Cooling with basement air?

bruce_21

My client's new house has a full concrete basement. They don't want an active a/c system but I think the big (20x45 feet) second floor with a huge (10 foot square) southwest facing window will get pretty warm in July and August even with low E double glass. There is no opening to the outside from the basement but I'm thinking I could put in some ducts between the basement and the second floor with a fan to move the basement air upstairs and am wondering how to calculate the cooling potential of the basement concrete walls (all below grade). Where might I find engineering data? Also what about condensation down there? how much moisture will there be if they don't open the doors very often?

aircooled81

Read this,
http://www.oldhouseweb.com/blog/how-to-cool-your-house-without-air-conditioning/
And this,
http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/musings/how-perform-heat-loss-calculation-part-2
Or this,
http://aceee.org/files/proceedings/1986/data/papers/SS86_Panel2_Paper_25.pdf

jumper

Won't work.Basements are cool. a/c air is cold.

Gordy

It will not work. The basement will get warm before the room gets cooled.

Have tried this with FA. By covering all returns except for basement returns thinking some cooling would take place. Bottom line the basement got warm with no change in the area that needed Cooling.

Have also tried radiant cooling in this fashion. Using floor radiant in basement to cool circulated water to main floor ceiling radiant. Again basement got warm with negligible cooling to main floor.

Then there is the whole aspect of humidity control.

Firecontrol933

Give the customer what they want. Just make sure you make allowances for adding AC in the future so that it's easily done.

Tinman

Give the customer what they want as long it works and is not a waste of their money.

BillW

There will be humidity issues and you could pull odors and probably soil gases like radon into the occupied spaces.

Gordy

If the customer does not want AC so be it. I would not try something that is going to fail to perform. In all actuality your trying to give them AC, and that's not what they want. Why is the question?

aircooled81

Have you considered installing a couple refrigerators down there?

bio_guy

You need heat pipes or earth tubes.

Gordy

I had a thought once of putting a sizeable copper coil HX in an old freezer with antifreeze in the coil running to a HX used as a chiller for ceiling radiant. Have not had a freezer to trash for the modifications though. Stays as thought for now.

jumper

Gordy said:

I had a thought once of putting a sizeable copper coil HX in an old freezer with antifreeze in the coil running to a HX used as a chiller for ceiling radiant. Have not had a freezer to trash for the modifications though. Stays as thought for now.

I've seen condensers in parking garages. The garage gets quite warm but who cares? Parking garages have extensive ventilation for safety reasons. Your basement doesn't.

Gordy

I can put the freezer where ever I want. How much it would run is a big question.

JUGHNE

Doesn't it still come down to the BTUH of the compressor of the freezer?

I would often try to explain an air to air heat pump to customers by saying for example: If you had an older type ref with the hot coil on the back side of it and a door opening in your wall that it would just fit into, then to heat your room you put the back of ref into your house and the cold side to the outside. It makes the outside colder and the inside hotter. Then for the summer just turn the ref around to cool inside.

I believe a freezer comp isn't much larger than a ref. It would be a great demo project that might cool one room.