Ok how about this crazy idea with tap water

The alternative to direct air cooling

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Irdawood
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Ok how about this crazy idea with tap water

Post by Irdawood » Sat Feb 19, 2005 6:45 pm

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Just one of those ideas that has occured to me at like 3 in the morning lol

anyways what would happen if i used a powerful enough pump, to pump normal tap water from my sink through my system and back into the sink (as waste)

the way i see it is.... yeah tap water aint great for corrosion and stuff but not that much bacteria as the water is constantly new and always super duper cold....well from my sink anyways and like the cpu block and stuff will constantly be getting cold water not the pre-heated stuff that we get in our res's also it will have the minimum of noise and we dont need to worry too much of adding more stuff to the loop as the water doesnt get hot.

what o u guys say?

ps. as its early in the morning this may be a crazy idea...im just writing it down on here as it comes to me lol

Rusty075
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Post by Rusty075 » Sat Feb 19, 2005 7:27 pm

Its hugely wasteful of water. So much so that cooling loops like that are actually illegal in some countries.

Besides environmental impact, there's the cost: my local water cost is about $3 per 1000gal, pretty typical. Assuming a typical flowrate of 1gpm, you would waste 43200 gallons per month, for a total of $129.60

And then there's the problem of condensation. Since your tap water will be cold, it will likely be below the dew point, at least part of the year. Condensation will collect on the metal parts of your loop; WB's, fittings, pump, etc. And that water will collect, and drip, with some of it landing on things inside your PC you'd rather not get wet.

I think you need to go to bed earlier. :wink:

Irdawood
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Post by Irdawood » Sat Feb 19, 2005 8:27 pm

guys please dont turn this thread it into a moral issue... here in the UK we use radiators to warm our homes 24/7 no one moans about that anyways....

but please please lets not go into the morality of it, i just wanna know if it will work

cheers peeps :thumb:

Rusty075
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Post by Rusty075 » Sat Feb 19, 2005 8:29 pm

Your radiator does not dump the waste water down the drain, it recirculates it, just like a normal PC watercooling system does.

ChucuSCAD
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Post by ChucuSCAD » Sat Feb 19, 2005 8:32 pm

I am going to have to agree with rusty on this one. It is a horrible waste of water.

Irdawood wrote:here in the UK we use radiators to warm our homes 24/7 no one moans about that anyways....
Those rads are a closed loop system.

chucuSCAD

Irdawood
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Post by Irdawood » Sat Feb 19, 2005 8:38 pm

oh and its not a total waste anyways as... i can just put it back into my houses loop again so that the water will then goto the boiler to heat up the radiators in my home as if it were normal cold water from the normal supply.

all it will be will be a loop out of my house water supply into my system and back out and then back into my house loop

if u get me...


here is what i mean


Water from mains>>>>> goes into the boiler>>>>>thus is used as hot water for showes and radiators throughout the house...

all im gonna do is from the mains pipe it to my PC then back into me boiler :)

Irdawood
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Post by Irdawood » Sat Feb 19, 2005 8:41 pm

ChucuSCAD wrote:I am going to have to agree with rusty on this one. It is a horrible waste of water.

Irdawood wrote:here in the UK we use radiators to warm our homes 24/7 no one moans about that anyways....
Those rads are a closed loop system.

chucuSCAD

ahh right ok mate didnt know that

hmmm

trying to think how else i could work it without it being such a waste
the cost of water here is like the same regardless of usage, as if u think about it all we are doing is paying for the water to be filtered

but anyways i just need to know if the actual concept will work

cheers people

Chris`I
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Post by Chris`I » Sun Feb 20, 2005 3:37 am

Build a massive loop up into your loft and put a rad made of copper tubing in the cold water tank. That way it cools it to similar temps as the cold water in teh mains but doesnt waste the water. It will be a mighty loop tho and need a pretty big pump ;)

Tibors
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Post by Tibors » Sun Feb 20, 2005 5:55 am

Irdawood wrote:but anyways i just need to know if the actual concept will work
Go back to the first post of Rusty075 in this thread. Then ignore the waste and cost comments you don't seem to care about. That leaves the condensation problem. With the relative high humidity in the UK that is a real problem.

