Open loop... kinda

[Postal Dude]

TO save wasting water and enourmous water bills. Would it be possible to feed a WC setup from the water mains, and have it loop back in to the water storage? The big tank where water gets heated up and stuff? Because the water supply will be coming from the cold section of the tank, instead of the tank needing to refill and waste water. i could jus loop it back into the tank. Any thoughts?

 

[Erasmus354]

wont work, cause you dont use the water quick enough to keep flow through the computer at all times....now if you were to only have your computer on when you take a shower or run the dishwasher/washing machine it might work

 

[pigpen]

wont work, cause you dont use the water quick enough to keep flow through the computer at all times....now if you were to only have your computer on when you take a shower or run the dishwasher/washing machine it might work

right. It was a good idea though.

edit: i'm an idiot

 

[Postal Dude]

yeah i thought it was a good idea too... Somethin that might cure the problem with previous answer. If somehow my WC unit was prefilled with water (and btw, my room is next to water storage, 2-3 metres at most) Then the water being taken would be instantly replaced, and the auto fill mechanism would be none the wiser... rite?

 

[Top Nurse]

If you live in a rural area that has no piped in water it might be possible. On my parents lake shore home they have well water. The pump is on constantly and there is a feedback near the top of the well that pumps surplus water back down into the ground. You could tap into the pump outflow side and return used water down the bleed off side. Thus you would get the advantage of very cold H20 and no worries about ecologically unfriendly uses of scarce natural resources (i.e. throwing the H20 down the drain).

Actually this sounds like a neat idea. Next summer when I visit I think I will take a box with me and play around with pre-cooled glacier water. I think it comes out of the ground at about 40* F and might make for decent OC fun

 

[mwarps]

Open loop is my next experiment. I only have about 7 weeks with free water left, so I'll be attempting an openloop setup in the kitchen. Tmax I've see on the water is about 8C over the last month

 

[Erasmus354]

Actually this sounds like a neat idea. Next summer when I visit I think I will take a box with me and play around with pre-cooled glacier water. I think it comes out of the ground at about 40* F and might make for decent OC fun

Keep in mind you have a unique situation (with the glacier water) which is much colder than actual ground water in most parts of the world.

The temperature below ground is not much lower or higher than 55F, once you go down about 6 feet, whether it is hot or cold outside the temperature is right around 55F, this is why geothermal heating and cooling solutions works in the winter and the summer.

In the winter you are using roughly 55F air to heat your house (as opposed to really cold air from outside) and in the summer you can use the 55F air to cool your house (as opposed to cooling down the really hot air outside). Now that example was highly idealized, as you would have to run the air through some really long tubes under the ground to get it to be 55F before you had to use it to cool/heat the house.


EDIT : I also found this formula online to estimate the temperature of ground water Te = 0.83Ta + 3.7 where Te is the constant temp of the ground/ground water and Ta is the average annual temperature (all of this is in degrees celcius). You can read the article this came from here.