Most of the time it is tied with a geothermal loop with glycol that is itself contains and recirculates. Others work with a cooling tower in the roof. There are some older mindsets of people that use what is called a pump and dump that pumps water out of the ground and dumps it into a storm drain or sewer. Many places have banned that kind of system.

I want to do some Geo videos. There are not many around here and the people that have have not responded to my request.

The lower temperature is offset by the flow of the water. If the water flowed too fast it would be an issue and drop the head pressure. In some cases, especially with open loop systems a water regulator valve is installed that uses head pressure to adjust and control the flow of water.

@@love2hvac thank you for the reply. Makes a little more sense. Can't wait for you to do some videos on it.

Absolutely possible. You can also buy a geothermal unit or a "Florida heat pump" that is designed to do exactly what you want in one convenient box.

The units on the lowest level are the ones that get closed the most?

For this type heat exchanger you will need water available.

With a receiver subcooling will not be as important. Make sure the receiver is not over 80% when pumped down. Your subcooling numbers will not be accurate however you can check for some subcooling at the exit of the condensor before the receiver. Subcooling without a receiver will depend on on the manufacture design of the coil and system. The engineer will design __x_ volume for a subcooling cuircuit. Approach would be the temperature of the refregerant liquid leaving the condensor minis the water temp entering the condensor. Condensor TD would be the saturated temperature (psig-temp) minis the water entering temperature Condensor deltaT would be water temp into the condensor - water temperature leaving the condensor.

Refregerant in the water, change the condensing water coil set. If there is water in the refregerant then change the system.

Possibly but the water will eat threw the aluminum too fast

Most of the ones I worked with had a Petes plug kn Texas. I don't remember the highrises in Miami having them.

Yes, it doesn't need to be this big but there are kits available. Just for this purpose.

@@love2hvac can you steer me to one of the kits and do you think it would be better with a buffer tank ? Say 2 zones one for heat (hydronic) and one for water air handler. Just don't want to buy a monoblock..

Yes. A lower head pressure means lower compression ratio, less work on the compressor and lower amps

@@love2hvac thanks for the reply, so if i continuously pour a small amount of water on the condenser coil and fins of the my Air conditioners' outdoor unit will it reduce my electricity bill?

I have never had a restriction on the Refrigerant side of one of these. The water side ends up with calcium buildup that has to be treated from time to time though.

@@love2hvac thanks for the response! Must be a highly unusual situation I came across then. Thanks again for the video!

Maybe the water froze at one time, expanding the inner cupernickle reducing the refrigerant passage?

@@love2hvac I don't believe so because the system was able to run for about 5 minutes after being charged - then tripped on high head pressure. Tried to blow nitrogen through it and it was solidly blocked, so there has to be something that got into that spiral, or deformed it in some way.

There is a hybrid unit. A tech cuts the discharge line between the compressor and condensor, pipes it to water heat exchanger and then back to the condensor. When the condensor ran, it activated a pump that moved water from the water heater to the heat exchanger and back the water heater. It did not work so well because during the day when the AC ran, nobody was taking showers. In the morning when people took showers, the AC did not run. RUUD had a premade condensor and water heater combo that used this same idea. I really it's better to just use a dedicated HP water heater. I did see 2 times where people have done something similar to help heat the pool but the pool water is hard on the heat exchanger.

@@love2hvac Thanks for your thoughts. Good point about the hard pool water too. I believe this is feasible to help remove heat for AC during our hot summers... not so much for heating in winter. I can try this first connected by relay a zone of my underground sprinkler system. Perhaps best like you mentioned (HP Water heater) to use a separate pump system with its own fluid. How about connected to a second heat exchanger dug in below the frost line? Thoughts? Thanks again.

Yes give that a try. The absolute best would be a closed loop geothermal system with buried lines in the ground. Then you would not even need the air cooled side and it's more effective and dependable

Thanks, Mike, I have some questions if you have time. The seawater intake I'm assuming is a central system for many things. What kind of filtration is used and what type of pump is used? How much life do you get out of the condensers? Do you flush the condenser or have any other maintenance specific to the marine side. Are you using water pressure regulator valves for the condensers? Do you build the condensors there? I would love some pictures of the process.

​@@love2hvac All good, I actually came from the pro sailing side of things and took my knowledge of boats to a new field about 20 years ago. The seawater circuit starts at the thru hull ball valve fitting, which may have a very coarse fwd facing clamshell strainer covering it, then a short, and hopefully, slight upward hose run to the inlet of a seawater strainer, which has a removable basket, much like your pool filter, but much more robust, with bonding direct to the zincs, this leads to the pump inlet. The life of the bronze pump and impeller are really kind of unique to each boat, due to flow rates and how the system was maintained, restriction of seawater causes metal impingement and impeller cavitation/failure. The pumps are matched to the needs of the system, generally its about 4 gallons a minute per 12k btu, the newer Ti units have different flow rates. The condensers themselves are Cu-Ni or more recently Titanium. They can last for decades or fail in months. The condensers are usually flushed with a mild acid once a year at most in places where growth is excessive, usually in warm southeastern/tropical areas, where the pumps are running 24/7, this can vary a lot depending on lots of things. Stuff grows where water flows. The west coast is less of an issue because of less demand. We do use a seawater regulating valve on some of the larger systems to allow them to deal with a wide range of seawater temps. Most of these systems are air/water cooled with the seawater circuit first in the line. The reason is that if you have done a big trip, caught lots of fish, and are heading back, and you have an issue, like hitting a log or something and the boat needs to be hauled out, you can simply turn off the pumps and keep the holds cold on air. We build our own condensing units, not the condensers themselves. We have a new 12/24/32vdc system that has a variable capacity, seawater cooled that is fantastic. We also build eutectic plates for holdover systems in boats that need it. I enjoy your videos and recommend them to anyone that wants to understand how heat moves. Thanks.

It was always interesting when you put your gauges on and water came out. Still a lot of waste water systems when I was in NY

@@love2hvac we only had two wastewater head pressure dump package units the rest were on towers.

@@love2hvac generally you could start to see a milky site Glass on the compressor.