heat recovery

[jayjay]

I would like to recover some of the heat that I'm pulling out of my walkin boxes. I have 13 compressors running and with winter coming I was hoping there was a (simple) way of trying to reclaim the heat to heat the building. Any Ideas?
Thanks

[The Viking]

Lots of possibilities, it really depends on what layout your building got and how much you are prepared to spend.

If there is a basement for example, then you could just let the warm air from the condensors heat that up and your whole building would benefit.
On the other hand you could fit water-cooled condensors and use the warm water to feed a radiator circuit.

The list is endless..

[Lowrider]

There is a way, but simple?

Instead of rejecting the heat outside on the condensors, get a plate heat exchanger fitted in each circuit, roughly the same size (in heat rejection) of the aircooled condensor and use them to heat the water.

That's the simple part, then you'll have to get a controller to control headpressure and, in summer conditions and/or when there's no heat needed to use the aircooled condensor.

Or you can put the watercooled condensor between the compressor and the aircooled condensor and use the aircooled one to reject any excess heat.

Another option is to rebuild it to a watercooled machine and use the cooling water in summer to heat the building and use drycoolers to reject the heat in summer.

So you see, many, many options.

Do keep in mind that most chillers will not work with coolingwater temperatures above 50dgr C.

If you're not a refrigeration engineer, I would suggest to get one that you know off or has a good rep where you are and have him take a look and talk about what you want and expect and listen to his suggestions. If you like what you hear, let him make a plan!

[The MG Pony]

Can it be don? Yes

What are the options? Insurmountable!

Sandreth has the best sugestion, Audit your system, figur out how you want to move the heat and distrobute it, then design a system based on that or get an engineer in to have a look!

[jayjay]

Thanks
I had an energy audit done on the building and they have a list of engineers that may be able to do it. (forgot about this) I think the audit program will pay half the engineers fee.

[The MG Pony]

Thanks
I had an energy audit done on the building and they have a list of engineers that may be able to do it. (forgot about this) I think the audit program will pay half the engineers fee.

Certainly worth every cent in the long run!