Misting HVAC air conditioner coils or NOT, my personal finding
Вставка
- Опубліковано 26 сер 2017
- Hey guys,
I know there's a lot of argument whether or not this work or not and would it damage the coils. I think the question should be, is it worth it or not, does it reduce enough energy to make it worth while. My finding are below.
Cons:
1. YES it work, if you spray enough water it can reduce 500-600watts out of a unit that uses 3000watts.
2. YES it also drop the inside temp, about 2-3 degrees
Cons:
1. If you only use 4-5 misting nozzle, it only reduce about 150-250watts MAX out of a 3000watts unit.
2. 5 nozzle you can use up to 3gallons of water every hour.
3. If you double the nozzle to 10 to further reduce engery, you can use up to 6-10gallons per hour.
4. Saving 200-250watts mean you can only save so little on engery daily... not worth the maintenance.
5. Depend where you live, you will need calcium filter and maybe more than one filter and they cost MONEY.
So for my location, my situation... not worth it for me. - Розваги
Your upstairs runs longer because it has a larger load than the downstairs unit, not because of it's efficiency difference. Your upstairs unit actually cools much of the downstairs air because hot air rises... The reverse happens in the heating season.
If this is in Texas, seldom is the unit size the problem of not keeping up or having high electric bills. Those of us in the technical support departments (I'm now retired) for the major manufacturers found that in our markets, an estimated 95% of all homes built since the mid 70"s do not have proper duct systems in them. The Dallas/Ft Worth area is a good example of this. In typically constructed homes using flexible ducting, each cubic foot of air only passes over the evaporator coil between 3 or 4 times. This needs to happen 6 to 8 times per operating hour in order for the equipment to achieve what it's designed to do at the watt consumption it's designed to perform at. The velocity of the return air is often 800 to 1,000 fpm when filters are rated at 300 to 500 fpm. Problems resolved caused by Inadequate ducting represented approximately 60% of the technical support calls taken from technicians on a daily basis. One manufacturer's focus on this issue in their dealer training program resulted in reducing compressor warranties by just under $4 million just after 4 years of this focus. One home I was involved with had extremely high electric bills and could not get below 82 degrees in June through August in the heat of the day. Without replacing their outdoor units I was able to reduce their watt consumption by 24% and their thermostats are now able to maintain 75 degrees all summer long. BEWARE of gimmicks and increasing tonnage folks. hvactechguide@gmail.com
I know this is an old post but just incase you get this here it goes. Are you saying under sized return air ducting being the issue ?
Every single nozzle is only spot treating the coil. I'm pretty sure the pad is wet as the end. The point of misting is to evaporate the water before it gets through the coils. The nozzles are good enough if you spray outward and not down. Outward will allow spread and intake temperature lowering.
BTW a 4 watt fridge valve is cheaper and better than a sprinkler valve as it will not damage the transformer inside the system.
The calcium buildup doesn't help either, hit it with some CLR and clear the white off of the coils.
Also, if you've read this far, you are really looking for good info. When was the last time you had or DIY cleaned the A coil in the evaporator? If it's been a year, imagine all the dust you found on one filter for the year being stuck to that coil! Plastic or brass bristle brush it and get it clean again. Then some scrubbing bubbles followed by a pump sprayer filled with distilled water. Let it do it's job too.
Now on the outside, use up to 8 nozzles spraying outward. Do 1 at first and see how it's sucked in to the coil.
Then plan the rest out.
If you are using recycled water, drain off, condenser water, etc... Then you have a pump.
Now you're getting into a load issue in a contactor or relay. So use a PAM-1 relay off of the 24volt contactor of the condenser. Use that relay to feed any external power to the pump.
If you have a 240volt pump then you can easily pull off of the load side of the condenser contractor and your pump will turn on and off with the condenser.
Same thing with a 240volt to 24volt transformer. Either use a weather tight housing mounted external to the condenser or find a suitable transformer that fits within. Be sure to think safety either way.
