Home Build Central Air Conditioner

Home Build Central Air Conditioner FARM HOME Houses 4-5-7 Canadian hog farmer Ted Dyck built a central home air conditioning system for just $200 that requires almost no energy input. "I was chilling my hogs one very hot day a year ago this summer when a thought occurred to me. There was all this ice cold water coming out of the well, into the basement of the house and then back out to the hog barn. I figured there must be some way of utilizing the coldness before it left the house," recalls Ted, who farms near Winkler, Man. He went to a local plumber and bought a standard A-frame cooling coil - the type used in furnaces for central air conditioning. He paid about $200 for the coil and enough fittings and pipe to hook it up. The coil is positioned in the furnace just above the heat exchanger. "I took the fittings off the coil and soldered on 3 -in. pipe fittings. There are four separate lines going through the coil. I spliced them all into one 3 -in. fitting. I then tapped into the water line coming from the well to the house, diverting the 45? well water through the furnace coil," Ted explains. "The only power the system requires is enough electricity to run the furnace fan. It can cool a house enough to bring the temperature down to at least 70? even on the hottest days." Ted adds that another advantage is that the cool water helps to remove excess humidity by condensing water from the air. "I can pull off a' couple gallons of water a day on really, humid days. Also, there is no buildup of minerals as there can be on evaporationtype cooling surfaces." At night, when the hogs are inactive and drinking very little water, the system is hooked up so that on extremely hot nights the lawn sprinkler can be turned on to keep enough cold water flowing through the coil to keep the house cool and comfortable. Ted estimates that his hogs use about 1,500 gals. of water per day. When its needed, the lawn sprinkler uses about 2 gal. per minute. Ted estimates that 11/2 gals. per minute would sufficiently cool his 1,100 sq. ft. house. If your well water isn't as cool as 45?, he says, you can decrease the flow rate so water stays in the system longer and will still cool the house sufficiently. The cooling system is currently operated by manually switching it on. However, it would be simple to install a thermostat to control it automatically, Ted points out. He has drawn up a set of doit-yourself plans which he will send to anyone interested for $10 per set. For more details, contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Ted Dyck, Box 1812, Winkler, Man. ROG 2X0 (ph 204 325-8428).

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