Saving on A/C Costs

[brick]

Last time I thought about improving A/C efficiency, I looked to passive solar homes for inspiration. Some of them draw intake air through a long conduit underground that serves as an air/ground heat exchanger. (The home uses a solar chimney to draw warm air out of the house passively.) Taking a page from that book, one could run the same kind of duct to the heat exchanger (which would require a shroud) to provide the same kind of benefit as the misters, but without water. Pumping the cool air directly into the home would be the next logical step (and even better) but would be a much more complicated modification when you aren't building new.

[RH77]

Order placed

I showed the Cool-N-Save video to my Wife too, and she said that it "just made sense". It's on its way!

We'll compare bills from last year when we need the A/C...

RH77

[brick]

Hmm. Hope that thing works OK, because I saw this next to your post:

[Lazarus]

Originally Posted by brick

Hmm. Hope that thing works OK, because I saw this next to your post:

ouch!

[RH77]

By the way, I just ordered...

JK...

It has already been an "unlucky day".

The mower broke -- had to order a part and I thought the A/C unit went down and it just started working again. Dunno why...

Thanks for taking a picture of that post, forever...

EDIT: I think Beaker's expression as he sees the number sums it up. MEEP!

[Arminius]

Originally Posted by cfg83

Arminius -

Thanks for the Cool-N-Save stuff. I am going to look into this. I am an *OGRE* when it comes to using AC. What I want to do is close off the kitchen so that it is the only room to be cooled when the heat hits this summer.

You sound a lot like me. My home has 2 central air units, 2 furnaces and 4 seperate zones, each with its own thermostat. That way the heat and air are only on when a particular area is occupied. Even then, I still shut off unused rooms.

[Arminius]

Oh yeah, the least anyone can do to hypermile their air condioner is make sure it's always in the shade.

http://www.fsec.ucf.edu/en/publicati...SEC-PF-302-96/

[diesel_john]

the earth is a good heat sink. A straight down well 150 ft deep does not need water to sink a lot of heat per hour from a heat pump. And since the fluid going down the pipe is only slightly lighter than the fluid coming up, there is not much lift involved.

There companies out there that just install these loops.
One I have never dealt with but is all over the country is Loop installers: Loopmasters International, Indianapolis, Indiana.

[Arminius]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzXj3qAhekQ

[diesel_john]

cool, i mean hot.

the wholesale cost of the hard parts for a 3 ton geothermal heat pump is about 2 times the retail cost of a 3 ton air to air. or about $8000.