Hey folks,

I've been lurking for a while and have interest in NH3 systems. I'm trying to build a small ammonia chiller to act as my house air conditioner and am looking for pointers. Before you call me crazy, this system is going to be housed in my pool shed, away from my house. I plan on piping chilled glycol to an indoor fan coil.

I have a 3x3 belt drive Howe compressor out of an old slaughter house that I was given, so that's probably going to be the compressor. I was planning on driving with a 6HP Listeroid diesel engine. I'm trying to come up with the rest of the details of the refrigeration plant. My cooling load is around 3 tons (size of my current AC, which seems to be sized about right) which is a little small for the 3x3, from what I can gather, so I'm planning on cycling the compressor with a clutch and maybe using ice storage. I have lots of pool water that I can use for condenser cooling.

I was thinking of running tube&shell evap and condenser, running as a flooded thermosyphon setup.

Ideas, thoughts, am I nuts?

Kevin