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Meas34Melon45 ,
@Meas34Melon45@lemmy.world avatar

WOW EPIC

boonhet ,

Ancient Iran had swamp coolers* to be more accurate here.

This works in the desert, but you can’t replicate it in a humid climate like you can with AC.

tryptaminev ,

The very term Air Conditioning refers to a technical system, that is deliberately influencing aka conditioning the properties of the air.

So yes, this is an ancient AC system.

boonhet ,

Cool, but that’s not what we mean when we say AC. The meanings of words change over time and AC is used almost exclusively to refer to a specific type of device so unambiguous that I don’t usually have to explain which exact type of device I mean.

Otherwise literally just putting up a fan next to your window is technically AC. The term AC will lose all meaning.

tryptaminev ,

The specific device that mostly works by fanning in air that is cooled by using evaporation? Seems very similiar to what the ancient people there had.

boonhet ,

They didn’t have an AC compressor, refrigerant, etc. Their system stops working when your humidity is too high.

It works on the same physical principle, but they’re still very different in their usage, side effects and limitations.

Redex68 ,

Well a significant difference is that this increases humidity, while normal AC decreases it.

diyrebel ,

Thanks for pointing that out. My immediate thought upon reading the headline was how a/c could be implemented without electricity. I wondered if a compressor could be beast powered somehow. @FlyingSquid should correct the title.

Beliriel , (edited )

I came across this exact thing when researching air conditioning. And since I was interested in a good soltution for the tropics these Yak’chals as they’re called are basically useless. The tropics regularly have dew points of 26°C and above.
It can kinda work with an elaborate setup and a (liquid) desiccant cycle but in the end you still want the evaporation cooling outside, especially in the tropics where you have legionella practically instantly if you humidify anything indoors. And that will tank the efficiency. But it kinda works. The more humid the weather the hotter the regeneration of the desiccant has to be to work.

Video 1 Experimental setup indoors to show the concept
Video 2 Solar setup outside

randint ,
@randint@feddit.nl avatar

I kind of want to try this myself

inototen ,

I think that the Eastgate Mall in Zimbabwe makes usage of a similar principle, but their inspiration came from Termite Mounds www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP8DSdfoiZw

zombuey ,

I gotta wonder if the same was true for them to.

over_clox ,

Yes, humans often eat upwards of 15% sawdust in processed foods.

Read the ingredients, where do you think cellulose comes from?

dnzm ,
@dnzm@feddit.nl avatar

Ohhhh, the old Lemmy termiteroo!

Waraugh ,

That’s an informative robot

oshaboy ,

Not quite an air conditioner, but it seems modernizing it could be a great idea for new constructions to save on power. Maybe as a supplement to Air Conditioners.

BlazeMaster3000 ,

Not quite an air conditioner, but it seems modernizing it could be a great idea for new constructions to save on power. Maybe as a supplement to Air Conditioners.

It’s called “radiant floor cooling/heating” and this has existed for a while.

diyrebel ,

A radiant floor is just a heat transfer system that still needs a hot/cold source. Evaporative coolers (aka swamp coolers) are really the modern day equivalent.

@oshaboy

Maybe as a supplement to Air Conditioners.

Swamp coolers only work when the outdoor air is quite dry (Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico). The resulting indoor air is very humid. Swamp coolers cannot make a big difference in temp. In NM they are perfect because the air is dry (too dry for comfort, IMO) and you only need to lower the temp by a small amount. So the resulting indoor air quality in NM is perhaps the best in the world for those who like ~65—70% humidity. A lot of swamp coolers in AZ have been replaced with A/C because the city temps have increased¹ to a point where swamp coolers cannot make a sufficient temp decrease. So I wonder if an AZ residents kept their swamp coolers going & added A/C. Note that A/C dries the interior air, so I suspect the swamp cooler might actually be make the A/C work harder in that scenario. If anyone knows something concrete about this I’d be interested in hearing it.

① One theory on the temp increase in AZ cities is simply more and more concrete covering the ground (roads, parking lots, driveways), less soil and vegetation. This means rainwater is drained off instead of having the large scale evaporative cooling effect of soil & vegetation absorbing water temporarily until it evaporates. IMO one correction (apart from reverting parking lots to gardens) is to get roofers installing vegetated rooftops. I really don’t understand why are nearly non-existent in the US. Pick any city and call every single roofing company in the region, and most likely not a single one of them can do .

rustyriffs ,

passive house design

over_clox ,

Meanwhile, they can make ice with nearly identical technology…

youtu.be/tnJms_3Gbuk

amanaftermidnight ,

those don’t make ice, just insulates them really well. the ice froze outside at night.

