Anyone here using or considered "Geo-Thermal cooling"?

[BladeRunner]

Just about to bury this 8foot under (Pepsi max for size)



(pic is link to detailed full page image)

Currently using this set-up and attempting to build a silent zero fan PC.

Terra firma Water-Cooling

[LiquidCool]

Actually I was thinking the same thing. But I was going to use about 100 feet of copper tubing and bury it a foot or so underground. Then just pump through it like it was a radiator. I dont know how good it would do with a high heat load for long periods of time.

Of course I live in florida so who knows I could dig down 3-4 feet and hit water!

[BladeRunner]

Michael Huck

Yep that's certainly a way to do it but being in Florida may be an issue?. The underground temp at 1 foot wont be cool and even 3 foot down probably wont be all that cool though in the water table will help. What is the temp of that water?. What you'd need to do is find out what the average temp is for a year. In the UK we get near or below zero °C for a good part of the year and it's even cool where I am in the Summer at night. below ground temp will generally stay at or very near the average yearly temp, (unless you go down a long way).

Either way it would certainly be better than air cooling where you are. not sure a cooper tube will work, not tried it myself but have a look at the below link. (page takes ages to load but it's worth it if you are considering ground cooling). This guy tried copper pipe a first but it heated up. Things I like about the tank solution is the hot and cold water separates, (if you put the hot in the top and take the cold from the bottom), it's "free" to run, silent, cool, (where I am, 8°C to 10°C), and should be reliable and maintaince free. Far better than any Bong Cooler if you have the ground to do it in IMO.

http://www.fatnfast.com/otherwebs/overclocked

[bach-on]

Yeah. I've also considered Geo-Thermal, though I began to think it would be too labor intenisve. I'd suggest you contact someone who builds solar homes - especially a test home. We had one built at North Carolina State Univ. It uses a geothermal climate system. This is still considered a "pilot" project, so I'm sure there aren't too many folks who do this type of cooling. Perhaps the Agricultural folks who do soil testing and keep up with things like "frost lines" may be able to offer advice.

I really don't think a foot down will make any difference. From what I understand, you'll have to go substantially deeper. How deep is an unknown to me. But I'll bet somebody can give you an idea. This is the labor problem. Digging a 100 foot trench three or four feet deep is one heck of a chore, even with a mechanical ditching tool.

Copper in the ground might be the way to go, but you'll probably need to insulate the line as it enters the house. Otherwise, the copper would heat the water, thus offsetting the gain from the ground trip.

I'll be interested to hear how you do this. Please keep us posted.

[LiquidCool]

Thats what I mean, unless I go more than 2-3 feet in the ground then I wont be getting all that much out of it.

I dont think the ground can absorb all the much heat before it gets warmed up and holds the heat in...

Although our ground water is usually around 62F. But I dont want to dig THAT deep

[BladeRunner]

So maybe there is some benefit to our damp & cold UK climate after all. I suppose it is easier for me anyhow as the water table here is about 4 to 5 foot and I own an old JCB digger

[Joe]

I have long thought about doing this, but in a different fassion. I saw on a home improvement show that they ran like 20yards of 1/2" dia hose 5 ft below the surface o fthis guys backyard in a big "U" and then into their HVAC system it allowed them to chill the air down a few degrees without needing to run the A/C systems. Its a cool idea!

[BladeRunner]

Yeah in building this system I also thought you could make a very efficient (to run) air con system for a house. Like Bach-On!!! said, as they are testing this in a project house I don't feel so stupid for thinking about it now. If I build it exactly the same but on a much larger scale put a large oil type plastic tank deep underground and use a pump to circulate the water or coolant through large thin rads mounted in the cealing. Have user controlled fans to circulate the air. It may not be as cool as a real air con system but I'm sure it would be enough to make a house much more comfortable in the summer.

The best part over a real air-con system is that it would also be virtually "free" to run once installed and no nasty high pressure gasses in the system. I'm building a house ATM so I may seriously look into this in more detail. maybe connect a rad to my PC cooling tank to see if it can make my room cooler.

You guys ought to check the link I supplied in my second thread as this guy tried pipe and it heated up, it's really worth the download time. I've put it below.

http://www.fatnfast.com/otherwebs/overclocked

[bach-on]

I'd suggest that 62 degree ground water flows from much deeper than anybody would want to dig for this purpose. It just holds the temps as it comes toward the surface.

There was an article in Popular Mechanics or Popular Science about precooling water before sending it to an air conditioner system. Seems like I saw it in a doctor's office several years ago. Maybe you could check out some of the back issues at the library. There probably is a reference book that could point you to the right issue.