The trick of it all is electric valve or pump. Low wattage draw from the 24volt source or add a 240 transformer to the 240V load side of the contactor. Overload the AC transformer and it'll blow giving you NO A/C until you replace it. Been there done that, stupid 20 watt Sprinkler valve.
So evaporate your spray, no drips out the bottom and it'll be the best it can be. You're not trying to spray your coils, you're cooling the air coming into them!
What I do is route the air conditioner condensation pump to discharge it's waste water onto the condenser coil and help the efficiency in that way.
Good observation, thank you
Well this answers my questions pretty well. Thanks for saving me the effort!
Thanks for watching.
Great job, thank you.
thanks
This is a great idea that works! But,like you said, hard water deposits on the condensor kill it. 👍👍👍
It's interesting to see all the pros and cons, but the factors that have to be considered are the air temperature around the condenser and how long the unit runs. Also considered would be how hard the compressor has to work due to increased pressure. The idea of a mister is to cool the air entering the coil, not to pour water on it continuously. If a small enough orifice is used most of the spray cools the air and only slightly wets the coil. It should not be causing extensive runoff which would waste water. The orifice needs to face out for greatest efficiency.
It did seem like he was trying to water-cool the coil. As you note, the idea is to cool the air, with the misted water, before the air moves through the coil. I think something has been missed in the idea of BEGINNING with cooler air, not a water cooled coil.
Lol! I had the same unit and just replaced it with the same unit you got! I experimented with this a few years ago and came to the same conclusions. And folks talking about Goodman, they all break but Goodman easier/cheaper to repair. Don't know how true this will be for the future as no one in Texas would sell me a new unit (regulations). Had to order one from Florida as their regs allowed. Ironic since Goodman is made in Texas. Anyway, DIY may become impossible in the future. Oh, and the old Goodman lasted me 22 years, 1 contacter and 1 fan replacement.
It is hard to tell from the video seeing as how we never got to see the water spray. However it looks like you're spray nozzles are spraying the bottom half of your condensing coil. D superheating occurs in the top portion of the condensing coil the bottom portion of the condensing coil would consist of mostly subcooled liquid. If you attempt this experiment again with the nozzles pointing above the saturation line of refrigerant in your condensing coil being at or above the middle way point you should find some increase in efficacy of your misting system. Thanks in advance good luck
Best to buy a more efficient unit (high SEER) and keep it clean to run at optimal conditions. More efficient units are wider & taller because they have more surface area to dissipate more heat.
OK, but a more efficient unit is thousands of dollars more expensive. Is that more cost-efficient than a water misting system costing a hundred or two? What does an HVAC system engineer have to say about it?
I love my Goodman
If you're discharge air temperature is too high it will not cool down your space. Hey cause your condenser to run more. I would check that because there might be something wrong with it.
Ideally you want to use condensate water to cool the coils.
It is already pretty clean to begin with and rather cold too.
Have you considered a swamp cooler?
Old post.....the problem is that those nozzles only spray one section. So do this.....take a blue duracool 33x160 inch evaporative pad roll used in swamp coolers....double it up, cut to fit the 3sides of the coils, secure it, then set up 3 sprayer nozzles (ones similar to garden hose sprayers set on fan spray) pointing them right at cooling pads making sure they cover the entire pad, and have them run off either the 24v power from the thermostat, or the 240 volt contactor circuit (240v to 24v xfrmer) that runs the compressor/fan, and using a 24v sprinkler sprinkler valve (mounted above nozzles). Now I would recommend that this water valve also have a cycling circuit as to add water for 2 minutes, and then be off for 2 minutes, as to create a wet and evaporate cycle. Now, it’s the blue pads are what build up the calcium and not the coils, but they will last along time until efficiency drops and then replacing the pads is the solution. I have done this and the results work well. Less energy used, and cooler duct air inside home. Also overheating possibility of the system due to thermal runaway and chances the system shutting down is eliminated. This works similar to how large buildings are cooled, where large cooling towers (chillers) are the first stage, and some kind of refrigerant transfers the heat out of the building, both systems work together to efficiently cool the large space. Anyway, it’s obvious why the process shown in the video failed. Also remember that like swamp coolers, dry low humidity areas work much better at the old evaporation methods discussed than do warm high humidity locals. Most evaporative systems in dry areas, can reduce temps up to 30 degrees if evap medium is saturated and plenty of air is supplied. That means 100 degree air entering the coils is actually around 70ish , which help produce cooler air and lower energy.
