was able to do this for UL certification tests, but we did not do any DOT recertification.
 
If your only using let's say less than 20 gallons at a time could you recycle the water? Instead of dumping it down the drain could divert your drain to a "holding drum" and then with a wee little transfer pump back to the same faucet you filled the tank with fill another tank with the same water? Just a thought. Then the water is room temp and your saving water.
 
A sink mounted on top of a 55 gallon drum with a 110v on demand pump feeding the faucet is what I have pictured in my mind. Empty every Friday evening and refill with fresh so the water stays clean.
 
peewee said:
If your only using let's say less than 20 gallons at a time could you recycle the water? Instead of dumping it down the drain could divert your drain to a "holding drum" and then with a wee little transfer pump back to the same faucet you filled the tank with fill another tank with the same water? Just a thought. Then the water is room temp and your saving water.
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I was thinking about this thead today at work after seeing one of his fire extinguishers :lol: and that was my thought exactly. Unless the water was somehow contaminated I would think you could just reuse it a few times. Maybe have a reclaim for tanks that only hold air and one for fire extinguishers?
 
awheelterd said:
I was thinking about this thead today at work after seeing one of his fire extinguishers :lol: and that was my thought exactly. Unless the water was somehow contaminated I would think you could just reuse it a few times. Maybe have a reclaim for tanks that only hold air and one for fire extinguishers?
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Reclaim is not feasible. The water inside some of the co2 cylinders may carry compressor oil, rust particles or other contaminated. We can’t risk putting that into a scuba cylinder that they will be breathing out of. I think the chiller is my best bet.
 
tlucier said:
@LBZ_Duramax - Knowing you and your business, I know your shop is climate controlled for these tests. Could you not fill the tanks the night before and let them acclimate overnight, then run your test in the morning? This may not be feasible for a production test facility like yours, or may not be allowed per the DOT standards. In a previous life the company I worked for was able to do this for UL certification tests, but we did not do any DOT recertification.
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It would be allowed but having to move all those cylinders when they are full of water is a pain. We have done that before with small cylinders like spare air cylinders. IIRC you were with Kidde correct?
 
I'm partial bc it's my idea. But I would look hard into the earth heat sink. Will save thousands a year in electricity
 
Futbalfantic said:
I think staying on city water would be the cheapest option.

City water for benson is 4.29 per 1k water and 5.29 per 1k for sewer. Or 0.00958 per gallon. Electricity is 0.1097 avg/kWh. The average deep well pump is 220v 10amp or 2200 watts for 20 gpm. Or 0.24134 for 20 gallons. Or 0.12067 per gallon.
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kaiser715 said:
0.012067
?
?

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
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Hmmm....

I came up with 0.00402/gal

You get charged by the kwh, not kw.

Someone better at calculating electricity tell us who is right or if we're all wrong :lol:
 
Futbalfantic said:
I'm partial bc it's my idea. But I would look hard into the earth heat sink. Will save thousands a year in electricity
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Great idea but very hard to move locations. We aren’t planning to stay here forever. Will hopefully be buying/building a larger building in the next few years and it won’t be on this site.
 
DLOR said:
Find an old working fridge. Cut two holes in it and run copper all through it.
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That’s what I was thinking. Similar to running beer lines on a kegerator or the water dispenser on a fridge. They coil up tubing inside the fridge to chill it.

Hell, I have an old fridge that would be perfect for this.
 
LBZ_Duramax said:
It would be allowed but having to move all those cylinders when they are full of water is a pain. We have done that before with small cylinders like spare air cylinders. IIRC you were with Kidde correct?
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Were is the operative word. Yes, I did work for Kidde. I left on my terms approximately 3 years ago.
 
mbalbritton said:
That’s what I was thinking. Similar to running beer lines on a kegerator or the water dispenser on a fridge. They coil up tubing inside the fridge to chill it.

Hell, I have an old fridge that would be perfect for this.
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This.
Based on my prior math, if you're only taking 8 gallons at a time you don't need something huge and/or fancy. Literally a freezer with a water line going in and out would work. Normal fridge might work too, just depends if it chills it fast enough for the next batch.
Of course, if your unit has a capacity for say 16 gallons and you only withdraw 8, take it from the bottom and fil from the top, then the remaining 8 will be mostly ready for the next batch while the refill is preparing for the one after that.
Honestly the biggest issue with this is keeping it working smoothly when the incoming water is NOT hot. But any decent chiller with a good thermostat will take care of that.

Or hell just buy this
https://www.amazon.com/Hydrofarm-Active-Aqua-Chiller-10/dp/B0048IVBT4
 
If ground source is a no go, do you have a large empty concrete wall? North side of building = better, or the wall between the two building. No sun light on outside. Neck water line down to 1/2" and run it along wall with as much contact as you can. 1/2" line x100' = 1gallon ish. So if you can get 2000' on that wall you'll have around 20gallons. If using iron chisel the wall out where the unions and elbows are, that way your 20' sticks will be in full contact with concrete. Soft copper might be the easiest.


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I say keep/recycle the water you are using. Pump it out of test tank into storage tank to work Inside the testing “tank”. The water stays inside the building. Fill up the storage tank so the water can acclimate prior to testing. With pumping back and forth, can put the storage tank anywhere you can fit it, could even be overhead. Obviously on the floor would be most convenient as an overhead full 500 gal tank would weigh over two tons. But if you are recycling the water used, do you need 500 gal tanks?

If you have separate testing area could still use one storage tank.

I’m not fully understanding the need to dispose of the water from each test?
 
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