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Re: [Phys-l] Another try



At 06:21 PM 8/21/2006, you wrote:
this time a physics related news article.

THINKING OF REPLACING YOUR AIR CONDITION[ER] WITH ICE?

HOW STUFF WORKS - How much ice would I have to store up in the winter
in order to air condition my house all summer?. . . This is a great
question... . . . It certainly would be an easy system to build. All
you need is a big insulated container (probably in the form of a hole
in the ground) with some coiled tubes at the bottom. You would run a
chilled water circuit from the container to a radiator inside the air
conditioner (see How Air Conditioners Work for details). You would
need a small pump to pump the water in the chilled water loop, but
that's it.

[The math follows and then the conclusion]

So we need: 130,000,000 BTU * 3.15 grams/BTU = 409,500,000 grams of
ice That's about 410,000 liters of ice, or 410,000 kilograms (902,000
pounds) of ice that you must store to cool your house all summer.
That's a cube measuring 740 centimeters (24.26 feet) on a side. Very
roughly speaking, you would have to dig a hole as big as your house
and insulate it well, and then in the winter you would have to shovel
it full of nearly a million pounds of ice. But if you do that, you can
cool your house for free.

http://home.howstuffworks.com/question306.htm


bc, who hasn't checked it, because he must house, as in house husband.



I have been out of town, so this thread has probably long since died
- but I have to interject that when one uses American Customary units,
this question of how much ice to store is a no-brainer, apparently.

A house of 2000 sq feet often uses a 5 ton air conditioner.
That represents how much ice you would need to order from the
ice-man daily to meet your cooling requirements. It is this
parameter that the URL seems to ignore.

If one supposes that Summer lasts three months, and that one
requires a 5 ton capacity, then the quantity in question would be
3 months X 31 days X 5 tons plus a factor for wastage.
That's 465 short tons plus or 423 tonnes plus.
This agrees reasonably with the arithmetic given,
less a whole lot of computation.


Brian Whatcott Altus OK Eureka!