The goal is not to get the coil wet the goal should be to cool the air around the unit. The cooler the air the lower the pressure thus the less amps the unit will use.
I have seen many videos about this technique. The conclusion is that there is no difference on the power consumption.
If it really worked, everyone would have done it by now.
Water will help dissipate the heat much faster. Heat is energy. The water properly used and metered. Will reduce your energy bill and extend the life of the unit. I capture the rain water from my gutters collect in 55 gallon barrels and it is precisely meter to the top of the compressor and the high pressure line set. The water system shuts off when the unit shuts off. 3years no problems. It dropped my electric bill from 30 to $50 a month. [Hvac tech]
so the water was dropping on the line set or the compressor? My is contained, and I have also been playing with a window unit - in which I changed a cap so it would only pull 5-700 vs 2000 watts on startup. This makes it a portable and will run off of a $40 wal mart inverter. I Just closed down our ice warehouse last year due to other reasons. We ran basic high capacity air cooled units. We were running purified water and the systems had a dump cycle which was wasting a ton of energy. We ran through a lot of water on our purification process and was always contemplating the best way to add water cooling assist to the ice machines to help lower temp/cost/head pressure.
I’ve been watching dozens of videos about using misters and you are the first one to actually put a meter on the condenser and explain the cost benefit and you are right in your findings. To displace the heat from the coils the unit has to become cooler than ambient temperature. Using small amounts of water is not enough to cause the necessary temperature differential and therefore very minimal success. Great analysis! Thanks!
thanks. Anything to do with water requires a lot of maintanaince, leakages, corrosion ect... just a lot of take care of. However a lot of peoples do not realized that. Just like my other video about Sun Solar Water Heater vs PV Solar Electric Water heater, the PV > Element > Electric to heater water is much more less maintenance.
Have you ever tried setting up some way to apply the condensate water, that ought to be fairly neutral, in a slower way to the condenser coils directly or maybe to some material a few inches away from the cond. coils, like say a foam or maybe even like window screen?
It's BONE dry here most of the time... so there's hardly any condensate water. :( 20-30% humidity average).
Condensate from your evaporator coil is not neutral. I tested mine because I was going to use it for my hydroponic tomatoes but the pH was was below neutral. These misters are not good for the equipment. If they worked well the manufacturers would sell them as accessories since each manufacturer compete in having the most energy efficiency rating. Get a water cooled condenser instead of air cooled condenser. Theses misters are just another gimmic that are resold under different names every few years. I'm a HVAC tech a support the use of them because it keeps me busy and making money because of the damage they cause externally and internally to the compressor.
