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Chilled Water Air Handlers

Looking for some recommendations on Chilled Water Air Handlers. This will be for the cooling portion of our project only.

I had a friend do a Heat Loss Survey for me and I am doing a bit of research on what I will need for air handlers for the cooling side of this project. I have a chilled water unit already purchased since we need that for cooling our wine tanks. My plan is to utilize the same chilled water for air conditioning with chilled water air handlers and overhead ducting. (Exposed spiral ducting for the great rooms and conventional square ducting in the attic space above the smaller rooms.) The chiller has a 50 gallon chilled water reservoir built in to it so I am thinking it should be a fairly simple system to put together. I am looking for advice and a source for the air handler purchase.

Air Handler #1 will need to support 33,500 BTU's and Air Handler #2 26,900 BTU's. I am able to set the temperature of the chiller reservoir to what ever temperature I like depending on what is optimal for the AC system. (There is a month or so of the year where I will turn the chiller output temperature down to 10F to facilitate chilling wine below 32F but this will take place when the ac will not be cooling the people spaces and the radiant floor heat will be running.)

The air handlers will be located in an attic space and the ducting will split in to two runs with nearly equal cooling loads. Run #1 will be the fancy spiral ducting that will be exposed in a great room and run #2 will be conventional rectangular ducting hidden in attic space that will cool several smaller rooms.

Hopefully this is enough info.

Alan

Comments

  • mikeg2015
    mikeg2015 Member Posts: 1,194
    First company makes a bunch. Chiltrix is another and Magic Air has some nice modulating units that take an 0-10v thermostat signal I think.

    Insulate and seal very very well the attic duct.

    Insulate the piping well.
  • EBEBRATT-Ed
    EBEBRATT-Ed Member Posts: 15,452
    Majic air as @mikeg2015 mentioned is a fairly decent product in in the capacity you need.

    Just a caution. You mixing two types of loads. Comfort cooling for air conditioning is normally 44 deg supply glycol and 54 return glycol and is the temperature your air handlers should be selected at. This is considered a high temperature load as far as chillers are concerned

    If you try running colder water through the air handlers they will sweat and drip all over the place as the factory insulation is only rated for 44-54 water temp.

    Cooling your wine with 10 degree glycol is a medium temperature chiller load.

    Most chillers are designed for low(freezer) medium (refrigerating) or high (air conditioning temperatures and are designed to operate within specific operating temperatures. Using 1 chiller for two different temperatures may not work. You can't just "turn it up and down"

    You need to make sure the equipment is selected properly or you will be very, very unhappy with the results.

    Not saying it can't be done. Proceed with caution
  • mikeg2015
    mikeg2015 Member Posts: 1,194
    Great point.

    Simple solution is to a 3way manual valve to maintain flow on the coil but blend down the temperature.

    Could also just drop flow rate. But the point being that you need to factor it in. So for example a 24000 btu nominslnjnit might deliver 32000 with colder water temps and running higher air flows.

    The concern is supply air temps under about 45f. Same issue in DX units.
  • winesalot
    winesalot Member Posts: 32
    I appreciate the great feedback.

    The odds of running the medium load (10 degree process water out) and the high temperature (45 degree process water out ) are extremely low. We run the medium load for about a month somewhere around November to January as part of the white wine making process. At this time of year there is little chance we will be utilizing the comfort air conditioning. The chillers that are sold to wineries are built with this understanding. The chiller I own has a 60 gallon stainless stainless reservoir with a user adjustable thermostat that senses reservoir liquid temperature. The chiller compressor cycles on and off based on this fluid temperature. We would leave the setting at 45 at all times except during that wine chilling process. I have been in a lot of wineries and this is a very normal way to operate.

    My big issue was finding air handlers for chilled water with no heating function as this will be a waste of dollars for us. I am thankful for the leads mikeg2015 gave me. I found exactly what I was looking for from First Co. and have a quote request pending.

    https://www.firstco.com/#/productCatalogIndividual?ProductId=741
  • winesalot
    winesalot Member Posts: 32
    Found what I was looking for: https://www.firstco.com/#/productCatalogIndividual?ProductId=741

    Thanks mikeg2015
  • EBEBRATT-Ed
    EBEBRATT-Ed Member Posts: 15,452
    Still not sure 1 chiller can supply both loads without modifications but go for it
  • pecmsg
    pecmsg Member Posts: 4,775
    The vineyards here are using Heatcraft Chilled Water blowers in the wind making areas and DX in the public areas. At harvest time they need every BTU they can get for production.