Loui ,

I was told that the houses in trinidad, Cuba have a similar cooling effect. Also the round white houses in tunesia have a cooling effect. Any tunesian or Cubans here?

veniasilente ,

Seeing a lot of contrarians in this thread who just don’t like that the Middle East had literally cool tech before America… pardon, before the people who stole America from the Americas, had literally cool tech.

Probs they are gonna call this thing “weapon of mass destruction” as a pretense for the next Yearly Oil Extraction invasion, conveniently ignoring that from an environmental perspective “”“modern”“” AC is over twelve hundred times the WMD Iranian Air Conditioners ever were.

jerrimu ,

Wow, I thought quanat was a made-up word from dune.

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

If “Kwisatz Haderach” is also a real thing that would be weird.

lagomorphlecture ,

It’s derived from Hebrew.

halvar ,

I tought this was a meme and have been looking for Saddam Hussein’s red sillouette for half a minute.

CWSmith ,

This looks like some other things I have heard of before.

Makes me wonder how many ancient desert cultures designed ways to cool the air in their structures.

AnAngryAlpaca ,

One othe trick was to build houses close to each other with narrow streets between them, so they would be in the shade of buildings most of the time. This way the city can actually be cooler than the open area around it.

Of course this won’t work anymore with large modern glass buildings or wide roads between them.

diyrebel ,

The problem with that is it leaves little space for vegetation and soil, which give an outdoor evaporative cooling effect. The narrow streets approach should be combined with vegetated rooftops. An perhaps the vegetation should be able to thrive in the shade of solar panels.

Fedizen ,

wait isnt a similar system in the great pyramid?

dudinax ,

Hadn’t been invented yet.

Chee_Koala ,

Can’t really think of a way a tomb needs AC, but i’m eager to be proven wrong :-)

kenoh ,
@kenoh@lemm.ee avatar

Nah man, you have to cool all the grain that was store in there.

viewer33357 ,
@viewer33357@lemmy.world avatar

interesting

paddirn ,

I’m always amazed by stuff like this that ancient peoples were able to work out on their own. Like how would they even figure any of this stuff out on their own? Obviously it had to be Aliens. /s

dudinax ,

Herodotus made an estimate of the rate of growth of the Nile delta, and used those estimates to challenge some conventional thinking about history and to make some predictions about the future. The ancients had a wealth of knowledge and competency. Probably much of it is lost.

dditty ,

Humans have always been highly intelligent, they were just limited by the tools of their times. And yes much of their knowledge and innovation wasn’t preserved to be built off of.

Chee_Koala ,

Probably, almost 100% definitely aliens, yes, I have to concur.

Lenins2ndCat ,
@Lenins2ndCat@lemmy.world avatar

This isn’t just mildly interesting. We should be considering methods of air cooling that do not use any carbon in order to avoid aircon usage becoming a contributor to the climate problem as things get hotter and hotter.

MetaCubed ,

I agree with you that we should be exploring alternatives, but aircon is extremely energy efficient for how much thermal energy it moves (reaching 400% efficiency in some cases) . The problem isn’t aircon itself, but what is being used to power it (coal/natural gas power plants)

In fact the technology behind aircon can be expanded into a heat pump to both heat and cool, being more efficient than electro-resistive or gas heating. There’s even water heaters that will actually cool the area they’re in and use the heat they gather from the space to heat the water.

Technology Connections has a great series of videos that go in depth on both heat pumps and aircon.

spongebue ,

Yeah, “air conditioning powered by solar/wind/hydro” can feel like it’s one big Rube Goldberg machine to make air cool, but the reality is that it comes together to make something that can scale really easily. I can’t imagine coming up with a design like what’s in OP for an apartment complex or condo building.

Source: just made it up, but also a Technology Connections fan. All that’s to say, feel free to correct me with a little data

Lazz45 , (edited )

They actively use this design in large buildings (with a modern twist). Its known as a chilled water system: hvactrainingshop.com/how-a-chilled-water-system-w…

Or you have ones that do not run at all during the day, and only chill/freeze the water at night on excess power/cheap power: buildinggreen.com/…/making-ice-night-cool-buildin…

The second system I linked would then let the ice slow melt over the day as its way of actively chilling air passing through its exchanger.

These systems work by chilling water instead of air, which has a much higher heat capacity. Meaning, it can accept much more thermal energy per unit mass before raising its temperature by 1 kelvin. You are able to build a single, very well designed, and efficient refridgeration unit that can provide HVAC services to up to multiple high rise buildings. This reduces waste and reduces the usage of coolant/refridgerant.