Hvac units are designed and built to be in the weather. Rain, heat, snow. So this won't subtract from it's over all service life. I do industrial, commercial and residential Hvac for 35 years and have been using water to cool the condenser of my unit for over 20 years and it works beautifully if done correctly. Super heat is typically only a concern in refrigeration. Sub cooling is mainly affected by your refrigerant charge, too much will flood the evaporator and slug liquid refrigerant, too little will starve it and not have the capacity to remove heat thru the evaporator. Adding water to your condenser is no different than the outside temp dropping. So if its 90 degrees outside your supply temp in the house will rise as the condenser can't cool the refrigerant any cooler than the outside temp will allow, it is a slave to the ambient air around it. But if you spray 70 degree water on it thus your supply temp will drop and now the condenser has the lower temp to reject more heat thus lowering your supply temp. Your Delta T (Supply temp and room temp differential) will improve and it will now remove more heat from your home. Your suction pressure, discharge pressure and hot gas will all change when water is added. It will bring it back to a more normal operating temp and pressure range thus work more efficiently. My system is a bit more control oriented than this method. This mister turns on every time the system has a call for cooling no matter what the outside temp is or the unit’s pressures are. The water is usually not needed until the ambient temp is above 85 to 90 degrees if it is sized, clean and installed correctly. My system has to have (3) things happen to be engaged. (1) Call for cooling... I use the Y2 signal from my unit's stat( Y is a 24 volt call for cooling from the thermostat and starts the compressor) to pass thru(2) an outdoor mechanical air sensor set to 90 degrees, it's set of contacts are normally open and close only when the outside temp reaches 90 degrees. After Y calls and the outdoor air sensor closes at 90 degrees it passes thru the last device, (3) a head pressure switch that measures condenser head pressure and temperature. It has to be above 250psi (R-22 Freon) to allow the voltage to hit a 24 volt water solenoid coil that opens and sends the water to the misting lines that spray the water on the coils. And if the water with the fan is able to drop the pressure below 175, it shuts off the mister until the pressure rises above 250 again to keep from over cooling in low ambient conditions. I also use a two stage thermostat that has the ability to control a system that has to compressors. My system only has one compressor but the stat doesn't know that. What it does know is on a call for cooling it will measure how much time it is taking to drop the temp in the house and if it doesn't start seeing a few tenths of a degree falling in an allotted amount of time it will then call for the second stage Y-2 in this case the 2nd stage is the beginning call for water. Hope this helps anyone considering using water with your Hvac system.
Good write up. I agreed that the units are built for weathers. But tap water with high calcium and mineral isn't the weather isn't the same as rain water or snow. I don't understand why it's so hard for peoples to understand that I made this VIDEO to tell me my finding for my situation, that it wouldn't work out for ME... I didn't say using water to cool the coil doesn't work... I SAID it works. But it all depend on your water situation and how much water you want to use. If the ideas was to use this method to save money, it need to make sense at the same time, water conservative, filtration system if needed, maintenance.... If all those work out for you, go head. Peoples just have no idea what kind of calcium deposit are in water in my area... Even the simple mist nozzle need to be replace or clean after a month or two of use...you just have no idea.
Great experiment! Good points. I decided to not do this. If it's anything like my window unit,it gets plenty of water, it's getting pretty rusty on the bottom of it. I'm doing window unit. I have only 1 array up and going. As long as it's sunny it can run my 5000 BTU window unit and batteries be on float. I have it set on timer to stop while I'm gone before sub sets too low. I turn up the house AC too. By next summer I'll have my other 2 arrays going and have the other 2 window unit going too. One is a bigger 6500 BTU. This should really bring electric bill down. I have a big battery bank, IDK but can't get a whole lot of run time at all running that little 5000 BTU ac." 500 watts " Little over 2000 ah but at 50% or 70% not much reserve it seems ....good show man!
Yeah, I notice the rust on the bottom of my Window unit as well. Water does eat through everything over time, doesn't matter what it is... lol. The only thing I don't like about Window unit is that they are NOISY as hell. My 6k BTU run 10hours a day on my solar every day. :)
most all window shakers since about 2000 have a slinger on the fan blade that slings evaporator condensate on the outdoor coil and it just boils off so nobody sees that constant drip anymore. I guess that all depends on how much you spent on the unit...
@@hvac01453
So, from what I can tell, you sound fairly knowledgeable and smart when it comes to A/C units and what not. If you don’t mind, could you maybe give me a bit of insight on a new issue that I am having??? So, i live in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area of Texas and I have a 3-4 year old window unit and it never dripped any water until about the spring time of this year when I first started running it constantly everyday. What could cause that if this is one of the “fan slinger” window units that you speak of? I suppose that up until recently the “fan slinger” design/set-up was working as it should but for some reason or another it just started dripping water a few months ago. Thanks in advance and stay cool out there.
