Water Cooling Your Entire Garden
I keep getting people asking me why I am so into hydo cooling my entire garden, and the reasoning is actually pretty simple as is the reasoning behind the "Why's"; it has been shown Water can remove 4-times the heat nearly 20-times faster than air! Studies have also shown 70% of your AC's electrical draw to run it is being used just to run it, so only about 30% of the electricity is costing you to run is actually cooling the air. Now when you start digging even further into this you will find a 5-Ton AC unit in a State like Arizona will really only product about 3-Tons of Chilled air, but in the same location a 5-Ton Chiller provides 5-Tons of chilling power, so again we are getting into getting back what you are paying for. On top of that it allows you to seal your growing room so you can enrich the CO2, keep unwanted pests and smells out, etc... In the end its not anymore complex than a hydroponic system to build and run, IF you pay attention and set it up correctly.
Yes you can run out and buy everything you need to put together a hydro cooling system, but not everyone wants to do that, so I have been doing a bit of my own digging to help some others find some information and things on this subject to help them, and today that is why I am putting this together.
Perhaps the most expensive piece in the hydro cooling system is the Chiller, even at the cheapest you are talking hundreds of dollar into a $1,000+ and if you really want to get the best look at "Stainless Steel" because the idea is that minerals don't build up on the stainless steel and so the chiller itself will get more years of use and life out of it, so it is an investment worth the extra $200 to get more years out of using it. Another thing not to widely talked about is the "coolant" inside the hydro cooled system, I've heard a lot of people say they just use tap water (water) inside their cooling system, and I always cringe at the thought of all those minerals being heated on the heat exchangers inside the system building up and making the system work harder and harder shorting the life of the system. It is the exact same idea of the cooling system you have in every water cooled engine on the road today, they use Anti-freeze to allow for a better heating/cooing transfer between the metal engine and the heat exchangers like the heater core and radiator, even in a liquid heating system for a house/garage they again use Anti-Freeze within the system to allow for the best heat transfer. Since the system is a closed system, it should never leak, but if it ever did you have to think about if you want anti-freeze or water dripping that you would have to clean up? So if someone did decide to go the anti-freeze route, the Pet Safe Anti-Freeze might not be a bad idea as it is "Food Grade Anti-Freeze" which is used in things like soft serve ice cream, and other common foods and drinks under the ingredient name "Food Grade - Propylene Glycol".
Since the same exact cooling system is used on the cars and trucks on the roads today, it isn't a big surprise when you look up things like the Ice Box Chiller, you will find they look just like a heater core for a car. You can see how effectively they are being used in this YouTube video, as well as a nutrient cooler... But as much as they tell you and show you they left out the important details that someone is working to build their own system is going to need to set it up correctly. Here is the Hydro Innovations video on YouTube, and please note their Parent Company is "Surna" as I will be making mention of them later on again:
HydroFarm has really helped fill in a lot of the blanks for the endless list of questions someone has for getting things set up correctly and answering all those main questions people have about hydro cooling systems here:
This guy here basically just takes a heater core from a car and turns it into an air conditioner, it is the same basic principle of the hydro cooling system, but he is using ice in a cooler for his cold water supply, but all in all you'll get the idea of how different people have used the same basic setup, but it more shows you how easily and simple you can build it.
Homemade Air Conditioner:
I love this video because while he is discussing its use for an Aquarium, he really brings to light everything you need to build your own DIY Chiller if you wanted to.
HOW TO: DIY Aquarium chiller TUTORIAL
I really liked this video, because the guy doesn't even use a heater core, just just uses a table top fan and some copper tubing to create an cooling unit to chill down the air, again showing you how simple and out of the box this stuff can really be.
How To Turn Your Fan Into An Airconditioner AC
In another video I can't seem to find again, the guy took an old dehumidifier and having previously had the refrigerant removed from it he took it apart and basically just took the big heat exchanger of the dehumidifier (looks like a big heater core) and just connected it to the cooling lines of a chiller to make it work, I've also seen the same idea being done to old no longer functional AC units which were also converted to do the same thing, instead of a compressed gas refrigerant being used to do the same exact thing. However when I went to try to find these video's again, I stumbled upon this video where they are trying to actually sell you the same kind of a thing that was actually built for you to run off from the same idea's of a chiller only it uses Tap Water in place of a Chiller to do the same effects of cooling the air.
How Water Cooled AC Units Work and Their Different Functions
Surna has a "Blog" on their company Website which also has a lot of very helpful articles written more for the Cannabis Cultivation Industry, not the hobbyist grower, but all the same at the end of the day it really matters more to them because for them it means thousands of dollar or more where for a hobbyist grower that same information for you may only mean a few dollars to a few hundreds of dollars. But all the same if they are smart enough to have those big growers listening to them, perhaps it is worth your time in also hearing what they say as they are the Cannabis Industry Leader in cooling products or so they said somewhere. When they sell to the Commercial Cannabis Industry they go under the name Surna, but if you the hobbyist grower call Hydro Innovations for their 6 or 8 inch Ice Box Chiller, the number you dial will be answered by Surna as they are one in the same company.
