Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Novel Approach to Air Conditioning

I am delighted to read about this novel approach to air conditioning.

Our heat pump has been repaired enough to produce cool air again.  Unfortunately it is also producing the sound of a small airplane trapped in the basement, and making the floor vibrate.  This is not normal, and I suspect is not good for the equipment.  *sigh*  Must summon repairmen again ...
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  • 9 comments
kimuro

kimuro

June 25 2010, 11:14:53 UTC 11 years ago

I'm surprised to learn that you have central a/c, it out of key with the conservative nature of your posts (the "REAL" meaning of conservative - responsible stewardship of the planet and resources).

We had it when we lived in apartments (it's virtually a necessity for non-natives in Texas!) but haven't since we bought our first house. I don't like the sensation of moving from cold zones to hot and back again - I'd rather that my body get acclimated to the season. I also don't like the energy wastage.

OTOH, we live in New England and rarely really need the cooling.

That said, we do have one a/c unit - a mobile one in the home office that can be moved into the bedroom on the hottest nights. My husband works in an air conditioned building and I'd prefer that he not suffer.
ysabetwordsmith

Thoughts

ysabetwordsmith

June 25 2010, 18:28:00 UTC 11 years ago

>> I'm surprised to learn that you have central a/c, it out of key with the conservative nature of your posts (the "REAL" meaning of conservative - responsible stewardship of the planet and resources). <<

Okay, I had to pick my brain up off the floor after reading "conservative" in regards to myself. (I concur with your definition. It's just not a popular one.) The reason we have central air is life support. I cannot function in high temperatures, as has been miserably demonstrated the last few weeks. One day when they were here working on it, and supposed to come back but didn't, I was trying to stay home so we'd be here in case they needed us. I ignored my body's warning signals, and wound up melted on the couch, barely able to move. When my partner came downstairs, I said that I needed to get out of the house at all costs, and could be dropped off somewhere if the repair people came back. And at that, I barely had energy to drag myself out to the car.

Just think of me as a supercomputer that requires a coolant system in order to function.

>> I don't like the sensation of moving from cold zones to hot and back again - I'd rather that my body get acclimated to the season. <<

I don't like that either. I deal with it by not going out into the heat any more than absolutely necessary. This is because my body adapts to heat by shutting down in stages, and I dislike estivating.

>> I also don't like the energy wastage.<<

Me neither. What we have now is a heat pump, which is energy-efficient for heating and cooling. As equipment ... it kinda sucks. The initial expense was high, lifespan is not promising, and temperature regulation of the house is erratic. But until it broke this time, it did a very fine job of cooling a majority of the house, much better than window units.
nhpeacenik

nhpeacenik

June 25 2010, 16:30:53 UTC 11 years ago

In Arizona, evaporative coolers, called "swamp-coolers" were the dominant way of cooling houses in the 1950s and early 1960s . The main cost was the electricity for the fan, so they were relatively cheap to run. I also experienced them in Florida later in my life and found them useless... why were they ever installed there? This refinement of the old technology is such good news, because the technology is innately less energy-intensive.

There is another cooling method that is currently used on a small scale and uses less energy, It makes use of the directional biases of semiconductors to drain heat from one side of a membrane and put it on the other side, where it can be blown away. It's mostly used to cool CPUs in laptops now. So far the biggest device that uses it is a small refrigerator (e.g. http://www.hisense-usa.com/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idcategory=40&idproduct=93 ), but there was research a few years ago into applying it on a larger scale, as a substitute for compressor-based air-conditioners.
ysabetwordsmith

Thoughts

ysabetwordsmith

June 25 2010, 17:57:45 UTC 11 years ago

Oh yeah, the directional version sounds vaguely familiar.
siege

siege

June 26 2010, 05:33:42 UTC 11 years ago

Peltier coolers, you mean?
nhpeacenik

nhpeacenik

June 26 2010, 13:32:17 UTC 11 years ago

I'm not sure. That might be the same thing I was remembering, but possibly not. I first read about it in the old Real Goods catalog before they were bought by that new-age company. The Peltier thermoelectric cooler described in the Wikipedia article seems to be based on a more-recently-implemented principle that doesn't require a fan at all, while the one I was thinking of does require a fan, since all it does is relocate the heat to the other side of a partition. An article I read some time in the last five years talked about work in progress involving improving the efficiency of this technique from about 10 percent to over 60 percent, which would make it practical for large scale applications and decrease energy inputs dramatically. I'd be interested in knowing what, if any, progress has been made. Thanks for the reference!
siege

siege

June 26 2010, 15:42:46 UTC 11 years ago

Ah. Peltiers do, in fact, need a fan since they are basically a plate with a pair of electric contacts on it.

Deleted comment

ysabetwordsmith

Yes...

ysabetwordsmith

June 25 2010, 20:06:43 UTC 11 years ago

They're estimating Monday or Tuesday before they can get back here. Maybe.

I'm figuring if something is broken because of this, they are sodding well going to pay for it themselves. The repair crew didn't even inform us or the office before they left. If they had, we would've been able to say, "Whoa, something is still wrong here. This system does not normally sound like someone is running a lawn mower in the basement. When equipment makes that kind of racket, it usually means that something is rubbing wrong somewhere, which tends to lead to damage; both that and the racket are unacceptable. Please stay here and fix that."

Deleted comment

ysabetwordsmith

*sigh*

ysabetwordsmith

June 25 2010, 21:46:42 UTC 11 years ago

Yes, it does. The service is known to be busy right now, due to the heat wave; but they are also probably tired of this job and us. The feeling is very mutual, and I resent being ditched without a concluding conversation.