@@DFWJon Like anything else. Take it apart and take a look see. The outdoor fan blade will have a continuous plastic circle touching all the wings of the blade. Yours may have broken off OR....the drain from the indoor coil to the back is blocked with dirt. The water now goes elsewhere. The condensate should drain front to back where the fanblade tips are lowest. This slings the water up on the outdoor coil to evaporate and help cool the outdoor coil.
@@DFWJon its likely the condensate path is going somewhere other than the intended route. The trough from the inside coil pan to the outside coil is being diverted by dirt or it lost its pitch to the outside. You. Can tell a slinger fan blade by the tips of the blade being connected by a plastic ring ( slinger ) that picks up the water at the bottom of the unit outside and it gets thrown on the hot outdoor coil to help it cool the unit. It usually never gets to the bottom because it evaporates.
I would suggest using a heat exchanger. I had one for 19 years. Free hot water for six months a year. Efficiency greatly increased. No misting, no corrosion. It was a $250 option when I bought the house.
Thats a cheap option. Were you running solar also? I would think that it would work like a solar pre heating tank with all the bells and whistles involved.
@@shabbah4life213 No, no solar. It had a heat coil directly from the compressor. Another coil came from the water heater. They exchanged the heat in a small box mounted near the AC unit outside.
Don't let the exchanger salesman fool you, they are doing the same thing as this centralized air system. They are selling you essentially a window air conditioner spread into two parts
First, the water you use needs to be deionized or softened or else your calcification will quickly damage the cooling fins and render the unit inoperative. If you have access to free COOL clean ground water from 600 feet below ground that would be great as long as your deionized column can handle the load. Since you have solar panels the pumping is basically free.
I wanted to make a point about the difference between conductive heat transfer and evaporative cooling. When you jump into icy cold lake Superior in spring you can get rapid hypothermia that is because you are immersed in a huge heat sink that sucks away all your body heat. That is called conductive heat transfer. When you turn on the garden hose at full blast you are soaking the fins in cold water, which immediately conducts away the heat from the coil. That is why you see the 600 Watt drop in power usage when the hose is SOAKING the metal fins. When you are just misting the fins you are employing phase change cooling with tiny amounts of water. It takes 2260 kJoules/ kilogram water to vaporize one kilo of water.
If there was some way to put both condensers in a cool part of the garden and space them far apart they would be more efficient. Having evaporative coolers blowing cool air on the condensers will also help them.
Assuming you have a lot of solar panels and produce excess power at peak AC one alternative is to use a heat pump and closed circuit cooling water piped a hundred feet underground.
Berming your house with 5-8 feet of dirt will also help the house stay cool in the 120F summer days. Underground homes should be mandatory in the desert or at least subsidized with tax Credits.
Great explanation!
Unit not keeping up has nothing to do with efficiency nor the refrigerant which is R-22. It has to do with the size. If sized correctly on the hottest day of the year your AC unit will run all day. Water cooled systems are twice as efficient as air so yes adding water into your condenser will remove more heat
I have a better set up with about 50$ from Amazon and run more efficiency, the mist will come on when temp at condense more than 90 degree f ( it can be adjust higher or lower by move the thermostat ) and when compressor kick on by add to 24 volt thermostat wire a old mercury thermostat and (Orbit 57280 Female Pipe Threaded Auto Inline Sprinkler Valve, 3/4, $13.62), (Orbit 10109W Misting Calcium Inhibitor Filter , $19.98),(Orbit 20066 Portable 1/4-Inch Outdoor Mist Cooling System, 15$), the system eliminate problem waste water run around which cause weed build up , and calcium water.
