Help with chiller for 300gal
- Thread starter a&a2
- Start date
scsinet
Active Member
Sure you can put them in the basement, or even outside if you have a location sheltered from the weather or a unit rated for exposure.
The added advantage is that you aren't dumping heat into the room.
Plumbing them in is fairly simple... you can either create a closed loop for them or you can plumb them into your main return line, as long as the minimum flow requirements are met. Either way you'll just drill holes through walls and floors as necessary, then run your connections. You can use hard PVC or vinyl tubing, etc. I've got two setups that use remote chillers. On my home tank it's outside with PVC pipes running through the walls. On my tank at work I located the chiller in the space above the dropped ceiling. In both cases, hard PVC runs almost all the way, then I change to spa-flex to go the last few inches, so the chiller has room to vibrate or shift without stressing the pipes.
In a closed loop configuration, you'll need a dedicated pump.
The added advantage is that you aren't dumping heat into the room.
Plumbing them in is fairly simple... you can either create a closed loop for them or you can plumb them into your main return line, as long as the minimum flow requirements are met. Either way you'll just drill holes through walls and floors as necessary, then run your connections. You can use hard PVC or vinyl tubing, etc. I've got two setups that use remote chillers. On my home tank it's outside with PVC pipes running through the walls. On my tank at work I located the chiller in the space above the dropped ceiling. In both cases, hard PVC runs almost all the way, then I change to spa-flex to go the last few inches, so the chiller has room to vibrate or shift without stressing the pipes.
In a closed loop configuration, you'll need a dedicated pump.
tangs rule
Active Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by SCSInet http:///forum/thread/386757/help-with-chiller-for-300gal#post_3398822
The added advantage is that you aren't dumping heat into the room.
+100
They act just like a portable heater (spaceheater) and dump ALOT of heat into the room! I know cause mine does, running the A/C bill up
Originally Posted by SCSInet http:///forum/thread/386757/help-with-chiller-for-300gal#post_3398822
The added advantage is that you aren't dumping heat into the room.
+100
They act just like a portable heater (spaceheater) and dump ALOT of heat into the room! I know cause mine does, running the A/C bill up
scsinet
Active Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by A&A2 http:///forum/thread/386757/help-with-chiller-for-300gal#post_3398825
so how do i incorporated that into the system with out changing the water level in my sump?
The amount of water sent to the chiller and returned from the chiller is equal, so the water level would not change. It's just another device sitting on one of your pipes, like a skimmer, UV unit, carbon reactor, etc.
In most cases, your sump would never factor in. The water leaves the sump via a pump on it's way to the tank. It is between this pump and the tank that you would normally find the chiller installed. It just basically gets stuck into the middle, cooling the water along the way.
Alternatively, if you don't want to mess wiht that plumbing, you can pull water directly from the tank using a pump, send it to the chiller, then return the water back to the tank. Either way works.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tangs rule http:///forum/thread/386757/help-with-chiller-for-300gal#post_3398869
+100
They act just like a portable heater (spaceheater) and dump ALOT of heat into the room! I know cause mine does, running the A/C bill up
What's more than that, by placing the chiller outside, you are actually assisting your home's AC, because the chiller is removing heat from the building that otherwise the AC has to take care of. 1 hp = 12,000 BTU = 1 Ton... so if you have a 1/2hp chiller and you put it outside, it's (loosely speaking) like adding 1/2 ton to your home AC.
Originally Posted by A&A2 http:///forum/thread/386757/help-with-chiller-for-300gal#post_3398825
so how do i incorporated that into the system with out changing the water level in my sump?
The amount of water sent to the chiller and returned from the chiller is equal, so the water level would not change. It's just another device sitting on one of your pipes, like a skimmer, UV unit, carbon reactor, etc.
In most cases, your sump would never factor in. The water leaves the sump via a pump on it's way to the tank. It is between this pump and the tank that you would normally find the chiller installed. It just basically gets stuck into the middle, cooling the water along the way.
Alternatively, if you don't want to mess wiht that plumbing, you can pull water directly from the tank using a pump, send it to the chiller, then return the water back to the tank. Either way works.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tangs rule http:///forum/thread/386757/help-with-chiller-for-300gal#post_3398869
+100
They act just like a portable heater (spaceheater) and dump ALOT of heat into the room! I know cause mine does, running the A/C bill up
What's more than that, by placing the chiller outside, you are actually assisting your home's AC, because the chiller is removing heat from the building that otherwise the AC has to take care of. 1 hp = 12,000 BTU = 1 Ton... so if you have a 1/2hp chiller and you put it outside, it's (loosely speaking) like adding 1/2 ton to your home AC.
S
saxman
Guest
Great advice SCSI.
A&A2,
To be honest, unless you set the tank stand up so the chiller can "breathe", that's not the best place for one anyhow (most chillers specify a 12" minimum clear airspace in front and back).
Depending on the rating of your main return pump, and your chiller, you could plumb the chiller into that line, altho pumping up from the basement will add additional head loss to your flow. I suspect in this case, a dedicated pump would be the way to go, as mentioned.
A&A2,
To be honest, unless you set the tank stand up so the chiller can "breathe", that's not the best place for one anyhow (most chillers specify a 12" minimum clear airspace in front and back).
Depending on the rating of your main return pump, and your chiller, you could plumb the chiller into that line, altho pumping up from the basement will add additional head loss to your flow. I suspect in this case, a dedicated pump would be the way to go, as mentioned.
S
saxman
Guest
It depends on how you set it up...at one point, I was running SIX chillers on various systems, and they were all done a bit differently.
