The need for air conditioners has become almost universal to combat heat, but standard systems have a drawback: they expel heat from the room outdoors, mixing with the hot external atmosphere. To solve this problem, one YouTuber conducted a unique experiment.
He connected an old window air conditioner found in a landfill to a pipe about 2000 feet long, buried underground. The goal of this project was to direct the heat emitted by the air conditioner into the earth instead of releasing it into the surrounding hot air.
This experiment was carried out by a YouTuber named Craftsman Chris. He used an old LG Dual Inverter window air conditioner with a capacity of 14,000 BTU. The air conditioner was connected to a PEX pipe approximately 2000 feet long, laid at a depth of 6 to 8 feet. This pipe was distributed across four separate loops, each about 500 feet long.
A conventional air conditioner extracts heat from the hot air in a room and dissipates it into the outside air through the condenser. However, in this experiment, this process was modified. Water constantly circulates in the pipes laid underground. This water passes through a special water jacket installed around the air conditioner's condenser. When the air conditioner's refrigerant releases its heat in the condenser, the water absorbs this heat. The heated water is then returned to the ground, where the soil acts as a heat sink. Simply put, the earth is used as a large heat dissipator.
The uniqueness of this test lies not only in burying the pipes. The air conditioner used was in poor condition. After cleaning, its copper condenser coil was rotated by about 90 degrees. Furthermore, a water jacket around the condenser was fabricated from metal scraps found in the landfill. Its purpose was to allow the water coming from the ground to pass near the condenser and carry away the heat released by the air conditioner into the earth.
It is important to note that this did not require opening or cutting the air conditioner's refrigerant line. Consequently, no refrigerant needed to be extracted, and the air conditioner's compressor and cooling system continued to operate in place.
Chris did not limit himself to manual control; he made the system capable of working with a home thermostat. For this, an old programmable logic controller and a linear actuator were used. When the thermostat signals the need for room cooling, the system automatically starts the air conditioner. Additionally, sensors were installed to monitor the temperature in the system, allowing the cooling system to shut down if the water temperature rises too high.
The most intriguing part of the entire experiment was the measurement of cold. During testing, air from the system reached temperatures between 49 and 54 degrees Fahrenheit, equivalent to approximately 9 to 12 degrees Celsius. In one test, a temperature difference of about 26.5 degrees Fahrenheit was recorded. The water in the underground loop circulated at a rate of about 3.3 gallons per minute. As it passed through the condenser's water jacket, the water temperature slightly increased before returning to the ground.
Initially, an uninsulated aluminum duct was used to deliver cool air into the house, but it quickly heated up. Later, an insulated flexible duct was employed, which allowed cool air to be delivered to the living room, dining room, and kitchen of the house.
Caution should be exercised when evaluating this experiment. While highly interesting, it is premature to call it a ready-made system for ordinary homes. The main question is whether the underground pipe of about 2000 feet can absorb the house's heat long-term and continuously. The results presented so far demonstrate performance only for a limited time, and there is a lack of sufficient data on long-term operation, overall energy consumption, and practical application.
Moreover, many factors can influence the performance of such a system, including the geological structure of the soil, the length and depth of the pipes, the water flow rate, weather conditions, and the house's cooling needs. Therefore, replicating this at home is not straightforward. However, the true value of this experiment lies in the idea itself. Typically, geothermal systems controlling underground heat are considered expensive and large-scale installations. Here, using an old air conditioner, scrap materials, a controller, and underground pipes, a small prototype of this concept was created.
At present, this is merely an experiment, and it is incorrect to consider it a replacement for a standard household air conditioner. Nevertheless, it raises an interesting question: if the air conditioner's heat is directed into the earth instead of into hot air, is it possible to create more advanced cooling systems in the future?
