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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Take two-tunnels, root cellars

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  • From: Rick van Rein <rick@vanrein.org>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Take two-tunnels, root cellars
  • Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 10:14:43 +0200

Hello "o d",

> He then welded the barrels together, end to end, in the ditch/tunnel, put a
> swamp cooler on one end ( no water but with pads to keep the critters out),
> and connnected the other end to his house's duct work.

When you say "no water" you mean the effect of cooling by evaporation wasn't
used, so in effect he used the swamp cooler as a ventilator, right?

Interestingly, that'd avoid legionella-related risks that I imagine
would apply to swamp coolers.

> He then buried the barrels in the ditch, covering them with 2 feet of dirt.

Cool idea... in two ways :)

> I asked if it smelled and was told it smelled a little earthy but other
> than that there wasn't a rotten smell or stench.

Makes sense. The earthy smell could be overcome by using a closed form
of underground piping, I suppose.

> I asked if it kept the house cool and was told he was suprised at how cool
> the system did keep the house but couldn't tell me the exact inside
> temperature of the house.

It'd be cool to see quite a bit more figures than just that...
* average temp without the cooler
* average temp with the cooler
* volume inside the home being cooled
* ground temp (or year-average air temp)
* energy taken by the swamp cooler

With this and a bit of high school physics, we could derive a model that
scales to any part of the world. Alas, you didn't dig up these figures
as I understand it.


Still a good idea!

Best,

Rick van Rein,
The Netherlands.




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