Please if you found anything more on this subject of Hydro Water Cooling that would add to everything I've found thus far, please add it to here for me and others to go check out and read... I just wanted to put all this information together in one spot to help anyone who has interests in this subject.
Yes you can run out and buy everything you need to put together a hydro cooling system, but not everyone wants to do that, so I have been doing a bit of my own digging to help some others find some information and things on this subject to help them, and today that is why I am putting this together.
Perhaps the most expensive piece in the hydro cooling system is the Chiller, even at the cheapest you are talking hundreds of dollar into a $1,000+ and if you really want to get the best look at "Stainless Steel" because the idea is that minerals don't build up on the stainless steel and so the chiller itself will get more years of use and life out of it, so it is an investment worth the extra $200 to get more years out of using it. Another thing not to widely talked about is the "coolant" inside the hydro cooled system, I've heard a lot of people say they just use tap water (water) inside their cooling system, and I always cringe at the thought of all those minerals being heated on the heat exchangers inside the system building up and making the system work harder and harder shorting the life of the system. It is the exact same idea of the cooling system you have in every water cooled engine on the road today, they use Anti-freeze to allow for a better heating/cooing transfer between the metal engine and the heat exchangers like the heater core and radiator, even in a liquid heating system for a house/garage they again use Anti-Freeze within the system to allow for the best heat transfer. Since the system is a closed system, it should never leak, but if it ever did you have to think about if you want anti-freeze or water dripping that you would have to clean up? So if someone did decide to go the anti-freeze route, the Pet Safe Anti-Freeze might not be a bad idea as it is "Food Grade Anti-Freeze" which is used in things like soft serve ice cream, and other common foods and drinks under the ingredient name "Food Grade - Propylene Glycol".
Since the same exact cooling system is used on the cars and trucks on the roads today, it isn't a big surprise when you look up things like the Ice Box Chiller, you will find they look just like a heater core for a car. You can see how effectively they are being used in this YouTube video, as well as a nutrient cooler... But as much as they tell you and show you they left out the important details that someone is working to build their own system is going to need to set it up correctly. Here is the Hydro Innovations video on YouTube, and please note their Parent Company is "Surna" as I will be making mention of them later on again:
HydroFarm has really helped fill in a lot of the blanks for the endless list of questions someone has for getting things set up correctly and answering all those main questions people have about hydro cooling systems here:
This guy here basically just takes a heater core from a car and turns it into an air conditioner, it is the same basic principle of the hydro cooling system, but he is using ice in a cooler for his cold water supply, but all in all you'll get the idea of how different people have used the same basic setup, but it more shows you how easily and simple you can build it.
Homemade Air Conditioner:
I love this video because while he is discussing its use for an Aquarium, he really brings to light everything you need to build your own DIY Chiller if you wanted to.
HOW TO: DIY Aquarium chiller TUTORIAL
I really liked this video, because the guy doesn't even use a heater core, just just uses a table top fan and some copper tubing to create an cooling unit to chill down the air, again showing you how simple and out of the box this stuff can really be.
How To Turn Your Fan Into An Airconditioner AC
In another video I can't seem to find again, the guy took an old dehumidifier and having previously had the refrigerant removed from it he took it apart and basically just took the big heat exchanger of the dehumidifier (looks like a big heater core) and just connected it to the cooling lines of a chiller to make it work, I've also seen the same idea being done to old no longer functional AC units which were also converted to do the same thing, instead of a compressed gas refrigerant being used to do the same exact thing. However when I went to try to find these video's again, I stumbled upon this video where they are trying to actually sell you the same kind of a thing that was actually built for you to run off from the same idea's of a chiller only it uses Tap Water in place of a Chiller to do the same effects of cooling the air.
How Water Cooled AC Units Work and Their Different Functions
Surna has a "Blog" on their company Website which also has a lot of very helpful articles written more for the Cannabis Cultivation Industry, not the hobbyist grower, but all the same at the end of the day it really matters more to them because for them it means thousands of dollar or more where for a hobbyist grower that same information for you may only mean a few dollars to a few hundreds of dollars. But all the same if they are smart enough to have those big growers listening to them, perhaps it is worth your time in also hearing what they say as they are the Cannabis Industry Leader in cooling products or so they said somewhere. When they sell to the Commercial Cannabis Industry they go under the name Surna, but if you the hobbyist grower call Hydro Innovations for their 6 or 8 inch Ice Box Chiller, the number you dial will be answered by Surna as they are one in the same company.
Please if you found anything more on this subject of Hydro Water Cooling that would add to everything I've found thus far, please add it to here for me and others to go check out and read... I just wanted to put all this information together in one spot to help anyone who has interests in this subject.
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