This system can be reversed in the winter (heating the water instead of chilling) with geothermal heat, solar heat, or if no “green” options are readily available, natural gas direct fire heat can be extremely efficient compared to electric coil

deadsenator ,
@deadsenator@lemmy.ca avatar

One of our data centers uses a building with a man made “lake” in it. They blow the air across the water and use that air to cool the building and its systems. Seems to work fine.

diyrebel ,

The .com link is dead to me (it’s in an exclusive walled garden not openly available to all people []). I could not find a replacement link. If anyone has a better source, plz mention it.

Lazz45 ,

Does this one work: web.archive.org/…/how-a-chilled-water-system-work…

Beliriel ,

It scales pretty easily. A Yak’chal is basically an early version of a cooling tower. And they regularly get used for bigger house complexes.

grue ,

400% efficiency is good, but it’s not better than the ∞% efficiency you get from something that doesn’t require fuel input to begin with. (I’m pretty sure the Technology Connections guy would agree on that point.)

If nothing else, think of it this way: even if you still want to use air conditioning to make sure you get all the way down to comfortable room temperature or whatever your target is (which a Qanat, although able to achieve a >15°C ΔT, might or might not be able to do reliably), it’ll still give you a big head start and greatly reduce the amount of energy needed. It’s a lot like using a ground-source heat pump instead of an air-source one. What’s not to like‽

MetaCubed ,

Sorry my point wasn’t that we shouldn’t explore other options to use instead of/in tandem with A/C. I was entirely pointing out that the use of an AC/heatpump is by itself, in absence of the context of what is used to power it, a non issue as its one of the most efficient electric heating/cooling technologies we have.

Wind catchers could be, and likely are a great technology to adapt for wider use, though I can’t speak to that, I’m not an HVAC engineer.

crossal ,
@crossal@lemmy.world avatar

Can you explain 400% efficiency?

TheSaus ,

IIRC for every watt of electricity, 4 watts of energy get moved from the inside bit of your AC to the outside unit

Redex68 ,

What the other guy said. It’s down to the fact that you aren’t actually heating/cooling down a room, you’re just moving the heat already there around. E.g. in winter, instead of producing your own heat with electricity, which is 100% efficient, you take heat from the outside and put it inside, using a lot less energy in the process than if you were to create the heat inside of your home.

Though I’m not sure if it’s that efficient, I think I heard it’s more around the 150-200% mark, but I’m not sure.

Claidheamh , (edited )

I think I heard it’s more around the 150-200% mark

Most cheap air conditioners have COPs (coefficients of performance) around 3.2-3.5, which means 320-350% efficiency. In real world conditions, the best systems reach 4.5, though the theoretical limit is about 8.0.

chronically_crazy ,

3.2-3.5 is also on a good day. It might not be as efficient when the outside temperature differences are further away from your thermostat setting inside, though if you have a geothermal setup, then you’ve got peak efficiency year round.

MetaCubed ,

Sorry, my notifications have been messed up because of the lemmy.world issues! Some other people have already answered but I’ll still reply :)

A heat pump’s efficiency is measured differently than that of a gas furnace.

The actual unit for heat pumps is the Coefficient of Performance (CoP). This measures the power input (electricity) VS the power output (heat). A “400% efficiency” as I put it, is a CoP of 4, meaning that for every watt of power used, 4 watts of heat energy are moved. As some other people pointed out, depending on the quality and technology of the heat pump and the interior/exterior temperature, the actual range of a heat pump is a CoP of anywhere from 2-5.5 (the theoretical, perfect maximum is 8.8). The efficiency of the heat pump does dip as the temperature of the region it’s pulling heat energy from lowers, there’s less energy available to move, so it has to work harder. This is why heat pumps in regions with especially cold winters have what’s usually called “emergency heat” which brings us to…

Electrical heating. This works by pushing electricity through a wire to heat it up. Directly turning electricity into heat. Electrical heating always has a CoP of 1 (terms and conditions apply). For each watt of electrical power consumed, 1 Watt of heat energy is produced.

Finally we have gas heating, which is still the only option for some areas for various reasons. Gas heating efficiency is not measured with CoP but instead with Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency, simply a number that represents what % of the fuel burned is actually turned into useful heat energy. I’m finding AFUE ranges of 76-97% as a general range for modern furnaces. If a furnace has an AFUE of 90%, that means that when it burns an amount of fuel representing 100 units of heat potential (I’m not using a unit, BTUs confuse and terrify me) then 90 of those units will be turned into usable heat, and 10 of them will be waste, whether that is heat that leaves via the chimney or is simply unburnt fuel.

