Garage frag system build

1/5 hp. 2400 btu chiller is good for 180 gallon system. im thinking its a little undersized for your system. trying to vent a 1/5 hp 2400 btu chiller through a 4 inch pipe is just not going to happen. you will burn out the unit soon enough, will also most certainly void any warranty. please dont vent anything into your attic, that is just asking for trouble. run the chiller (s) in open air only. drill a 4 inch vent hole in the wall of the garage to move the room air.
 
jimmy frag said:
1/5 hp. 2400 btu chiller is good for 180 gallon system. im thinking its a little undersized for your system. trying to vent a 1/5 hp 2400 btu chiller through a 4 inch pipe is just not going to happen. you will burn out the unit soon enough, will also most certainly void any warranty. please dont vent anything into your attic, that is just asking for trouble. run the chiller (s) in open air only. drill a 4 inch vent hole in the wall of the garage to move the room air.
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Good catch.... i was off by an order of magnitude. The chiller is 24,000BTU (2HP), which means i need at least a 12" duct, and ~800CFM. 4" seemed awfully small...

Attics in Florida are made to get rid of heat, and are heavily vented. Putting blowers in to help cool that airspace is fairly common, and can have a large impact on electrical costs due to less load on the A/C (which we run 11 months out of the year.) A typical summer day is ~94F (with a %RH of >80%,) and the attic would be ~140-150F (%RH ~20%.)

I see you are in Canada, so i would assume that you would want to do the opposite, in order to conserve heat... I don't have much experience with home construction anywhere that frozen white stuff occurs though, so i may be wrong.
 
i say just put a vent in the door (like i mentioned) but dont attach it to the chiller.

but, do vent the output of the chiller out (if you do go to the roof, put it right under a whilrly bird (thats what i call them.... they are the round things that spin)
that way its exhausted right out of the attic. but leave a space to where if there isnt enough CFM through the duct, that it can pull excess CFM from the attic

(I live in texas so i know about lots of vents in attics)


by leaving the front of the chiller open, it allows the fresh air coming into the garage to give good CO2-O2 exchange and cool the ambient air. the chiller will pull this air out of the garage and exhaust it to where it wont matter.

a last option is to put a stand pipe to where the majority of the air being sucked in the chiller is piped almost to the ceiling to where it pulls the hot air from the top of the room down through the pipe to the chiller out the exhaust and into the attic.

or you can just leave the front of the chiller open like originally mentioned and put a few bathroom fans in the ceiling to pull the hot air from the top of the room and vent it? they are cheap and will allow some air circulation as well as humidity control.
 
Lazylivin said:
Then you have mold you just don't know it yet.
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Well I did have mold last summer I did have to bleach down my walls and do a lot of cleaning. I guess I was more ticked off my tools were getting surface rust and that is why I framed up a room in my garage. The thing with venting it to the attic I would be worried about it rusting the nails holding down the shingles
 
ok, you have aprox, 700 gallon ish of water that is evaporating all day and all night. lets take a stab at about a rate of 1 third of a gallon an hour you are going to push through your attic. but you say its so hot in there so its just going to evaporate and wont be a problem. Question>>> Where is this waters going. Do you really think that an attic on my igloo is any different than the one you have in Florida. Really ! im just telling you the facts...Texas, Florida, Ontario...you dont pump/vent moist air through your attic people. lol, so now its a 12 inch duct you are going to pipe into your attic. this just gets better and better. 800 cfm fan blowing into your attic...whats going to hold the insulation in place.
 
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vent_fan-5_zps9626d249.jpg
 
That is exactly what I plan on doing with a vent fan running on a dehumidistat when I install it.

I did this for my A/C unit...

Left pipe pulls air from our laundry room across compressor coils and
exhausts hot air/moisture out of house under eave (right pipe)

IMG_3225_zps669d0b41.jpg


IMG_3222_zps2316cccb.jpg



.
 
dahenley said:
vent_fan-5_zps9626d249.jpg
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Pretty much exactly that, but a larger duct, and a ridge vent. The house has soffit/ridge vent, so the air comes in the soffit, and out the ridge vents.

Powered attic ventilation is quite common where it is hot. The entire perimeter of the house is a large intake vent to the attic. The hot air vents out the roof through ridge vents. You can see a picture of that here http://www.nrca.net/consumer/attic_ventilation/powered.aspx

As far as moisture goes:
From saturated (100% RH) air at 95F, if you raise the dry-bulb temp to 150F, the %RH is reduced to ~22%. (Mold requires > 60% RH) The dewpoint is 96F, so condensation is not an issue.