I've lived in the basement appartment of a block of student housing. The water mains of the whole block ran along the ceiling of our hallway. It dripped condensed water for almost half of the year.

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Post by wooglin » Sun Feb 20, 2005 3:50 pm

Depending on your location, I've read that 'open' cooling systems such as you describe may be illegal in some areas/states. It is hugely wasteful, unless you're pumping your own water from your own well. Why do you think they made low-flow toilets the law in some states, because most local water supplies are stretched to their limits on how much water they can treat.

The best (ok, maybe off-the-wall) ideas I'd heard was mounting a rad IN the tank of your toilet, so it has a semi-regular supply of fresh cold water. You're not wasting water, so much as you're warming it before you use it for flushing...

flyingsherpa
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Post by flyingsherpa » Sun Feb 20, 2005 7:47 pm

OMG wooglin, i just had to see the toilet setup you mentioned.
:shock:
http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php? ... did=205289
:shock:
wow. just, wow. i'm not in to watercooling (though i like to see the end results), but my hat is off to that guy.

though i have seen more extreme... some guy used a huge old water tank and buried it 6+ feet in his backyard to take advantage of the year-round cool temps of soil at that depth. pretty smart, but you have to run pipe out to your backyard. and if you ever move it might be hard to explain to prospective buyers.

Rusty075
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Post by Rusty075 » Sun Feb 20, 2005 8:03 pm

flyingsherpa must be thinking of Bladerunner's "Bomb". Quite the piece of work.

phextwin
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Post by phextwin » Thu Feb 24, 2005 7:37 pm

Now if i only lived near a mountain stream.

Oh, the possibilities. :mrgreen:

|Romeo|
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Post by |Romeo| » Fri Feb 25, 2005 8:01 am

I do. The environment agency won't allow it. Apparently a slight water temperature change has large effects on wildlife. Same reason why no power generation from it (Yes, I have taken this to its conclusion, but I don't have the time to build it all properly).

Irdawood
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Post by Irdawood » Fri Feb 25, 2005 4:57 pm

is it possible to lets say take the water from the mains (in the way of the tap) and then join it back onto the mains? that way u are constantly getting fresh water as your home will use water from the mains and less waste.

Im not sure if the idea of joining it back onto the mains is possible tho

also i cant have the water going into my hot or cold water tank as i dont have a tank in my home all my water comes direct from the mains

bobkoure
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Post by bobkoure » Tue Mar 08, 2005 1:18 pm

There are water-to-water heat exchangers, but they're pretty expensive and require that the water be running.
You don't have a tank, but what about a water closet? Why not just put a coil of copper tubing in the bottom of the closet? No tap water running through your waterblocks. Flush for lower temps. Might work out just perfectly if you make a point of drinking some kind of beverage when you play games :)
You're still going to have condensation problems, though

Straker
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Post by Straker » Sat Mar 12, 2005 4:45 pm

If you know how or are willing to pay to have it done properly, sure. My house currently keeps an entire room (say 5x15x8 feet) cold this way, all the cold water coming into the house goes through an enormous passive radiator first. Would be kind of hard to use this for PC cooling though, it'd be nearly impossible to maintain a consistent flow without wasting water, condensation would be a problem as tap water is normally around 4C, and you'd want some sort of way of reducing the pressure. No reason you'd need a pump, unless you live somewhere with horrible public water supplies (southern USA), and you wouldn't want to be running that kind of water through expensive blocks etc anyways.

NB: Still wouldn't condone an open loop with the water just dumped out at the end, but if you managed to work out some kind of high-pressure, ultra-low-flow loop, it'd only take about 0.05GPM to cool a 300W machine better than nearly any regular closed loop with air-cooled rads. Most regular wc considerations go out the window when the water cools itself.

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