TLDR: 400% means 4x more energy is moved than is used, I apologize for the wordiness, I find this stuff rather interesting

Lazz45 ,

This would be a great idea if you want everyone in that building to file humidity complaints every single day. Air conditioners work by using mechanical work (compressor) to exploit evaporation in order to pull heat from one location to another and exhaust it away, in turn cooling the first location (this could be air, water, etc.)

This system works by using ground temp water as a heatsink to suck heat out of the air passing over it. When it does this, it humidifies the air. In the desert…who cares? In an office building…who cares? Every single worker who is stuck there all day

If you’re saying we need better systems than the AC unit you grew up with, fear not! Many office buildings have been moving away from it (same with other large venues) they use a chilled water system. They use the best of both these systems to get WAY more performance out of way less wattage. You only need a fraction of the cooling power with a chilled water system because the water can absorb much more heat per unit mass than air and can be sized to never run during the day, but only at night when the grid is least in use

Lenins2ndCat ,
@Lenins2ndCat@lemmy.world avatar

AC unit you grew up with

Lmao grew up with? Most of us have never used AC at all in europe. Here in the UK no homes have AC. The issue is that people are installing it now because of climate change and the result is massively higher energy use.

Lazz45 ,

Not necessarily in your house. I’m talking about the design of the units from when you were a child (Many public buildings in the EU have AC regardless of houses not having it). AC was invented in 1901, and has come a very long way since then, and we have begun combining it with old principles to extract the best of both solutions

Combining modern refrigeration/cooling techniques with well designed passive systems that exploit material properties (Heat capacities, transfer coefficients, etc.) to their advantage is the future of HVAC. It started with CFCs and knowing we could exploit their boiling point with mechanical force to chill air beyond the outside air temperature. Who knows where science and engineering may take us next!

tryptaminev ,

Cooling a ware house, lecture hall or mall is very different from cooling an apaprtement building. In particular because most of the former have been designed with AC in mind.

Who knows where science and engineering may take us next!

Not beyond the hard limits of physics. You are not going to retrofit an appartement building built in 1900 or 1970 or 2000 for that matter with an efficent heating/cooling system without major rebuilding.

Aux ,

People in the UK are installing air cons, because most houses are very bad and have no insulation.

Lenins2ndCat ,
@Lenins2ndCat@lemmy.world avatar

This is not true? L1A, L1B, L2A, and L2B exceed american insulation regulations by a huge amount, and they exceed the EU regulations as well. I did some roofing once upon a time.

Aux ,

Most houses in the UK are not new builds, that’s the issue.

diyrebel ,

Some US states solve this by making it illegal for a roofer to re-roof an uninsulated roof without adding insulation.

grue ,

Obviously, you use the tech in the situations it’s appropriate for. If your office building happens to be in Phoenix, AZ, then a qanat might be a pretty good idea!

Chee_Koala ,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zW9_ztTiw8 Have you seen this? Seems like the next big thing in AC is just around the corner :-)

Clbull ,

I had a crazy thought. What if you used depressurization to cool interiors?

Not as in depressurize the room and potentially kill the people inside, but in a way similar to soundproofing where you create an airtight gap in your walls, depressurize it to create a partial vacuum and effectively restrict both heat and sound transfer. That way it would be much easier to control internal temperature.

The only two problems I can see with it is expense (pumping air out of the gaps between your walls could be pricey), and the potential of explosive repressurization if something were to break the wall.

Waytoogo ,

I would not explode, it would implode.

sznio ,

Styrofoam is good enough for that.

HumbertTetere ,

Wall isolation is pretty fine as it is, main weaknesses are windows and thermal bridging.

We still have the issue that a perfectly isolated house will need to lose the heat created by humans and electric systems, so actual cooling is required.

tryptaminev ,

And how do you get fresh air in? Also the problem of heat transfer is never by gaps in the walls, at least not for buildings in western and central Europe. The problem is heat conduction through the window panes. And that is with isolated windows already. Also it is impossible to get a brick wall air tight. Leave alone you create a great environment for water to leak in and damage everything.

A building needs to be able to “breathe” in order to get rid of the humidity that is generated inside.

over_clox ,

youtu.be/tnJms_3Gbuk

toxicbubble ,

architecture like this would be better for the environment than industrial air conditioning

Lazz45 ,

This is not air conditioning. Not to be the “actually” stereotype, but air condioners literally “condition” the air by removing humidity (it was actually designed for this purpose, a side effect of removing the humidity was lowering the air temperature). This is simply good ducting and natural exchange.

Good for the environment, yes! Air conditioning? No

Iamdanno ,

These condition the air by adding humidity, so you are actually wrong.

Lazz45 ,

You’re completely correct, I live in an area where you’d never be trying to add humidity lol. I was also thinking in the context of why it was originally invented, which was wrong to do. I removed my comment

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