Turning a $150 AC Into a Super-Efficient Geothermal Unit! | Tech Ingredients

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-41UF02vrU

Since this video is an hour long, the result of digging a small bore hole and routing water pipes through, and hooking those up to a slightly modified window AC unit resulted in a 250 to 300% increase in overall cooling efficiency, and effectively turns a 5000btu air conditioner into a 15000btu unit, but with less power draw than an unmodified (control) 5000btu unit.

96 points · 6 comments · view on lemmy.world

6 Comments

reallykindasorta@slrpnk.net · 25 pts · 1y

These are the kinds of minds I want in charge of leading improvements

MysteriousSophon21@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 1y

This is genius for off-grid setups where power is at a premium - the efficiency gains are insane compared to traditional AC. If you're running something like this from battery power, you'd want a decent power station with enough capacity to handle the runtime - gearscouts.com has comparisons that show which ones give the best $/Wh for LFP batteries.

poVoq@slrpnk.net · 9 pts · 1y

The graphite addition to the heat transfer mud is interesting, didn't know this before 👍

swab148@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 1y

Looks at all my window units

...

🤔

heyWhatsay@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 1y (1 reply)

I saw an earthship design that instead of AC, had a solar powered fan from a long underground pipe to bring in cooled air.

ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net · 3 pts · 1y

That'd be a good option for people in arid climates where there's enough space to construct one.