h a l f b a k e r yIdea vs. Ego
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Mount an AC in your fireplace cavity.
Instead of open a hole on your wall to mount your AC unit, you can put AC box into your fireplace. With proper ventilation and installment, it will work effectively and is a good alternative to expensive central cooling system.
Why not? You dont use your fireplace
at summer. If we made this mounting portable, you use remove AC unit and also use your fireplace at winter.
I have a plan that inducts cool air from outside of house to cool the AC unit and vent exhaust heat back to outside. The cost should be about a hundred plus cost of an AC unit.
yahoo Fireplace AC and see
[link]
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nothing to do with teeth then? |
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no, nor coniferous forests. |
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What about DC? sp. "plaque" |
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//With proper ventilation//
How is that going to happen? Obviously exhaust is easy, but intake would have to come up the ash chute. Remove some bricks? That sounds scary. |
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Other than that it is cool because you can just put a flat screen TV in front of the fireplace and vent the cold air below, get a tape of the Yule log and you could cozy up to a ice cold fire all summer. |
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Oh and spelling, spelling, spelling. |
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AC - Auntie Charlotte? Sorry, couldn't resist. |
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This is actually a great idea it just requires slightly more installation. Consider that many older houses do not have functioning fireplaces for legal or practical reasons. These old houses also tend to lack central AC. If you pipe the hot air from the condenser up the chimney and the cold air is drawn down by thermosyphon maybe with some assist when the condenser overtemps then it would work great. All you need to add is a poly flexpipe with a diffuser cap on the top of the chimney to discourage recycling. Could be easily baked using the basic design currently found in those horrible roll around things with the exhaust tube. Far more efficient. It could even be a combo with forced air LPG (with a pretty flames window). Sell it as an central heating alternative for restorations. |
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//many older houses do not have
functioning fireplaces for legal or practical
reasons.// Huh? Surely it's mainly older
houses that *do* tend to have functional
fireplaces (unless some tit has boarded
them over). |
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Fireplaces (not stoves) that no longer meet code or emmisions standards. Also many people do not use thier fireplaces for safety and firewood sourcing reasons. Confusing wording on my part. |
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Intake is easy too. The typical chimney is big enough for both exhaust and intake. Just use a flexible and expendable duct link from mouth of chimney to Air conditioner unit. I already have a build plan to take care every details. |
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//Fireplaces (not stoves) that no longer
meet code or emmisions standards.//
Over here, as long as it's not a new
installation, there aren't any such
regulations. If your fireplace and chimney
are 450 years old, then that's fine. If you
want to install a new one, it needs to
comply. |
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Sounds like MWB and I are on the same wavelength. There are states and localities in the USA that have laws regarding fireplaces and stoves to control smog. I think you could easily combine the aesthetics of a radiant LP unit with some forced air that serves to heat and cool. |
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The idea is to use the unused firebox and associated chimney to add an attractive AC or HVAC to older homes that lack the ductwork or basement for a conventional system. Heatpumps have complicated installations and still require a circulation system. |
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This idea is for older houses with wood burning fireplace. Believe it or not, 2/3 of houses stand out there are old houses.
Of course you can spend thousands to put in central air cooling, hundreds to open a hole on your wall (if you are renting, then you may not have that choice), or simply mount on existing window. (blocking view and normally would not work as quiet or efficient as mount on a wall.) |
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An AC box normally only cost around $100 |
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When I came across this, I was half expecting it to be about using a fireplace to supply power to an absorbtion chiller. |
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I was thinking about this scheme. It makes sense esp if run off natural gas. Many fireplaces already have a gas outlet. The hot exhaust from the gas engine would create a draft up the chimney, and if the exhaust were released above the heat exchanging part of the AC the cool room air sucked up past the exchanger would do well to get rid of the heat. |
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A fireplace would work better for cooling than for heating in that a normal open fireplace also vents loads of warm room air up the chimnet, but this would be less of an issue for cold air which would be disinclined to go up the chimney on general principles. |
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Last but very much not least: natural gas powered AC makes an endrun around high peak electricity prices, and also leaves you cool when there is a blackout. |
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