radiator idea

[CptnDipshit]

I was thinking about different setups today and came up with an idea. How about taking a car radiator or multiple heater cores and modify the cold air return system on your furnace so that the air goes through the filter then the radiator then into the furnace. I don't know how efficiant the blowers are in there but i know you can set the thermostat so the fan is always on. Maybe the thermostat turns it on enough anyway?

Steve

[bigben2k]

Too complicated (anyone else?)

It becomes a question of how much are you willing to modify your house. Would it work? Yes. Would it affect your house? probably.

[CptnDipshit]

In my house the furnace is on the other side of the wall from my computer, so I guess in my mind (and situation) it sounded like a good idea.

[MeltMan]

Heh, or run hoses down to the basement of the house and let the radiator "radiate" down there with the lower than 1st floor ambient temps....

Or... run a garden hose straight to the cpu then dump the water into a sprinkler... talk about cooling off a cpu plus watering your lawn...

Do what you gotta do to squeeeeeze those last few mhz out of it.

[jtroutma]

Too Complicated?

Eh depends on how willing you are to tear appart you house to cool your computer. I bet the temps would probably be pretty good. As for affecting the whole house......personally the difference would be negligable.

<shrug> Not a bad idea.......just something I wouldnt try.

However I have toyed with the idea of taking an old outdoor air conditioner and stripping it of its compressor, modding the radiator for use on our watercooling systems, and using the fan to cool it outdoors. Even thought of putting a misting hose around the intake of the fan and letting that thing go.

[gmat]

You could also use goethermal cooling, ala BladeRunner. Bury a metal res in your garden (avoid dog bones and the corpses you hid there) deep enough so temp is constant and low.

[Brad]

if the cool air coming out is at a good low temp, then why not?

[Cova]

Ok, this just popped into my head while reading this thread - it's about as likely to happen as anything else in here (so probably one person in the middle of nowhere with too much time will try it).

Anyways - if you have a basement with a heated floor, what you actually have is tubing layed back and forth through the entire cement slab that is your basement floor. Being a giant slab of cement in a basement, it should naturally be pretty cool. It should be possible, with a few fittings, to use that as a giant passive rad for your computer.

Anyways, I've got to go back to real life now - my little rad with a 120mm fan.

[jtroutma]

Actaully Cova.... that's not such a bad idea
Seriously!

[bigben2k]

Originally posted by CptnDipshit
I was thinking about different setups today and came up with an idea. How about taking a car radiator or multiple heater cores and modify the cold air return system on your furnace so that the air goes through the filter then the radiator then into the furnace. I don't know how efficiant the blowers are in there but i know you can set the thermostat so the fan is always on. Maybe the thermostat turns it on enough anyway?

Steve

The problem is that it would restrict the airflow of your furnace, in such a way that it would draw air from somewhere else. Depending on your setup at home, this air would either come from a) another intake on another floor or B) an external intake, if you have one.

If there is no other source of air, then the furnace looses its efficiency, and in house heating, doing anything to the system can decrease the efficiency dramatically. These systems are usually well designed, with little tolerances.

The central furnace is sometimes also composed of an A/C unit, and share some of the same ducts.

In short, if you have another intake on another floor, then the house system should work almost as efficiently. If the remaining intake is on a top floor, the house will cool a little better, but not heat as well. If the remaining intake is in the basement, you'll get better heating, but not as efficient cooling.

If the remaining intake is external, your furnace / AC will both be less efficient.

There is also an issue of dust. Because the house system is a very big collector of dust, the rad would get encrusted with dust so fast, it wouldn't even be funny.

(Now does everyone see what I mean by complicated?)

[CptnDipshit]

That is why I said to go through the filter then the radiator. if you took the biggest filter they have at the hardware store and then found a truck radiator or something as large as the filter then made a new housing between the cold air return and the furnace you wouldn't lose much if any efficientcy. You cound then go to an underground tank (Bladerunner style) using the heat for your house in the winter. You could probably bypass the radiator in the summer so as not to hurt the A/C efficientcy.

[bigben2k]

Originally posted by CptnDipshit
That is why I said to go through the filter then the radiator. if you took the biggest filter they have at the hardware store and then found a truck radiator or something as large as the filter then made a new housing between the cold air return and the furnace you wouldn't lose much if any efficientcy. You cound then go to an underground tank (Bladerunner style) using the heat for your house in the winter. You could probably bypass the radiator in the summer so as not to hurt the A/C efficientcy.

Then we're back to "complicated"

Ideally, you'd use the same type of filter that you already use with the furnace, but you'd still have to deal with the loss of airflow because of the rad. Unless of course, the rad doesn't restrict airflow that much, but that may not be the case with a truck radiator.

Either way, what you could do, is make a new housing that has a seperate vent to allow the same airflow as the original does, to bypas the rad altogether (like you suggested, but permanently). There should still be enough suction to pull air through the rad. You really don't need a lot of airflow through a rad, for an application like this.