Where do you live and what's the average humidity level? I'm sure this setup would be way more efficient in Arizona than in Florida! I've been looking at getting one of these, I'm in western Texas so I thought it might work well with the low humidity! Thanks
I'm in AZ, super dry here. Like I said in the video, you can make it drop 600watts (which is a lot). But you have to be pouring water continuously on it to cool the coil dramatically... misting it will not make it drop that much... This is just my personal finding, this is easy enough, anyone can do it and believe that it work for them... good for them. :) If you did it and you think it work, greats.
more mist ? more nozzels more water more reduction ?
If your west of San Angelo a swamp cooler will work great
Out here most units discharge 55° air. Today it is 65° outside here in Denver. In this building that I'm working on his discharge air temperature is 64° and he cannot cool the building down I can't imagine what it's like out there can you Arizona.
if 5 nozzles gives you 200 w reduction, and soaking the unit gives you 600 w reduction, maybe more nozzles would = more w reduction ?
If you got the water, go for it.
@@devildestiny555 If you got the water, and if you got the water filtration and hardness reduction or safe coil cleaning regimen at an attractive cost point, go for it.
Do you think that maybe a once a month or once a quarter spray down with CLR would help to protect your coils?
I guessed it would depend on how much calcium you have in your water.... But those CLR spray are expensive and really isn't going to clean off 100% of the stuff. So if you count the cost of all the stuff you need to spend on it and maintenance it... the saving isn't even enough to cover 30% of that cost... from my stand point, NOT WORTH IT!!!! Might be worth it if you live in a place that have a lot rain water and you can store and use rain water... but not here.
Used misters , in so Cali , 2 months calcium buildup .. just on these misters it’s more of a pain
Use calcium filter
Ive seen alot of folks say this works, but why not just pump the condensate water outside to the unit and use it like a window unit uses its own condensate on itself
15% humidity here... i get about half a gallon in a day... not even enough to drink.
Calcium is is hardness, as is iron. Using a water softener, not filters removes hardness It isn't something you can see, and if you can't see it, how do you filter it? I know to remove iron, you can use the softener, or, you can use an Ozone generator to oxidize the iron which you can easily see, and then filter it out. I heard California uses Ozone generator injectors in their water. anytime you add or remove heat from water, the elements fall out of suspension in the water. This is why ice machines to be cleaned with scale remover sometimes depending on the water hardness. I your case, if you want to use water as a heat remover, use a water cooled condenser coil instead of a air condenser coil and fan motor. Im surprised you have any condensate in AZ. When I was at FT Irwin, CA for desert training in 89, they used swamp coolers in the barracks. I was surprised how well they actually worked.
Even with a water softener in my house and a reverse osmosis... the water still has deposit, white deposit around faucet still happens. This is why I was very worrying that the water where we are just not possible to do this kind of thing. As for the condensate, you're right we do not get much at all because the air is so dry. We only get a lot of condensate during the Monsoon season when the storm hit. It's so dry and hot here, this is why swamp cooler work well.
Have you checked the discharge air temperature?
Yes, the air it's blowing out normally is only about 9-11F lower than intake air... Which is pretty low... but this is a 15 years old unit and it run on R22... So.... not much else to do.
They do get old and new one be more Energy efficient. I'm in Colorado so we don't get near the heat you do.
Calcium build up might be a concern.
Will eventually ruin the coils, either you use tap water and calcify the coils. Or use use mineral free water and corrode the coils. Dankin ac units used the condensate water to splash the coils increasing the efficiency. Using a tube in shell heat exchanger to heat a pool or domestic hot water is really easy , effective and lasts. One sixteenth of an inch of calcification can cut the efficiency in half. Rain water will work really well if you can catch enough.
Yup. Unfortunately here it may only rain 3-5 times a year. :)
Follow up to previous post. You oibviously measured the amount of energy being used while the system was on, but did you also take into account if the system didn't run as long? If it used 20% less power and ran 20% less time that would be quite significant.
