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Crawl space water cooling

B

baker269

Weaksauce
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Sep 19, 2009
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104
So I've wanted to do something like this for years since building my first WC system and now have the opportunity since I'm buying my own home. My original plan was going to be a geothermal system but cost in both labor and parts seems like it would be to high to do correctly. So on with the new plan, put a couple of passive copper car rads in parallel in the crawl space under the house.

Now this next part might be a problem my home is two stories. The WC pc would be in a bedroom on the 2nd floor and the rads would be below the 1st floor. Since it would be a closed system would I still need some crazy expensive powerful pump (its going to be 15 - 20 feet from the top of the system to the bottom)?

The nice part about this idea is that I've been monitoring the temp in the crawl space and so far in the last three days the temp has only varied by three degrees F (60.3 to 57.?). Also I'm remodeling the house so for the most part its gutted. The pc room sits above a closet so it would pretty much be a straight shot from the room to the closet to the crawl space.

This plan is still completely up in the air, haven't bought anything for it. So is this even plausible with such a big loop? Thanks for any advise.
 
Well, here's my tidbit of input...

At first, it may seem as though you'd need a super powerful pump because of the ~20ft height of the loop... but after thinkin about it, the weight of the water moving down/lower in the loop height would also be pushing the water back up the loop... kinda hard to explain unless you already understand it... but it basically means it wouldn't require an incredible amount of force in a pump.
now, if you were pumping the water only UP the 20 ft and it wasn't in a loop then it WOULD take a powerful pump..

imagine a really heavy/large 40ft chain in a loop that's hanging from a pulley... it wouldn't require much force to pull one side of the chain downward, and doing so would be pulling the chain upward as well on the other side of the loop.

i'm tired and thus am really bad at explaining things right now but I'm sure some physics guru will jump in and give proper proof of this. :p

granted, i'm assuming you'd still need a pretty good pump (or maybe 2?) to be able to handle a 30-40ft (total length) water loop, but no extra beefiness required due to the height of the loop

it sounds like a pretty cool idea to me. People do this with their water loops going outside to chill the water during colder times of the year... the only thing you'd have to worry about is condensation possibly occurring if the water int he loop gets colder than the room temperature in which the computer is in... condensation on your CPU water block probably wouldn't be very good...
 
Yes the biggest issue would be line loss to flow due to the length of the tubing. If you used 1/2 inch tubing and a pond pump you would probably be OK.
 
all correct, head in a closed loop is zero. Pump only needs to overcome the flow resistance due to friction and at startup the inertia (maybe). Absolutely do-able.

Toss out one idea, not sure how "nice" your crawlspace is but most have a light somewhere you can pick power off of or a downstairs outlet maybe. Trying to say since its out of sight consider hanging a small cheap (buy two, one for spare) square box fan with plumbers strap to blow on the rads and fishing a wire for a light switch type fan on/off (leave the fan set on low or med) in the computer room. Way overboard and perhaps something you dont even want to consider but man with that ambient and any kind of air moving over the rads it should cool like mad. While I do not think it would be an issue - since the air under the house is much cooler than the air in your computer room, just keep an eye out for condensation issues when the machine is not running etc. Again likely I am over reacting but /shrug.

BTW /green with envy.

Wanted to do something like that but all the other issues with getting the house finished ... didnt even get speaker wires in the walls.
 
Last edited:
BillParrish said:
Wanted to do something like that but all the other issues with getting the house finished ... didnt even get speaker wires in the walls.
Click to expand...

I know what you mean, every penny I have is being dumped into the house. I will not be buying anything for the WC system for a couple months after the house is done, just drilling the holes and putting in some pvc to and from the room/crawl space.

Thanks for the input guys, can anyone recommend a pump for the job?
 
No knowledge of the Oase. Off top of head the Enheim's are the go-to pump for WCing if you do not go with a Lang or a derivative of the Lang (MCP etc. ). Have not needed to buy a pump for several years so I am not up on latest/greatest.

