To get relief from the heat, AC has become a necessity in almost every house today. But a big problem of AC is that it takes out the heat from the room and also releases heat into the outside air. In such a situation, a YouTuber has made a unique experiment to change this method. He connected an old window AC lying in the junk to about 2,000 feet long pipe buried underground. Its purpose was to send the heat of the AC underground instead of releasing it into the hot air outside.
This experiment was done by a YouTuber named Craftsman Chris. For this he used an old LG Dual Inverter Window AC with 14,000 BTU capacity. The AC was connected to about 2,000 feet long PEX pipe laid about 6 to 8 feet underground. This pipe was laid underground in four separate loops of 500-500 feet.
The heat of AC will not go into the air but into the ground.
Normal AC extracts heat from the hot air of the room and releases that heat into the outside air through the condenser. But in this experiment this part was changed.
Water keeps circulating continuously in pipes laid under the ground. This water was passed through a special water jacket made around the condenser of the AC. The refrigerant of the AC releases its heat in the condenser and the water absorbs that heat. After this the hot water goes back under the ground, where the soil works to absorb that heat. In simple language, here the land has been used as a big heat sink.
Big change made in junk AC
The special thing about this experiment is not just laying pipes under the ground. The AC that Chris had used was already in a bad condition. After cleaning it, the condenser coil was rotated about 90 degrees.
After this, a water jacket was prepared around the condenser from metal pieces found in the junk. Its function was to ensure that the water coming from the ground could pass around the condenser and take the heat coming out of the AC with itself to the ground.
The special thing is that there was no need to open or cut the refrigeration line of the AC. That is, there was no need to drain the refrigerant and the combined compressor and refrigeration system of the AC continued to work as usual.
Not just Jugaad, the whole system runs automatically
Chris didn’t just keep it a manual experiment. They also made it compatible with home thermostats. For this, an old programmable logic controller and a linear actuator were used. When the thermostat indicates the need to cool the room, the system turns on the AC. This means that this entire system can work automatically when needed.
Sensors have also been installed in the system to monitor the temperature. Due to this, the cooling system can be switched off if the water temperature rises too much.
How much cold air came out of 2,000 feet of pipe?
This is the most interesting part of this entire experiment. During the test, cold air of about 49 to 54 degrees Fahrenheit, i.e. about 9 to 12 degrees Celsius, was seen coming out of the system.
In one test, a temperature difference of about 26.5 degrees Fahrenheit was also recorded. In the loop built under the ground, water was circulating at a speed of about 3.3 gallons per minute. While passing through the water jacket of the condenser, the temperature of the water would increase by a few degrees and after that the same water would go back inside the ground.
Initially, aluminum duct without insulation was used to transport cold air to the house. But the cold air started getting hot on the way. Later, insulated flexible duct was used, through which cool air was transported to the family room, dining room and kitchen of the house.
Can it replace normal AC?
This is where caution is necessary regarding this experiment. This experiment is quite interesting, but it is too early to call it a ready AC system for normal homes. The biggest question is whether the approximately 2,000 feet pipe present under the ground will be able to absorb the heat of the house continuously for a long time. The tests that have just surfaced show limited time performance. Adequate data has not been revealed regarding long-term running capacity, total power consumption and practical use.
Apart from this, many factors like soil structure, pipe length and depth, water flow, weather and cooling needs of the house can affect the performance of such systems.
Therefore it is not easy to replicate it directly at home. But the real specialty of this experiment lies in its thinking. Generally, geothermal cooling systems that control underground heat are seen as expensive and large setups. Here, a small experiment of the same idea was prepared with the help of an old AC, items found in junk, controller and pipes laid under the ground.
Right now this is an experiment and it would not be right to consider it as an alternative to normal domestic AC. But this has certainly raised an interesting question – if the heat from the AC is taken underground instead of releasing it into the hot air, can the cooling system be made better in the future?
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