Cooling Water

Do you have problems with the water freezing in the winter?
 
I’d make or install a series of heat exchangers, either air or water cooled. Realistically you are only going to have a delta of about 10* or so, so you may need multiple exchangers or a combo of air and water cooled depending on the gpms used.

Having a storage tank with water that has been cooled throughout the day and overnight would help.
 
I would use a large water tank, 1000-1500 gal or so, as a heat sink. Run coiled copper through it, and pipe your city water through the coils. This would get you cool water in summer, and warmer water in winter. Once it's set up, the water tank would hold room temperature for a long time.

May need to do some calculating to find correct size that can reject enough heat.

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I would consider 2 500 gal (36"x121") holding tanks and have 2 day supply of room temp water. This may have to be in a separate temp controlled room. We have an indoor grow room w 500 gal holding tanks. Depending on the need I can pull in condensate (cold) or fresh (muni) water. The increased surface area of the large tanks helps dissipate/ balance the temps quicker.

I would look into your condensate line and use that cooler water as a make up to offset the warm muni water. Will be some trial and error to get exact quantity of water to bring in but the valving could be controlled by a thermocoupler/relays based on preset temp requirement. Just a thought outside the box
 
I'm with stored capacity, everything thing else is dependent on electronics, valve flow rates and complicated failure points.

Big stable supply equals less of every other possible flaw or hiccup. Would cost less to contruct, maintain, and most important opperate. Operation and maintenance being your biggest expense on the long term.

KISS......wins every time.
 
So just some quick calculations assuming an 8 hour day were talking about a gallon a minute. Some but not a lot. A holding tank a circulation pump and a air to water heat exchanger put on the supply side of your hvac. Put a aquastat on your pump so when the tank temp is right the pump shuts off. The size of you holding tank depends on you demand. Are you using 50 gallons at a time? should be simple, efficient and relatively cost efficient. If your trying to have water at a specific temp at any quantity your going to have to have a holding tank or suffer large temp fluctuations.
 
Jeff B said:
Do you have problems with the water freezing in the winter?
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No, the incoming water in the winter is around 50-55*. We mix hot water with it and since we have to have a large water heater for the process anyway it works really well. Being downtown I don't have any extra space to put large storage tanks. I wish I did, it would be less headache for sure. I have spoken with elkay and the engineer says that unit should have no problem doing what I need it to. Just tie it into supply coming into the room and cut the breaker off when not needed. Its a flow through design. The problem with coiled copper inside ice water/refrigerator is getting a consistent supply temp.
 
Drill a well 100' deep run a waterline loop down and back up water is much more efficient at heat transfer than air. So the well fills up with 50 degree water and your loop transfers heat to the groundwater and cool the city water. A well uses less footprint than a tank. Better yet have the well drill rig punch 2-3 holes a few feet apart. Any indoor storage unit will transfer heat to the air and will work any HVAC you have. Heat has to go somewhere. Ground-source heat transfer is the cheapest to operate. No extra pumps, fans etc..


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How about using a heat exchanger (radiator) set inside a chest freezer? You could play with the flow rate to get the desired output temperature.
 
Like previously stated, I think a big heat exchanger and some shrouded fans would work well depending in flow requirements. If the heat exchanger is sized for flow and the ambient air flow/temp range (which may make it a huge core) it should be reasonable for it to put out water at very close to the temp of the ambient cooling air. This works both ways, so you could seasonally heat or cool the incoming water.
This is not something I'd just grab off the shelf, there should be actual calculations done by a heat exchanger company. Fan control for certain combinations of conditions when delta is low and fan noise is unnecessary.

The only other accurate solution would be something involving heating and cooling (maybe a water to water heat exchanger if supply isolation is needed), mixing valves, and a PID controller. Everything else would likely involve very manual adjustment processes as conditions change.
 
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Jeff B said:
Do you have problems with the water freezing in the winter?
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see,I'm with you on this. The water main at the street should have at least 3 feet of cover but even with 2 feet,it should still be in the upper 60s to low 70s even on the hottest days. I work in this crap all day and never had bath water come out of a main on me. It's allways been cool enough to dip and drink even during the hottest part of the summer. That temp should maintain through the service line,through the meter and to the building if you are using that much at one time.IIIIIII think you got something else going on there skippy. Is the water line coming into the building at a wall that is being cooked by sunlight or runs across the ceiling near the roof and getting heated up that way? Are you pulling water off the water heater somehow?

I'd start investigating the actual cause of the heated water and then insulate it from that.
 
ord.sgt.26NC said:
see,I'm with you on this. The water main at the street should have at least 3 feet of cover but even with 2 feet,it should still be in the upper 60s to low 70s even on the hottest days. I work in this crap all day and never had bath water come out of a main on me. It's allways been cool enough to dip and drink even during the hottest part of the summer. That temp should maintain through the service line,through the meter and to the building if you are using that much at one time.IIIIIII think you got something else going on there skippy. Is the water line coming into the building at a wall that is being cooked by sunlight or runs across the ceiling near the roof and getting heated up that way? Are you pulling water off the water heater somehow?

I'd start investigating the actual cause of the heated water and then insulate it from that.
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Water line is underground from meter till building. Comes into building into conditioned space, about 4’ into building is where we get these temps. Not just my building but next door building also. The town has told us the mains on our side of town are not deep enough and the tower being so close doesn’t help. We have verified water temp with 10 different thermometers also. It is noticeably hotter than my house with well. Definitely not pulling off water heater, the shop is all exposed plumbing so easy to tell it’s not coming from WH.
 
Elkay says the 32gph chiller should have no problems getting the water down to 72* from 90*. Even flowing straight through. Especially if it is installed in conditioned space.
 
well damn,I'm running through Benson 2 times tomorrow.I'll question our engineers about such stuff.
 
ord.sgt.26NC said:
well damn,I'm running through Benson 2 times tomorrow.I'll question our engineers about such stuff.
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This is right where he water comes into the building. I ran for 15-20 mins before taking this pic. Probably only 15 yards from water meter.

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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
 
Or just drill a well and use that water. Then you're just paying to pump water instead of paying city water/sewer fees on every gallon.
 
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.
 
0.012067
?
?

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