Ice Box Heat Exchanger?

[dirtyolsouth]

Hey all...

I saw a relatively new product called an Ice Box Heat Exchanger that looks pretty interesting. It sounds like an innovative way to avoid using an a/c unit and you may be able to use minimal ventilation IF it works as designed. It looks like most of us already have half or more of the pieces to create our own air conditioning system in our grow rooms:

Ice Box Finally, a safe and very efficient way to water-cool your entire grow room! It consists of a high-quality heat-exchanger with a strong molded plastic housing. One side of the housing is designed to install over a 6" air-cooled reflector duct flange, and as an option the opposite side can be attached to 6" air ducting (depending on inline fan placement). Air from your indoor garden is either pushed or pulled through the reflectors with an inline fan and then passed over the Ice Box heat exchanger. Cold water is circulated through the heat exchanger, cooling the air before it exits right back into the indoor garden area.

It sounds pretty interesting... you can get an A/C unit cheaper but this might work well in a grow room that you can't use a window or portable A/C unit in. It requires using a 1/4 HP water chiller and they are about $450 on eBay but you may be able to find a used one for a lot less on a fish lovers forum. It's a bit pricey at around $600 to put together but you wouldn't use any more electricity than you already do if you have an inline fan going. If you're already using A/C it should save money in the long run. If it works you'd sure have more dank bud in the long run imho... I'd think the chiller would have to live just outside the grow room if you're in a tight space and I have no idea what kind of heat a water chiller puts off... My main worry would be having water lines ran around my room at light level and whether there would be any condensation that could cause it to drip or if the condensation is contained and returned back to the chiller in the lines...


Happy Growing!

 

[MindzEye]

I'm a commercial HVAC mechanic and I can also tell you that you would need to find out the seer rating of that coil and match the fan to it or else it wont work well... For not much more than the cost of all of this equipment you could have a ductless split system profesionally insatlled in your grow room and it would be far more effective.. I think think this would be great if the costs was less

 

[MindzEye]

This would also be more effective to hook it up on a duct that was blowing air into the grow room and not the light, this would make it an open loop chilled water A/C... It does the same thing... Water absorbs heat from air passing through the coil then the heated water then flows to the chiller where a refrigerant absorbs the heat from the water and then flows back to the coil... The coil doesnt look that big, I would love to know the deminsions of the coil itself...

Condensation isnt from the water its from the air there isnt a way for it to "return to the chiller" because it was never in the chiller to begin with, it was in the air. The coil may have a drain pan and a drain line for condensation.

Also I dont know if it would really save money in the long run... What is the amperage of the chillers for this unit? Whats the tonage of the chiller?

 

[MindzEye]

And just to prove I know a lot on this subject here is a pic of the type of chillers I work with every day.. They are 1600 ton York Centrifugal chillers

 

[dirtyolsouth]

Now THAT'S a chiller... imagine the setup you could have with that! Thanks a lot for all the info... very interesting as I'm amazed anything works at all...

Peace!