3500 Watts originally at 5 hours = 17.5 KwH
2800 Watts at 4 hours = 11.2 KwH
That is 36% difference =o
Keep doing your math... no one is stopping you from misting your system. 60.00 per calcium filters ever 3 months or so. If you don't, 1000.00 or more to replace your coil... even if you do use calcium filter, there's no guarantee. So good luck.
Sorry, I think you took offense to my post or something. I was asking out of curiosity, not to make a claim that you didn't do something right. I know that no one is stopping me from misting my system, but I am trying to get as much clarity as I can.
That being said, a 60.00 filter is one hella expensive filter.
Can you tell me if the filter listed here is not good for some reason? Again, I am genuinely curious. If I do a setup I don't want to make some goofy mistake.
www.amazon.com/Aero-Mist-52505-Outdoor-Inhibitor/dp/B0026T1G2E/ref=asc_df_B0026T1G2E/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=193140346064&hvpos=1o2&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16380439684815928689&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9022829&hvtargid=pla-306037941723&psc=1
IS this Mark Ruffalo? lol
Really? you watched this video just so you can say that?
Anither site insist hes saving half his bill after installin a misting system... didnt sound logical to me. anyways he says he can hear the difference and if that nakes him happy then ok but putting in a whole house energy monitor would set the facts streight. Numbers matter!
I think there is a basic misconception here. The water itself doesn't cool the coils, in fact, it appears to me you are spraying way too much water to achieve your desired results.
Just like sweat doesn't cool you it is the evaporation of the sweat that does the cooling. If you put too much water on the coils it won't have time to evaporate. Counterintuitively if you heated the water before misting it onto the coils (say a coil of black plastic tubing in the sun between your water source and the misters) the warm water will cool even better. An even, fine mist that lightly covers most of the coils will get you the best results.
Stick to watching cartoons. Water cools coils, 40 IQ man.
Spray some CLR on those fins to desolve the calcium
Should have used a whole home KDF filter.
Its very hard to remove all the minerals, would requires an RO, if RO you wont have enough pressure and RO would waste even more water and cost a lot. So its isnt worth it. How much power can it save? No where near the cost of a filter.
So if each nozzle does .5 gallons per hour and you had 10, that is 5 gallons per hour, at 5 hours is 25 gallons per day.
The average cost of water is $0.0015 per gallon in the US (I'm sure its more in states with water supply problems). The cost of that water would only be a little over 1 dollar per month! You could double that yet again to 50 gallons to really soak down your unit and still pay only 2 dollars per month extra in water.
On the other hand, these are the numbers I came up with for electric consumption for a 3500 watt system in Missouri.
Electric Rate: .122/kwh
Cost Per Hour: 0.4270
Cost Per Day: 2.1350
Cost Per Month: 64.95
kWh Per Day: 17.5
That would mean a 20% reduction in cost would be roughly $13 per month, at 5 hours per day.
I also wonder if using very cold water from the ground would be more efficient than the water from the condenser you were using?
obviously you would more than pay for the water usage, but by the time you factor in filters and what not you might break even. Unless it somehow extended your AC lifetime.
I'd be interested to know how much the power drain/run time would drop if you were really soaking the system with a water hose or something.
Aaron Bateman great analysis. In my climate summer lasts 5 months with temp 95-100 and humidity 80-100% commonly. Peak power usage during the week days goes up to 25cents. I have a 3ton unit for 2200 square feet which is under sized. The unit by itself only cools the house 18 degrees below outside temp. Adding the misters and having them spray the coils (5 spray direct and 5 spray the air) the unit can now cool the house to 68deg when its 100 outside. With setting temp 72 at night and 78 daytime my electric bill is running $120 opposed to $180-200. My water bill is up $6-8. Ebay has calcium filters on sales sometimes for like $10. Overall, I'm saving. After summer heat dies down I cut the misters off.