One concern you might want to consider is if you can get repair parts or not for whatever pump you do decide on.
 
i would advise using standard pvc for the span between the rads and the actual system... maybe 3/4 or 1".... and you could add a second system to it later if needed....

also i have seen some suggestions of using fans...

http://www.industrialfansdirect.com/IND-FA-T.html?gclid=CL-ou6-k3p0CFQYMDQodQ0cdNQ

and some recommendations based on personal experience.
1. is the crawlspace damp? if so address the moisture. a dry crawlspace is a good crawlspace.
2. when selecting fans for the radiators... buy fans that are meant for permanent installations, such as a duct fan of whole house fan. also consider getting fans that have a temperature controller, then they won't always be on.....
3. consider insulating the between the joists (if not already insulated)... extra heat coming off of loop in summer will rise into the house, and increase demand on the air conditioner...... insulating will also help keep the crawlspace a more consistent temperature.....
4. lastly have a look at the crawlspace and adress anything that may need attention ie. damaged vents, cracks in the foundation wall (less than 1/8" if you have bigger consult a licensed contractor!), leaky air ducts, yada yada.....
 
thaltek said:
i would advise using standard pvc for the span between the rads and the actual system... maybe 3/4 or 1".... and you could add a second system to it later if needed....

also i have seen some suggestions of using fans...

http://www.industrialfansdirect.com/IND-FA-T.html?gclid=CL-ou6-k3p0CFQYMDQodQ0cdNQ

and some recommendations based on personal experience.
1. is the crawlspace damp? if so address the moisture. a dry crawlspace is a good crawlspace.
2. when selecting fans for the radiators... buy fans that are meant for permanent installations, such as a duct fan of whole house fan. also consider getting fans that have a temperature controller, then they won't always be on.....
3. consider insulating the between the joists (if not already insulated)... extra heat coming off of loop in summer will rise into the house, and increase demand on the air conditioner...... insulating will also help keep the crawlspace a more consistent temperature.....
4. lastly have a look at the crawlspace and adress anything that may need attention ie. damaged vents, cracks in the foundation wall (less than 1/8" if you have bigger consult a licensed contractor!), leaky air ducts, yada yada.....
Click to expand...

Actually I was thinking of doing this project with just passive rads. It's a newer house (about 15 years) so no problems with the crawl space, at least none I've seen. Thanks for the tips.
 
baker269 said:
Actually I was thinking of doing this project with just passive rads. It's a newer house (about 15 years) so no problems with the crawl space, at least none I've seen. Thanks for the tips.
Click to expand...
the house i am in right now is about 20 years old...... really the only reason i know about this stuff is because i ran cat5e through the whole house which included running wires through the crawlspace..... and i had a fair amount of "repairs to conduct" also keep in mind its best do as much as you can in order to limit the number of trips down below... as the crawlspace is not a friendly place for your back or knees.... anyways back on track... the geothermal solution would also be wise direction to go.... consider the following:

get maybe 4 of these and half bury them in the crawlspace. get enough of this to make about 3 loops per foot of container length ( with each loop having a diameter roughly 75% of the total width of the container) and daisy chain the tanks together. finish by filling the totes most of the way with water from the hose and adding some bleach to keep thing from growing, put the lid on and tape it shut and make sure the input and output holes made for the copper coil are sealed up around the edge. for the first couple weeks check on the containers and make sure you don't have a line leaking into the tote.... otherwise label the totes so future explores are less apt to accuse you of hiding bodies in the crawlspace....:eek:
 
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just run regular 3/4" pex plastic plumbing pipe from the basement/crawlspace to the PC room..... easy to work with, tough as nails....
 
bookmarked this thread. I'm always amazed how much stuff I can continue to learn from this forum. Thanks guys :)
 
I'd like to know the reason behind having the rads in the crawl space. Is it just because it's colder and might knock off a few degrees on the gpus/cpus? Sounds like a fun project but perhaps unnecessary and not enough reward for the amount of money/work you'd have to put in.
 
PS3 said:
I'd like to know the reason behind having the rads in the crawl space. Is it just because it's colder and might knock off a few degrees on the gpus/cpus? Sounds like a fun project but perhaps unnecessary and not enough reward for the amount of money/work you'd have to put in.
Click to expand...

not to mention the free, but minimal, house heating effect.
 
I read about a geothermal loop a few months back and it looked awesome. This should be a great project too. If my house wasn't built on a freakin concrete slab I'd give this a try myself.
 
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