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I don't have AC but my apartment lease covers unlimited water usage and the water is very cold. How can I best use this to cool my home?

I’ve searched around and mostly seen people create custom radiator builds attached to their water supply, but that’s beyond my skill level and I’m not sure if linking it directly to the water supply via piping would violate the lease or not. Are there any solutions a bit more DIY that I could take advantage of?

nexussapphire ,

I don’t know how big your apartment is but why not a window unit. It’s probably the most efficient way to cook your apartment down short of redesigning the building.

Pacattack57 ,

These are very expensive to run. They can add upwards of $200 to your electric bill.

nexussapphire ,

It’s either that or maintain a swamp cooler that won’t work on humid days and can cause respiratory infection if not cleaned properly. A renters options are very limited and a window unit is a pretty good compromise if you don’t want to loose a deposit.

If you want to sit in a sweltering room during a 100° day, no one is stopping you. I’ve heard it’s a pretty typical thing for Europeans anyway. I’m not judging, the guy wants to cool the room down.

ShepherdPie ,

OP would probably be better suited with a portable AC. Most apartments I know of ban window units because they can fall and hit people if not installed properly.

When getting a portable AC, get one with two hoses as they’re much more efficient since they aren’t blowing cooled air outside (and sucking hot air in from every gap in the exterior walls.

nexussapphire ,

Yeah, whatever is reasonable and within the terms of your lease is usually the best bet.

ShepherdPie ,

Depends on your electricity rates. Ours is around $0.12/KWh and doesn’t even cost 1/4 of that.

Pacattack57 ,

Depends on the area too. I live in Texas and can tell you from my personal experience that at .14/kw it increased my bill by about $200

ShepherdPie ,

Maybe you have a bad AC. I’ve been running ours nearly daily and our electricity bill has gone from $120 to $140

rekabis ,
  1. Find a pair of vehicle radiators that are as close to a box fan in size as possible.
  2. Zip tie them to either side of the box fan. As the fan blows: it will draw air in through the “second radiator” and blow it out through the “first radiator”.
  3. Hook the out of the first radiator to the in of the second using flexible hoses. Cheap garden hoses might even fit.
  4. Hook other hoses to the in of the first radiator and the out of the second.
  5. Run water on through the first radiator, out of the second. This makes the most efficient heat transfer possible.
PM_Your_Nudes_Please ,

This is exactly what I was going to suggest. Use the water to cool the radiators, and use fans to push hot air through the cool radiators, cooling the air in the process.

This is basically what AC does on a much larger scale. It uses refrigerants, a compressor, and some basic physics to cool the radiators, but it’s still the same basic concept.

rc__buggy , (edited )

I don’t think a box fan could cool one entire 20x20in automotive radiator, let alone two.

fan -> plenum -> radiator would probably work best. The plenum only needs to be a few inches long, it’s just to direct the entire square of the fan over the entire square of the radiator. Cardboard and caulk would work.

It’s a low efficiency heat exchanger.

Thorny_Insight ,

Wouldn’t be too difficult to jerryrig a system which does that but because it’s going to be a huge waste of water I feel morally obligated to not even give you any ideas. Invest in a split AC system instead. They make ones for windows as well.

Mubelotix ,
@Mubelotix@jlai.lu avatar

AC is worse for the climate than wasting water

Breezy ,

Is it though?

Zoot ,
@Zoot@reddthat.com avatar

Youre not necessarily wasting any water. Any water that goes down the drain just gets filtered and recirculated. Even if it wasn’t filtered and made it directly to the river, evaporation would still ensure it returns to the cycle.

Not as far as the efficiency of filtering water vs an AC… well. You’ll need someone significantly smarter than I to tell you that

intensely_human ,

The wasting of water refers to water that is available for use by people. Water that’s been treated and is ready to go.

bleistift2 , (edited )

By your definition “wasting water” is impossible, since it all stays on Earth and will get filtered eventually.

Zoot ,
@Zoot@reddthat.com avatar

That was what I was going for :p. Had hoped an engineer might come in and tell us the efficiency of either or both.

jol ,

Depending on where you live yeah

intensely_human ,

So no. If portions of region A are below region B, then region A is not above region B.

algorithmae ,

Ehhhhhhh

TimewornTraveler ,

we’re literally on the precipice of water wars

MadBob ,

If the actual problem is that you yourself are too hot, cool yourself instead. A trick I’ve picked up working in kitchens, where it’s very fucking hot indeed, is to wet your nape and forearms regularly. You can wear a wet hat too. Doesn’t really take advantage of the unlimited water but it gets you there.

Wahots ,
@Wahots@pawb.social avatar

Just get a window AC if you have the right type of windows. Otherwise, a dual hose portable heat pump from costco or other reputable source.

evranch ,

Gut an AC from the dump. Replace the condenser with a tube in tube heat exchanger, using your cold water as a heat sink. Brazed plate HX if you’re feeling rich. Replace the cap tube with a TXV for better load tracking. Recharge with R290.

