mskohl
Active member
Yesterday morning I woke to the house feeling a bit clammy. Checking the thermostat, I discovered that the inside temp was at 80* - about 5* higher than normal. I immediately checked the tank temp; my fish still swimming comfortably at 81* - well within my normal degree swing.
First thing I did was change out the batteries in the thermostat, because that's been a problem before. Don't need that embarrassment again...
Checked the breaker box to see if the switch was thrown. Nope, that was still good. That was the end of my ability. Had to wait on the husband to get home...
In the meantime (a couple of hrs) the inside temp had crept up 2* and the tank temp was up .5*. Had to take some steps... Wish I had a chiller...
I got the fans going. I have a window fan that I placed over the hood, a stand fan that I leaned over the sump, and a clip on fan that I directed at the refugium.
Turned all the lights off.
I had a few frozen bottles of water and ice packs that I bagged up and let float. I went ahead and started more water bottles and jugs in the freezer to be ready for the next round.
Tank temp holding steady. Inside temp 85*
Hubs gets home and he gets to work testing for the break in electricity and whatever else he did. He managed to trace it back to the capacitor being the problem. Unfortunately, trying to track down a heat & air company or a parts company at 1pm on a Saturday on a holiday weekend was a bigger challenge than diagnosing the problem. Finally figured that if we had been able to find someone, even willing to pay the extra rates, that they probably wouldn't be able to get our part in until Tuesday or Wednesday anyway.
2-4 PM the sun is cooking our house. I keep changing out the ice and tell my husband that I'd like for him to go dig out the window air unit b/c even if it only drops the temp a few degrees, everything will help. I also tell him that I will be adding a chiller to my want list.
So, after the window unit is installed and obviously not working, it's only 12 years old after all, he figures out a way to build me a hillbilly chiller. I call it that because he's taken the idea off of the moonshiner distilleries. Here's what we did:
I have a spigot off of one of my overflows that I use to drain when I do a water change. We took that hose and redirected it from a waste drain and connected it to a length of thin walled tubing. We coiled the tubing and covered it in ice in a medium sized ice chest and directed the other end of the tube back into the sump. Homemade chiller! Gravity fed to avoid added heat due to extra pumps. The tank temp had crept up to 83* and we were able to slowly bring it back down. By 9PM, the sun was down and the outside temp was dropping, we had cooler air circulating through the house, and the tank temp was holding steady at 81.
I added another bag of ice to make sure it would stay cool and make it through until the cool front hit. I could have made some changes to drop the temp a few more degrees by slowing the flow rate or having a larger ice chest, but I didn't want to shock the system and I wanted to use what I had.
Thank goodness this week our highs are in the 80s. We need to be able to get that part in before we leave town, but we won't be melting/boiling in the meantime.
Currently, the outside temp is 65*, inside temp still up at 77*, and tank temp is a comfy 79.1*. Time to let the lights come back on.
First thing I did was change out the batteries in the thermostat, because that's been a problem before. Don't need that embarrassment again...
Checked the breaker box to see if the switch was thrown. Nope, that was still good. That was the end of my ability. Had to wait on the husband to get home...
In the meantime (a couple of hrs) the inside temp had crept up 2* and the tank temp was up .5*. Had to take some steps... Wish I had a chiller...
I got the fans going. I have a window fan that I placed over the hood, a stand fan that I leaned over the sump, and a clip on fan that I directed at the refugium.
Turned all the lights off.
I had a few frozen bottles of water and ice packs that I bagged up and let float. I went ahead and started more water bottles and jugs in the freezer to be ready for the next round.
Tank temp holding steady. Inside temp 85*
Hubs gets home and he gets to work testing for the break in electricity and whatever else he did. He managed to trace it back to the capacitor being the problem. Unfortunately, trying to track down a heat & air company or a parts company at 1pm on a Saturday on a holiday weekend was a bigger challenge than diagnosing the problem. Finally figured that if we had been able to find someone, even willing to pay the extra rates, that they probably wouldn't be able to get our part in until Tuesday or Wednesday anyway.
2-4 PM the sun is cooking our house. I keep changing out the ice and tell my husband that I'd like for him to go dig out the window air unit b/c even if it only drops the temp a few degrees, everything will help. I also tell him that I will be adding a chiller to my want list.
So, after the window unit is installed and obviously not working, it's only 12 years old after all, he figures out a way to build me a hillbilly chiller. I call it that because he's taken the idea off of the moonshiner distilleries. Here's what we did:
I have a spigot off of one of my overflows that I use to drain when I do a water change. We took that hose and redirected it from a waste drain and connected it to a length of thin walled tubing. We coiled the tubing and covered it in ice in a medium sized ice chest and directed the other end of the tube back into the sump. Homemade chiller! Gravity fed to avoid added heat due to extra pumps. The tank temp had crept up to 83* and we were able to slowly bring it back down. By 9PM, the sun was down and the outside temp was dropping, we had cooler air circulating through the house, and the tank temp was holding steady at 81.
I added another bag of ice to make sure it would stay cool and make it through until the cool front hit. I could have made some changes to drop the temp a few more degrees by slowing the flow rate or having a larger ice chest, but I didn't want to shock the system and I wanted to use what I had.
Thank goodness this week our highs are in the 80s. We need to be able to get that part in before we leave town, but we won't be melting/boiling in the meantime.
Currently, the outside temp is 65*, inside temp still up at 77*, and tank temp is a comfy 79.1*. Time to let the lights come back on.
