Idaho Trying a diy experiment

UPDATE
working nights I woke up after only 3 hrs of sleep due to the heat and decided it was time to finish. I got my 30 gallon resivour under the house, I know a bit over kill but dad gave it to me, manifold sealed, suprisingly I checked it for leaks and their was none, plumed and wired, except the circulation pump I cheated and just pluged it in so it always runs for now. And it blows freezing cold air, the only problem I can see is the cfm's for the large home is extreamly low, I know its only a 1 ton but its using water down in the 40's on a loop field fit for 6 tons of heat so its working extremely efficient. Is their anyway I can turbo the fan? could I just slap in a higher kv motor or would I have to go with a larger cage and make an external cabinet? I know the faster the air is put though the condensing coil the greater the efficiency of the Freon cycle with of course the point of diminishing returns, but I would like to see what a one ton can accomplish before I install the other 5 stages. it got a high of 97 today and the thing still cycles on and off so overall i'm impressed. but like I said the temp at the register is only 45 degrees. I did turn the fan up to 4 from two and that helped. any sugestions?

 

What are you trying to achieve? Temp at the register being 45F is good. Just because you rev up the fan does not mean you put more cooling BTUs into the house.
You will also use more energy, which will be delivered as heat in the supply air. Keep the loop cool and reduce your energy usage by controlling your pump.

 

A few of the registers are actually clear down to the 28 degrees with an intake of 75 f and all the register flow so slow that you can actually feel your legs chilled and when you stand it gets warm. The cealing fan fixes it. I know the hoter you can get the condenser the the hotter the heat exchanger gets and the more efficently it deleaveres the heat into the watter, i was hoping to acheive this by increasing cfm. I understand it is a point of deminishing returns. But i'm probably over thinking it and without a way to even measure cfm of the pump i'll probably just leave it alone until I have time to fine tune it.

On another hand it works great and cycles on and off as it should the only time it struggles is when the old lady cooks in the afternoon and the home bumps up about 3 degrees and it struggles untill dark to catch back up, but considering its atleast 3 tons undersized its really impressive. I can see how a staged setup should really work well. Only time will tell if i have the same sucess with heating.

Thanks doc I know im kinda a thorn if your side sometimes, but you keed coming back. I respect that.

 

1) If you have 28F on the register, that means your coil must be colder than that, and your coil would be frozen. Since it is not (your heat pump is running), your numbers must be off.
2) The hotter the condenser gets, the more compressor power it needs the lesser efficient your system runs.
3) yes you might think it works great, but what you describe is an very inefficient system. Constant speed pump running all the time, even when your heatpump is off, very cold coil temps due to low airflow, high refrigerant pressure due to low air flow, possibly freezing conditions on the coil.

Don't worry, I won't abandon you.
You are in the process to develop scars right know, without knowing your injuries yet.

 

Chicks dig scars. You know you may have been right im getting better air flow now then i did then, it chould have just been frozen. None the less Ive got a functional central air conditioner with the potental to be extreamly efficent, for less then a decent window unit. If it makes you feel any better i'll go find some 12/2 and wire up the circulating pump. Remember my goap here was to learn a thing or two and ultimently get a system that can cool the house, with hopes that it will heat enough to save most days of winter. Equilize the tempreture between the old and new additions. So far its a sucess. I still havent even spent over 1k$ so their is room for improvemnets.

 

A window A/C unit might be more efficient to operate than yours is right now, and less upfront....you might not realize it.

But we are with you, cheering your enthusiasm.

 

I cant see how even a new window ac can be more efficent, utilizing ground very cold water tempreture as apposed to fighting essently fire with fire/ heat with heat idea of an air to air phase change cooling system. Even with the circulating pump on 24/7(witch is not right now btw) it only pulls a max of 2.1 amps at 110vac. I think your failing to realize that I live in a heating dominiated zone with a 24inch frost line coupled with the fact that is spring and the ground is very cold and watter both carries more heat and allows for a much more efficent thermal transfer. When you compair geo to just a convental air conditing setup its next to impossable for a window unit to be more efficent then even the poorest designed geo system( if your loop tempretures stay low that is) i would even go as far as to say all the freezers and fridges we have around the house are benifiting in efficentcy from the central air as well.

 

I think you mentioned that you were in Idaho, or at least in the neighborhood, so no, I did not forget that.

But you mentioned that you have a 230 watt constant speed pump running at 24/7, which should consume 166 KWH/month, an older 1 ton heat pump, single stage, with a PSC fan (not ECM) in there, cranked up to higher speed. While you benefit on the compressor power from the colder ground, the rest of the setup appears rather inefficient. In your climate zone it is not as hot yet outside, which beats the fire with fire arguments, and I don't think your units runs better than an EER of 10 right now.

I cherish you here, but you are having parasitic losses in your system which you don't have to have.
You spend more on pumping power then some of our customers spend on the operation of the whole system in A/C mode, while having a 3 ton system installed.
http://welserver.com/WEL0662/

 

166kwh at .07 is $11.62.. besides thats taken care of took about 15minutes. But lets stay on point the day i was refering to it was 98 high and only got down to about 86. Pretty dam hot compaured to the low 30s of the grownd temp. Not to mention that a window unit wouldnt even have kept the temp down. They suffer from undersized heat exchangers and inflated effency ratings. But only time will tell.

The power bill is less than this time last year so cheers.

 

Doubtful that you ground is in the low 30s after putting all that heat in the ground.

But I think we should stop going back and forth here, and let you enjoy your system here. Good luck to you.