T Sure this is even further beyond your skill level but is the best possible way to use a source of cold to chill your apartment. You can locate it anywhere convenient, not just by the window. You could likely get a COP over 5 and be discharging the water in a fairly modest stream at around 30-40C.

s_s ,

Start a car detailing business. Use the water to wash the cars.

Use the money from new, low-overhead business to do anything you want.

ArcaneGadget ,

Almost no matter how you do it, it’s going to be a horrible waste of good drinking water to try to extract cooling from the temperature of the water. If you are in a dry climate, make a DIY swamp cooler. Otherwise shell out for a small AC unit.

Also; using your free lease-included water for stuff like that, is probably the quickest way to no longer have water included in your lease…

intensely_human ,

So if

  • Using water this way is a waste of water
  • Using water this way will end the policy that permits this use case

Does that mean the fastest way to end the waste is to go ahead with this plan?

ShepherdPie ,

Only if that was your sole use of said water otherwise you’re just going to pay more for all the water you’d normally use.

ironsoap ,

As a kid I used tubes, a box fan, a cooler, and bucket with a siphon to cool me down.

You could easily set that up with just the water from a sink and some hardware store parts.

Search for ‘diy fan cooling tub copper coils’ as a start.

As an example: Homemade AC - The “Copper Coil” Air Cooler! - (Simple "Box Fan …

Copper coils have the best thermal efficiency, but plastic tubing would also work.

db2 ,

Get an actual radiator instead of making coils and attach a box fan to it. It’s something I was always going to do but never got around to.

Also give consideration to saving at least some of the water to use as “gray water”. If you’re not familiar with that, it means water you can use for many things but not for eating or drinking.

Lost_My_Mind ,

Pretty sure this guy is an engeneer.

null ,

Get an actual radiator instead of making coils and attach a box fan to it.

Or, get an AC unit at that point.

db2 ,

This is at least 3 times cheaper than any window AC worth having: a.co/d/03Jkt3tN

ironsoap ,

Feasible if you found one at a junk yard, but copper tubing is $20-30 and some fittings makes a tubing idea sub-$100 probably. An AC is about $300, a new radiator without fittings starts at $70 and are built for cars not box fans so it might be more challenging to get to work.

With that being said, environmental, energy, and other contextual concerns might out weigh the cost. A mini-split heat pump is probably the most sane thing to actually install, but that’s a big ask.

db2 ,

You don’t need copper tubing, any tubing that’ll hold water will work. There aren’t going to be high temperatures or pressures. The supply won’t be able to go full blast with poly and hose clamps but it wouldn’t need to. I had a whole plan for this in my head then moved somewhere I didn’t need it and never made it happen.

As for a mini spit, that’s the easiest option if the central is shot, if the layout isn’t complicated. But the place isn’t owned by OP so it’s probably a non starter. They don’t even want to fix what’s there it sounds like.

penquin ,

Why not buy a portable AC?

MeanEYE ,
@MeanEYE@lemmy.world avatar

Grossly inefficient.

Today ,

But feel great when you’re in front of it.

penquin ,

Better than getting toasted in the heat? Lmao

trolololol ,

Spray water in front of a fan. Way faster than forcing heat exchange through air to metal.

The reason it works on Winter is that the temperature difference is about 50C or more. On a hot 35C day it would mean the radiator is at most at -15C… And that’s why you’ll prefer to stand in front of the fridge that has 6C than a radiator that may run at best 15C water inside.

TunaLobster ,

what-if.xkcd.com/91/

slooopy_potatoe ,

Depending on you humidity, you could look into building a swamp-cooler. Sounds weird but works pretty great.

PenisWenisGenius , (edited )

If you have a way of getting unlimited free ice (unlimited free cold water also works), you can run it through a radiator. Get a radiator of any kind, get a water pump and find a way to run the water in the bucket through the radiator. Put the radiator in front of a fan. As long as there is cold water running through the radiator, it will produce at least some cooling. Just don’t think you can create ice in the same room you’re trying to cool, a fridge generates more heat than the cold it produces. This barely works whenever I have to do it but it is better than nothing and it can make a difference if you just need the room to be a little cooler so you can sleep.

The entire problem with this is that ice or cold water is a really shit form of cooling and the only thing that’s any better is… Compressor a/c. Peltier plates look good on paper but once you hook them up to a heat transfer system, you’d be surprised how useless 500 watts worth of peltiers are for transferring heat. Swamp coolers only work on the desert. Ammonium nitrate can generate cold when it gets dissolved into water but the only way to make a sustained cooling system out of that involves boiling the water to get the ammonium nitrate back so you can reuse it so fuck that.

Alternatively, scientists invented some kind of metal that gets cold when you bend it but good luck figuring out how to make that.

Sabata11792 ,

Wouldn’t the radiator form condensation, and make a mess?

PenisWenisGenius ,

Water does condensate on the radiator but not enough to make a mess, at least when I do it. Emptying the water and replacing it with fresh ice so it will be cold again is the part that makes a mess, so lay down towels if that is a concern.

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