One idea in the article was to actually run the pipes (they used plastic hose) deep in a lake where the water stays cooler. Dunno, maybe that ground water might offer the same advantage.

But I still suspect it would prove to be very labor intensive and/or quite expensive for the gain. I know - It's the challenge. Ain't computers wonderful?

I still would like to hear of your experience if you decide to try it.

[BladeRunner]

Bach-On!!!

You could be right in hotter climates but where I am the underground water temp about 4 to 5 foot down, (watertable), is 46°F (8°C) give or take. What I'm using now is pretty good (120 litre stainless tank buried in the surface under a mobile home), but it is still affected too much by the general ambient air temp. Underground in the water table it will basically be at the yearly average temp where you are, unless you go very deep as you said. I'm sure the yearly average in Florida is more like 62°F (16°C)

I've not checked the temp of my water supply but I have an artisan well that goes down 180 foot into the pure underground river. It comes out and is filtered through an Iron & manganese filter in the garage and this is always condensation city in the summer.

Best thing for me to do is stop waffling and get on a do it like said, I do have a old JCB so digging the hole is not an issue. Just got to drill and tap the inlet and outlet fittings on the Propane cylinder now.

I'll bring this topic back with the results later

[bach-on]

One more thing about the air conditioner concept. From what I read and heard, the university test house had a problem with microbes and other pests. Over time, these things would affect the water. So, you may need to have a way to drain or flush the system periodically.

Doubt this would be a big factor in overclocking, but you said something about building a house. Hate to see you in the hospital.

Finally, the unit I read about only used the ground/lake cooling to initially clean the water. Then it was sent to some electrical heat pump device to take the temp down and reduce the humidity. It wasn't to replace the heat pump, just reduce the amount of cooling it had to do.

[resago]

I don't think the temp has anything to do with the water table level, 5 feet of dirt is good enough to insulate from surface heat.
- unless you're diggin' through permafrost, but then who would need a cooler?

[BladeRunner]

Bach-On!!!

Thanks for the concern I'm not sure it would be an issue in a closed loop system but I suppose if it running just water with no antifreeze then a UV light Passover, (like for ridding a pond of algae) would be a wise addition. The PC cooling system will be 40% antifreeze so I doubt much would want to live in it.

I'm not sure the cooling house thing would work but air at 8°C (46°F) sure would feel nice and cool if it the ambient were in the high 30°C's (100°F)

resago

True, but the temp below ground up to a given depth will be related to the average surface temps. Soil or earth is a pretty good insulator when dry, and this is what could cause the issue. If the heat produced by the PC cooling over time, especially if it were using peltiers and running continuously, could slowly raise the soil temp around the tank. If so the coolant in the tank would rise and so on. If the soil was wet however it would transfer the heat away far better and I doubt heat up could be an issue.

This is all theoretical of course and the cylinder I'm going to use will be about 80 litres in capacity so it should not be a problem. As my water table is only 5 foot down I may as well immerse it.

[Butcher]

I saw an article somewhre on the net about someone who buried a tube 3 feet down in the garden for cooling, seemed to work fine - I don't think the ground gets much hotter down below a foot or two even in the summer, soil really doesn't conduct heat from the surface down

[ondaedg]

my guess is that you would need a fairly damp climate. Dry soil will not pull heat off of copper tubing. Anyone from Seattle, Wash. wanna try this? =]

[BladeRunner]

Ok I've taken a quote from the link about it.

http://www.fatnfast.com/otherwebs/overclocked

Even water coolers use big heat exchangers and fans. And can only cool to room temperature about 30 degrees in here. Peltiers take LOTS of power, and cool too much when NOT under load... Causing condensation problems.

My solution is to use the garden.
Once you get 2 to 3 feet down the temperature (according to the Grimsby water board) is permanently between 9 and 11 degrees C all year round regardless of the weather/season etc

So I have built an underground heat exchanger.

Initially I used an underground copper pipe, but this tuned out to be too small, and the water in the system warmed up after a few hours under heavy load. So I decided overkill would be better!

It is an aluminium alloy oxygen bottle, about 4 feet high, and ten inches diameter.

My water can go in the top at high temperature but still comes back out at 10 or 11 degrees C! Tried it with a hot tap.........

The copper pipe might work but you'd need lot of it, the tank solution allows separation of hot and cold coolant (if the hot enters at the top and the cold is taken from the bottom.)

The main goal is silence, with reliabilty, near zero maintaience, cool stable temps. I also want no fans in the water-cooling sys or PC. here's the GF3 cooling build. Testing the mobo chipset block atm with air at 2bar, (28psi), before installing, then there are only two fans left in the PC and they are both in the PSU.

[3D]

Re BladeRunner and hi every body

so you asked me how long do i have in water-cooling.

