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Whole Room Watercooling

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Shades:
Getting rid of heat...is not the same as cooling, although the end result is similar. Hence the idea behind the video was interesting and entertaining. While an airco is certainly a cooling solution that works fast...it consumes energy like crazy to cool a room, while blasting the heat outside. Energy-wise, an airco is a cop-out. While smart ways of getting rid of heat are usually much less energy consuming, and better for the health of the persons inside the air-cooled room. An airco isn't much cheaper than the whole solution they crafted, the monthly energy bills will make sure of that.

Having worked in a rather small server room that collected the Paraguayan sun when it came up until around 15:00. After that time the shade of a close by building would start covering the room. So there was an airco but the noise of that thing getting rid of the heat was worse than all the computers combined. The neighbors had also an airco close by ours, meaning our airco was sucking in the heat (and noise) ejected by the neighbors airco.

Not only the noise, there were also the head-aches I got from air becoming too dry. It was bad enough that I preferred the sweat. And from experience I can tell that if your computers remain functioning fine as long as the generated heat is disposed off at a quick enough rate. And my own anecdotal research revealed that Intel mainboards and Asus mainboards work better in these conditions than others do.

Besides, on really hot days they made showers available and afterwards a floor-fan to blow-dry...that had a much better effect on me. Airco's in cars work their "magic" even quicker on me than airco's in buildings. Whenever you see me driving, windows are open, no matter what.

Summer days here easily reach 45C-50C (C is for Celsius, I don't know the conversion rate for Fahrenheit, don't care either to be honest). Heck it is winter here in Paraguay and today it was 26C outside!

bit:
^Why Earth is Closest to Sun in Dead of Winter (i.e. Northern Hemisphere).
quote - "It's winter in the Northern Hemisphere and we're at our closest point to the Sun. Closest? Yes, you read that right. Closest. For northerners, the winter solstice has just passed. But the truth is, on January 3, 2007, Earth reaches perihelion, its closest point to the Sun in its yearly orbit around our star.
At first glance, it makes no sense. If Earth is closest to the Sun in January, shouldn't it be summer? Maybe, if you live in the Southern Hemisphere. So what does this mean?"

My though is, wouldn't that spell comparatively hotter summers and colder winters for the Southern Hemisphere than for the Northern Hemisphere?
(I can hardly wait for someone to tell me I've got it backwards).

BTW, sorry to hear that aircos give you dryness and headaches.
Personally, I have to avoid excessive humidity and heat, and aircos are a lifesaver for me.

Deozaan:
Has Linus learned nothing?

Shades:
Has Linus learned nothing?
-Deozaan (June 18, 2022, 02:59 PM)
--- End quote ---

If it gets him a new video, then no.  :P

Kidding aside, water-cooling your solar panels makes them a lot more efficient. Unfortunately those get hot when exposed to sunlight and that drops the effectiveness of solar panels drastically. Not only short term, with a drop in efficiency, but also in longevity. That is one of the reasons why you don't see solar panels being deployed en masse in desert environments. Water-cooling panels is therefore not a bad idea. For example, here in Paraguay the summer sun turns the temperature up (at street level) to 50 degrees Celcius (or 122 Fahrenheit for the non-metrics amongst us). Putting solar panels on your roof where the panels catch sun-rays that brutal for 14 to 16 hours per day...those panels won't last you 10 years, a period which for most will just be the time those panels hit the ROI point.

Cooling solar panels is therefore a necessity here in these parts of the world. Water-cooling is therefore not that bad of an concept. And with that water flow you can transport the heat to locations where it is needed. And if you have a pool available, it isn't that bad of an idea to use a closed loop system in your pool and heat up the water inside the pool that way. But you could also use that heat and the closed loop to warm up water for showers, the dishwasher, the laundry machine and whatever else you think you'll need warm water for.

Of course, it isn't cheap and requires a lot of thought beforehand, but it will pay off in the long run. So if you build a house you plan to pass onto your offspring, they will absolutely benefit, but even you yourself will see ROI in your lifetime. It also makes you less dependent on combustibles that other heating methods require. And with energy prices gauging high these days, that will be reducing a burden in your mind as well. And, in essence, such a cooling system could also be used for heating. Even if that is only a backup method for heating, you will see a reasonable reduction in heating bills and you'll have 2 separate methods of heating.

There are many reasons why central energy production is a great concept. But those systems can financially hurt you too. And even with central energy production (and delivery) systems in place, in lots of residential dwellings you still need to have a backup generator, just in case. If you have the funds and ability, ideas like Linus' showed in his videos are not always nearly as silly as he sometimes portrays them to be.

Being more efficient in all energy-consumption aspects, will have (steep) upfront costs, require much thought and probably result in more maintenance chores in the house. But those will pay themselves off, especially in times where costs of energy production and delivery is becoming much more variable. All extra 'head-ache' you could do well without.

Deozaan:
I was just trying to be snarky about the fact that he went from whole room watercooling--which was an absolute disaster--to whole house watercooling.

I agree that it actually seems like there are a lot of merits to the idea. I just think the potential for disaster is also very high. And if this turns out to be a disaster, it will likely be an insanely expensive one. Hopefully this will be better planned and executed than the whole room watercooling was, and hopefully this will actually be useful and beneficial in the long run.

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