For evaporation, I'm calculating 15.6 gallons max per day, based on 65ft2 surface area, H2O partial pressure of 33.73mmHG, dry-bulb temp of 95F, and 1MPH windspeed.
Empirically, I am seeing 5-10 gallons a day evaporation, depending on ambient conditions.

At 100F, saturated air can only hold 0.04 lb water / lb air. When the temperature is increased to 150F, the air can hold up to 0.2 lb/lb. This is an increase of 500%! A pound of air is ~13.4FT2, so in order to remove 15.6 gallons, I need a minimum of 3,237Ft3/day of air to remove the water (@95F / 80%RH.) Since the vent fan will be 1000CFM or greater, my total daily airflow is 24,000 (almost an order of magnitude more than required)
 
R3 ...lol....well since its a garage, normally they dont have insulation....again I say insulate ceiling and garage door panels and a/c the whole room...lol
 
jimmy frag said:
i see your down to probably an R value of 3 up there. i cant wait to see what you do next.
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Wow... Not sure if your talking about my pic or the one from Melev...

That part of my garage is considered non heated/cooled space and yup they don't insulate over non heated/cooled space down here in Houston. I actually have rolled insulation that will cover those spots. It just wasn't in place for the picture.
 
Jimmy frag, you seem to be pretty condescending in your advise. Why not try talking at eye level to people and not down to people. I think that the OP has a great start and is ironing out issues. He undoubtedly appreciates the advise, as do we all, but no one appreciates the attitude, trust me.

Keep up the good work acroman!
 
i dont have any pictures of my actual vent system. but it looks like bearings
mine is 6" from the canopy of my tank, through a suction fan (like what is used with Hydroponics) and then out the eave vents.
 
how is the algae scrubber doing
what kinda of lighting are you using on the algae scrubber

i think i am going to have to come vist you and bring some frags
 
NeverlosT said:
Jimmy frag, you seem to be pretty condescending in your advise. Why not try talking at eye level to people and not down to people. I think that the OP has a great start and is ironing out issues. He undoubtedly appreciates the advise, as do we all, but no one appreciates the attitude, trust me.

Keep up the good work acroman!
Click to expand...

ditto not productive at all.


Acroman,

Interested in updates on the scrubber as well....
 
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Wow!! very nice I may need to get a divorce to set up a system like yours.
Could you give me the link to the exact same led set up you got?
 
jimmy frag said:
i see your down to probably an R value of 3 up there.
Click to expand...

R-value of 3/4" Plywoood is 0.94
R-value of asphalt shingles is 0.44

Total est R-value of roof is 1.38 (maybe up to 2.0 including tar paper).

R-value of the attic ceiling is irrelevant.

We run central A/C (furnaces don't exist here) 10+ months out of the year. If heat is used at all, it is literally one or two days out of the year, due to frigid temperatures (60F is COLD!)

http://venting.sustainablesources.com/ That link gives a bit more info on soffit/ridge ventilation. The point is literally to remove as much heat as possible, not keep it in.

:deadhorse1:

According to the general contractor, practicing engineer, and A/C guys i talked to, venting to the attic is OK because:
1. Due to the soffit/ridge vent design, the attic space is considered "open to the outside air", and not an "enclosed space"
2. The exhaust is NOT from a dryer or range vent, so lint or oil buildup is not a concern (which is why they need dedicated vents.)


how is the algae scrubber doing
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There is some browning, and decent adhesion, but without any significant amount of nutrients, I cant really expect much more. It is currently in waterfall-only mode so i can keep track of my evaporation and water level.
I want to put an auto-topoff on there, but i don't think the repetitive surge would play well with a float switch.

The lights on the scrubber came from Ebay via China. They are 8x 3W red and 4x 3W blue. I don't remember exactly what the wavelengths are. Once the nutrients get up a bit, if I don't get the growth i want, I'll end up building supplemental lights out of 660nm reds.

@montiporalova: If i were still married, I am quite certain none of this would exist (her walk-in closet is now a microalgae-grow room! :dance: )
Not advocating divorce in any means, but being right 100% of the time does have some benefits lol.
 
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