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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?

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.

slooopy_potatoe ,

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

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

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.

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.

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.

ipha ,

I’ve done this!

Turn the shower on just high enough to get a good mist going then put a box fan on high as close as possible pointing out of the bathroom.

Brkdncr ,

Just run your shower with cold water. Open a window on the otherwise of the house and get a fan to blow air from the bathroom to the open window.

As the water turns from liquid to gas it absorbs heat. As long as it doesn’t get too humid it should feel cool.

Lost_My_Mind ,

Dehumidifier.

downpunxx ,

little realized fact that dehumidifiers produce heat

Lost_My_Mind ,

:O

Notyou ,

If you say so. The air just feels a lot more cool and crisp in my apartment when I have my dehumidifier on. Of course I live in a swamp so without it if feels like I swimming through stank ass when I walk somewhere.

I’m not doubting the science behind your statement. I just prefer feeling like I’m not being sous vide, so I’ll stick to a dry heat in my apartment.

Brkdncr ,

A dehumidifier would return heat to the room. Best you can do with swamp cooling is draw the humid air out.

Skezlarr ,

You could try and make a DIY swamp cooler? There’s lots of instructions online for how to make them, and basically the only consumable is water. The only caveat is that they work by drawing hot air in from an open window to evaporate water, so it’s not very effective in high humidity or low temperatures.

MeanEYE ,
@MeanEYE@lemmy.world avatar

There are.

Fedizen ,

Ice machine + box fan

Put ice in a container with a large surface area, aim the fan at it. Empty the container when fully melted. Put ice in all your drinks

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