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zakthor zakthor is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: beaux arts, wa
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I saw the thread title and was prepared to dump all over you. Thermodynamics and all.

But... actually not impossible that it will work. Just depends on how much water you want to waste. I really like your thinking and interested to see how the calcs work out! Doing it quick, sorry if I made mistakes.

Heat capacity of water: 4,200 Joules per kilogram per degree Celsius

Assume well water is 50f == 10c.
Air is 36f == 2.2c.

10-2.2c = 7.7c temp difference.

**Pretend the heat pump is perfectly efficient.**

Liter of water is 1 kg.

7.7c * 4200j per liter of water = 32760j which is 31btu.

W = btu per minute*17.584264210333

So upper bound of opportunity: a liter of 50f water per minute reduced to 36f yields heat at a rate of 545watts.

If you "watered your coils" at rate of 1 gallon/minute, 3.78L on your coils you'd get less than 2060watts.

You've built an open loop geothermal heat pump. Maybe you should cycle the water into the ground to warm it, then reclaim?

https://www.energy.gov/eere/geothermal/geothermal-heat-pumps#:~:text=The%20geothermal%20heat%20pump%2C%20 also%20known%20as%20the,heating%20and%20cooling%2C %20as%20well%20as%20water%20heating.
Old 01-20-2022, 03:03 PM
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