You guys are both right. All I know is that I set up a mister system on steroids for my unit. I put 10 misters on each side of the unit to saturate the coils. Thats 40 in total. I also built a wind barrier around the unit because I notice even with a slight breeze the mist would get taken away from the coils. My billing cycle from July 21th to August 21th from last years statement was $746.00 . This July and August bill drop to $97.00 and we had more days above 90 degree then the previous year during that time period, almost set record. My water bill went up $5.46 for that same billing cycle. I forgot to add that all my mister spray at the coils not pointed out from coils, like I see most do. I think this makes huge difference. All my water that runs off gets caught and used to water lawn. I live Salt Lake City utah
You left out it extends the life of your compressor up to 50% longerlife.
This will not help your cooking cost whatsoever. This will only remove the heat in the freon faster but that compressor and cond fan are still pulling the same amps just like the blower motor.
Reduction in head pressure on the compressor reduces power required to push the freon. Sorta like your car, driving 45mph vs driving 65. More headwind = less mpg. Same engine ... by your reasoning, you can drive 100mph with no change in mpg.
That’s not how it works. You can’t measure the wattage consumption. It takes almost the same amount of power to run per minute. You need to measure the air temp. coming out of your registers before then after you turn on the mister. The air should be colder with the mister on. Then your unit will cool the house better and shut itself down more often. When it’s off is when your saving power.
Watch more carefully... I did mention the temp at the line did drop 1 degrees and the inside temp did not drop when using the mist system. The inside output air did drop 3degrees when I was pouring excessive water directly onto the COILS, 1-2 gallons direct onto the coil continuously... not if then after 30 seconds it heat up again. I did not say this doesn't work, I said it will work with a A LOT OF water... If you have and want to use such water... please go ahead. Good luck to you.
devildestiny555
Thanks for the reply. We tried it on ours with a single mister and the inside air temp. Dropped 5 degrees. Same reason Window ac units have water slingers in them.
You could use the condensation water to mist the unit.
If you live in a low humidity area mister should work a lot better hi humiddity not likely to help much
Yes, but either way not worth it.
You are confusing Efficiency with BTUs. You can run that under water and it will still only put out 36,000 BTU’s. That is the law of physics! Plus water is the new “Gold”.
What works every time is to turn up the set temp on your thermostat by one or two degrees.
Your not looking at the advantage of how much it helps cool it down ( coils) Im not so much into tha cost Im saving here all week it is 112 to 114 + and the system makes the unit not over work so hard and save on parts not overheating the system to be replaced as soon. And I see you nozzles are pointed away from the coils and maybe its why you did not get a better saving of $$$ you expected. Also to drop 1 degree is not the thing you should be after. The real difference was in how so much faster the condenser coil cooled down and made the unit work so much efficient.
I watched this whole video and you didn’t turn it on? Geez. Add a nozzle that will spray water into the coil not misters
To mach tocking
You will cause more damage to the coil then you will save in electricity. The water has minerals in it that will evaporate and stick to the cooling fins and cause air flow restrictions that will make an old unit work even harder and eventually kill it.
If the new one is a Goodman, it is a terrible unit, sorry.
Water cooled condenser for home use is illegal I'm reporting you all. Unless you build a cooling tower and use recycled water all reported. By the way how much will a pump cost to run, probably more than the savings. Buy a new unit, or get arrested. Water wasters.
You must be a lib, let's arrest you for just being a useful idiot. I'm reporting! hah! where's your manhood? I just now determined that you are now illegal, should I call the cops? Or just soak you with a huge garden hose? What's the definition of a loser? You! Everyone had useful input and the only thing you could think of was arrest, that's funny. Your Delta T is off the charts.
It's illegal only for you 😉
Your upstairs runs longer because it has a larger load than the downstairs unit, not because of it's efficiency difference. Your upstairs unit actually cools much of the downstairs air because hot air rises... The reverse happens in the heating season.
It's a single story house... the two unit split in half of the house.