Portable A/C yes or no

[hawk66]

I have a 100 sq. ft. fishroom, 5oog total water volume. The room is sealed off tight from the rest of the house. I have a 6"fresh air return in the room, two 4" fans exhuasting heat/humidity. Ambient room temp at lights out 88 degrees. Water temp using fans 83. Can be higher but mh's start turning off at this point.

Question#1- Chiller for tank or portable a/c for the room?. I like the a/c option because it should only help with humidity. Maybe a bit cheaper, easier to install. No extra pump. Just not sure if it is efficient way to cool the tank.

Question#2 The a/c units have a fresh air intake and exhaust hoses. Is the air exchange only within the unit, over the condensor then exhausted. Or is there an actual air exchange in the room also.

 

[HotHotHot]

IMHO I'd go with the chiller.

You'll get less evap than with the fans which will control the overall humidity. I had fans on a 90 for 5 years, counting on the house a/c to do general cooling. It was an uphill battle.

When I built my 225 I bit the bullet and got a chiller. I'm really glad I did.

BTW, you'll still have to deal with getting rid of the water generated by the room a/c if you go that way.

HTH
Ed

 

[acroporia]

I had a 60 sq. ft. equipment room and I went the chiller route rather than using AC. I had a 3/4hp chiller. Unfortunately, during the summer the heat put off by the chiller drove the room temperature to 100 degrees. The chiller was able to keep the tank cool but it had to run all day to do it - the tank kept trying to suck the 100 degree temperature out of the air (the tank was set at 80). The portable AC units are a little adhoc but they allow you to put the heat exchange out of your room but pump the cool air into it. I think the chiller is a better long term solution but I don't think you want to put it in the same enclosed space as your tank.

 

[lastin1]

If you don't have any problems keeping the tank at 80 when the room is 74 or whatever is comfortable to you, I think you should get the AC. A chiller would just pump the heat out of the tank and disperse it in the room. For a room that small with a tank that big, I would think the AC would be more efficient not to mention a lot cheaper. You might as well keep the room cool so you can enjoy the tank more. I wouldn't want to stare at a tank in a 100 degree room. Plus the AC will remove some of the moisture.

 

[RobbyG]

You need as chiller that is mounted outside the room or as stated it will dump the heat into the room. If you can run the water lines into the basement or into the Garage the chiller would be the best bet. The AC is not going to work nearly as efficient as the chiller in getting the water temp down.

 

[acroporia]

RobbieG has the right solution and that's what I did. Moved the chiller down below so it can try and warm up the basement but won't dump it's heat into the equipment room. Just remember to get a pump that can pump the water back up 16 feet and back into the tank with enough flow to get the job done (and stay within the chiller flow requirement).

My equipment room also has a door to the outside and I end up leaving it open during most of the year. Even after getting the chiller out of such a small room you find that metal halide lights in small spaces are effective space heaters.....

 

[bklynmet]

I tried the potable AC a few months back - and it didn't work for me. The exhaust ducts from the portable AC were hot and acted as heaters in the room while the AC didn't cool very well. It was a Delongi. The exhaust dust should be insulated IMO. It was $500.

Chiller is just a little more $.

 

[jcraft]

I recently had to move back with the parents and ended up converting the back den to my bedroom, which is where my tank is. Because the room is farthest away from the A/C, or maybe because there's only 2 vents in the room and both are right above the tank, it was becoming a virtual sauna in the afternoons. With not enough circulation, the tanks 4 MH's were making the room unbearable. The tanks temp skyrocketed, causing me to lose some corals and I responded by adding a chiller to the tank. This helped the tank out tremendously, but as you can imagine, only added to the room's heat issues.

My solution?

a $80 window A/C unit- I had looked into the portable ones, but seeing as they were quite a few hundred dollars more, ruled that out. The A/C, positioned as it is on the far side of the room away from the tank has completely rectified the problems I was having. You can actually walk into the room in the afternoon and not feel the heat wave as it crashes into you.

In fact, for the first time ever, I had to go out and buy a heater for the tank, as the tanks temp, being kept at 77F during the day, was dipping to 74F at night. I was able to go all winter last year without heaters and now in the middle of summer . . . go figure

 

[RobbyG]

jcraft dude if Al Gore was here he would wip you with a solar cell :

Your wasting loads of power, your using an AC to cool off your chiller, what you need to do is dump the chiller heat outside the room. Now your adding a heater to offset the AC !! Man that is a waste of power. With a little retuning you could cut your cooling bill in half.

 

[dpstrand]

Haha...

Chiller to cool the tank heats up the room.
A/C to cool the room cools off the tank.
Thermometer to heat the tank.

What a vicious cycle! I agree with RobbyG, if the chiller is against an external wall it would be very easy to move the chiller outside. Just get a little shed or enclosure of some type to weatherproof it. I've seen diy posts in this very forum about how to do this.

 

[jcraft]

those lil window A/C's don't cost much to maintain- the electric bill came in and its only $100 more than it was this time last year (this is the first full month I've been home)

I agree it would be good to put the chiller outside, and it probably would not be hard to do . . . except that it's not my house, and therefore, not my call

The wall the tanks on backs up to the W/D room . . . I wanted to drill a hole through the wall and run some equipment in there (RO/DI, Top off) but that idea got shot down . . . Ended up having to appease the 'rents by building a canopy to house the lights that where causing the room to "look like a disco"

compromises must be made

 

[frank551]

only $100 more??? My bill is rarely over $100 total (will be a little more now, but not much). And I'm in the hot south too with ya.

Being energy concious isn't only good for the pocketbook, by the way. It pays to try and cut your energy consumption a little.

 

[jcraft]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7960045#post7960045 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by frank551
only $100 more??? My bill is rarely over $100 total (will be a little more now, but not much). And I'm in the hot south too with ya.

in a house? or an apartment?

When i was living in my apartment, my electric bill was only $90/mo., tanks and everything

My parents electric bill for a 5 bedroom house has always been considerably more, with the average being $300/mo. It's an old house, so maybe that has something to do with it (not as much insulation?)