You can say i'm a newbie, i have not my watercooling yet, i'm waiting for the water-block i want. And he will be buyable in september.

But i've been on nokytech forum since 4th june of 2001 and i learn very quickly. Moreover i like doing odd jobs (altavista translation ^.^ ).

My aim is to have a silent cooling. not for overclocking as a mad, but only to have a quiet PC.


To return on your water-cooling, what pump do you use ?
Here (in france ^.^ ) we use aquarium pumps who delivres between 1000 and 1500 Litres per hour. I suppose yours is more powerful (and more more expensive)
And what are the cooling tools for water that you use.

i didn't take the time to understand previous posts (sorry it's late ) and lots of answers might be in them. excuse me if its the case

[BladeRunner]

Hi

Something got lost in the translation as I meant how long do you have to talk about water-cooling, (I wasn't questioning any knowledge you have). None of us know it all, and those that think they do are blinkered and destined to make mistakes IMO.

On to my system. Currently I'm using a Ehiem 1250 which is mounted, (not mounted just sitting on the earth outside near the stainless tank). This is still temporary until the "Bomb" cooler (that's Bomb not Bong) is finished. It will actually be easer for the pump then because the system will have a header tank above PC level so it will only be circulating the coolant not pressure pumping. At the moment it is having to pump about a 1.5 meters up (which centrifugal pumps are not overly happy doing) It is however supplying very good flow rates.

Read the topic and follow the links as most of it is explained there

[3D]

well, at that time, i'm quite busy in learning flash and 3DSMax and in watercooling research. You can see it here

[Nanotech9]

Just an FYI to those that thought that Geo-thermal heat pumps were still "expiremental"...

well, they are quite common in Oklahoma (where i am). In fact, my parents built a house a couple of years ago, and we put a geo-thermal unit in it.

Also the "drop a big-assed tank in the ground" is NOT the best way to do it. In fact, its abbout ans inefficient as you can get. You see, there isnt mush surface area in the big tank like that for the water to cool down.

They way they really do it, is to buys several hundred (500 or so) feet of 1" plastic pipe (black PVC), looped, in the ground in trenches at least 3' under. This avoids the freezline. May be lower or higher depending where you are.

It looks like this in the ground (from the side):

                     ,=== <--- Pipe
____________________/____ <--- Surface
% % % % % % % % % %/% % % <--- Ground
__(`)_(`)_(`)_(`)_/       <--- Loops

Another way to do it is where they dig a spiral down DEEP into the ground, and then run spiral pipe town in two colums.

This is enough to cool an entire house, costs less, and is much quieter that a damn A/C unid sitting outside your garage.

[BladeRunner]

Nanotech9

What you say makes sense, just the amount of pipe required is very large then, If you check a link I give near the begining of this topic, someone tried this and it heated up, maybe there was not enough pipe?. The coil down a hole is a good idea but I'm not sure I want it any cooler now due to condensation issues when the ambient/humidity is high.

Do you have any info links or specs? as I'm really interested to build this into my house. Like you say it's quieter than aircon, (although not as cold), but more importantly near as damn it free to run.

[nportelli]

I believe a true geothermal unit is just as cool as an air conditioner. I hear they pay themselves off in about a year. There is a new type that takes much less space up too and it does under you house or something. I think I read it in Popular Science.

[XOD]

Bladerunner,
1st off, sweet video ram cooler, love it! you make them for special order? I am after the nearly silent pc myself, but must remain mobile, which would you recommend for my setup, inline or res.?
Setup as of latest revised plan

Maze 2-2 for cpu, running 2 172w pelts
northbridge and gpu with 80w pelts (is that enoug?) and h2o
and if you do special order for that video ram, that on a GF3.
Has anyone one heard of watercooling hard drives? (scsi 15k rpm is a hot mofo!)
thanks

[BladeRunner]

I'm probably not the best person to ask about making a mobile set-up, considering how far removed from mobile mine is

Still I did have intentions of making the inlet a outlet connections dry breaks so I could use a portable pump/rad/res box.

An Eheim pump is good as you can run it either inline or submerged. They also don't require an impeller seal due to the design so there is much less chance of leaks.

not sure what size rad or water flow etc but all those pelts will take some power and generate a fair amount of heat. I think a peltier on the Northbridge is overkill myself. A lot also depends on how compact you need to make it.

The GF3 cooler is now nearing a retail kit but it is only designed for the Asus GF3 card. There should be a later reference GF3 card kit.

more details here, do note it is not my product, I just helped produce it.

Topic: Retail Asus GF3 water-cooler kit.... initial "Alpha"

I'm currently working on HDD coolers and water-cooling the PSU.....I'm after total silence myself.