Personally, I like to take water from the DT, run it thru the chiller, and then return it to the DT if the setup allows for this. My reasoning is that most sumps are fairly small compared to the DT, so IN THEORY, the chiller is only cooling the sump and the cool water just makes it back to the DT eventually. This usually means that the chiller is connected to a CL that was designed into the system from inception.
My next choice is to run the chiller on the main return line.
You can run the chiller by placing a dedicated pump in one end of the sump and retuning the water to the "pump bay" on the other end of the sump so the cool water is pumped into the DT.
Finally, you can also run the chiller from a dedicated pump in the sump and return it straight to the DT if your O/F can keep up with the extra return pump volume.
I've also pumped water directly from the DT using a PH and returned it to the DT.
All of these work fine, it's just how you decide/need to do it.
Personally, I like to take water from the DT, run it thru the chiller, and then return it to the DT if the setup allows for this. My reasoning is that most sumps are fairly small compared to the DT, so IN THEORY, the chiller is only cooling the sump and the cool water just makes it back to the DT eventually. This usually means that the chiller is connected to a CL that was designed into the system from inception.
My next choice is to run the chiller on the main return line.
You can run the chiller by placing a dedicated pump in one end of the sump and retuning the water to the "pump bay" on the other end of the sump so the cool water is pumped into the DT.
Finally, you can also run the chiller from a dedicated pump in the sump and return it straight to the DT if your O/F can keep up with the extra return pump volume.
I've also pumped water directly from the DT using a PH and returned it to the DT.
All of these work fine, it's just how you decide/need to do it.
scsinet
Active Member
To elaborate on the point of the previous post...
I've done it the way described as well where you take the water from the sump and return it back to the sump, creating a sort of closed loop in the sump. This can either work great, it can be a disaster, or something in between, the last being the most common.
In this setup, the idea is that cool water returned to the sump from the chiller gets mixed with warm water coming from the tank, where it is returned back to the tank via the return pump. If the sump is on the large size for the tank, then the sump gets cooled faster than the main tank, causing the chiller to cycle more frequently and for shorter time periods. I have this exact setup on both of my tanks. One is a 180g with a 1/2hp chiller, which is on the big size for this tank. The other is a 120g with a 1/5hp, which is on the smaller side.
The 180g tank's chiller cycles on for several minutes every 10 minutes or so, and the frequent cycles are hard on the chiller and annoying as anything, but I haven't let it motivate me enough to do anything about it. The 120 setup on the other hand works perfectly.
In essence, this setup works fine as long as the flow rate through the chiller is a small percentage of the flow rate through the sump. When that is the case, warm water from the tank enters the sump so quickly that the chiller doesn't have time to "overcool" the sump before the water is returned.
This setup is not ideal. The reason I did it is because this allows me to use one large pump and simplifies the plumbing.
As stated by many here, ideally, the chiller should return directly to the main tank. You can either draw water through the sump or the main tank. Drawing from the sump is better because you don't have a pump hanging inside the tank as would be the case in most setups where you pull straight from the tank. However, by taking water from the sump and returning to the main tank, you need to be careful about overflow capacity. For example: You have a tank with overflows rated to 600GPH, and your return pump's flow rate is 550gph. If you draw from the sump to a chiller and return to the tank with a 300gph flow rate, you've overloaded your overflows by 250gph, which will run the sump dry or flood. Therefore, when doing this setup, you have to take your system's flow parameters into account and either design it to run that way or make adjustments to your return pump's flow rate.
Keep in mind that all chillers have a minimum flow rate that MUST be observed. Failure to observe the minimum flow rate through a chiller can cause it to freeze up or short cycle.
I've done it the way described as well where you take the water from the sump and return it back to the sump, creating a sort of closed loop in the sump. This can either work great, it can be a disaster, or something in between, the last being the most common.
In this setup, the idea is that cool water returned to the sump from the chiller gets mixed with warm water coming from the tank, where it is returned back to the tank via the return pump. If the sump is on the large size for the tank, then the sump gets cooled faster than the main tank, causing the chiller to cycle more frequently and for shorter time periods. I have this exact setup on both of my tanks. One is a 180g with a 1/2hp chiller, which is on the big size for this tank. The other is a 120g with a 1/5hp, which is on the smaller side.
The 180g tank's chiller cycles on for several minutes every 10 minutes or so, and the frequent cycles are hard on the chiller and annoying as anything, but I haven't let it motivate me enough to do anything about it. The 120 setup on the other hand works perfectly.
In essence, this setup works fine as long as the flow rate through the chiller is a small percentage of the flow rate through the sump. When that is the case, warm water from the tank enters the sump so quickly that the chiller doesn't have time to "overcool" the sump before the water is returned.
This setup is not ideal. The reason I did it is because this allows me to use one large pump and simplifies the plumbing.
As stated by many here, ideally, the chiller should return directly to the main tank. You can either draw water through the sump or the main tank. Drawing from the sump is better because you don't have a pump hanging inside the tank as would be the case in most setups where you pull straight from the tank. However, by taking water from the sump and returning to the main tank, you need to be careful about overflow capacity. For example: You have a tank with overflows rated to 600GPH, and your return pump's flow rate is 550gph. If you draw from the sump to a chiller and return to the tank with a 300gph flow rate, you've overloaded your overflows by 250gph, which will run the sump dry or flood. Therefore, when doing this setup, you have to take your system's flow parameters into account and either design it to run that way or make adjustments to your return pump's flow rate.
Keep in mind that all chillers have a minimum flow rate that MUST be observed. Failure to observe the minimum flow rate through a chiller can cause it to freeze up or short cycle.