Condensation would be a huge problem. Put a cold glass out on a humid day and it collects a lot of condensation. Now imagine it’s a radiator dripping on your floor
Just put a drip tray on the floor with a heating element that evaporates the condensation.
Just pump it outside. There’s no reason to dump a kilowatt or more into a heater strip when removing moisture from the air on a hot day makes our sweat work better, cooling us more efficiently.
Honestly I was just trying to be counterintuitive
I did this exact thing with my boiler forces air system. Piped it in the summer that when watering the lawn, I could have all the child water go thru the condenser. Worked quite well for chill air but the condensation would have destroyed the condenser I am sure and mold would have rapidly been a problem. I could produce liters of water a day easily. Was not viable.
It would be called a heat pump.
And yes, they’re used all the time. Modern heat pumps are more or less radiators with fans through which liquid is pumped. Air blown over is either heated (hot liquid,) or cooled (chilled liquid.)
In the us, you’ll see them more in comercial buildings rather than residential homes- they’re quite a bit more effecient, with heating or cooling compared with Moving the air the same distance
I think OP is talk specifically about hot water radiators.
He is asking why those rads specifically can’t have cold water piped through them in the summer.
I think the answer for that is: they weren’t designed to manage the condensation that would occur if the radiator (or pipe) temperature is lower than the dew point. Also, hot water can be a lot more above room temperature than cold water can be below. I think a lot of radiators are actually supplied with steam, not hot water which also lets them potentially use the latent heat of condensation of the steam for even more heat transfer.
From what I’ve gathered, water based heating systems pump around hot water, not steam. Otherwise, the radiators, which are easily touchable by anyone, would be insanely hot, and thus a significant fire and injury risk.
In order to use them for cooling, I suppose you’re going to need a different transport medium, i.e. something like glycol instead of water. This would make the system harder and potentially a bit more dangerous to maintain, limits power when heating (water has higher specific heat than glycol), and you’re still stuck dealing with condensation at the radiators.
Using an air system for centralised cooling works. Using a water system is much more problematic.
There are both water and steam radiators.
https://www.thespruce.com/hot-water-vs-steam-radiators-1821916
Most domestic radiators are water radiators, from what I’ve gathered in a country where most houses are fitted with water based heating.
Modern heat pumps are more or less radiators with fans through which liquid is pumped. Air blown over is either heated (hot liquid,) or cooled (chilled liquid.)
Heat pumps are more like air conditioners run in reverse. Air conditioners and refrigerators are heat pumps. They operate on the same thermodynamic cycle.
Technology Connections? *checks link* yep, Technology Connections.
I think they’re becoming more common in residential in the US, at least that’s the impression I get from the number of articles and videos that get pushed my way. They’re not as good in colder climates, evidently, but hybrid systems where there is still a furnace but a heat pump for cooling seem to be a good alternative in those situations.
Because cold water isn’t free. If you want to create something cold, you want to be using a conpressor and at that point, you can just skip the water step and use an AC.
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Yeah, if you want a single system for heating and cooling, you’d be better off getting a heat pump. It’s the most energy efficient thing for both anyway, from what I’ve been told.
It’s the most energy efficient because you’re not using the power to produce heat; You’re just moving heat from A to B. Imagine a heating coil that is 100% efficient. For every watt of power you put in, you get one watt of heat. Now imagine being able to move heat from outside instead. For every one watt you put into the system, you can move two watts of heat into the room. It’s not using the energy to create heat, so it can actually be more efficient than something that is made to produce heat.
The issue with heat pumps is that they need latent heat to actually be able to pump heat around. As temperatures get lower and lower outside, they become less efficient at heating your house because there is less heat outside to pump into your house. At a certain point, it becomes more efficient to just use the power to directly produce heat, instead of trying to pump it around.
Most of the world doesn’t ever need to worry about that, but it can be a consideration in particularly cold areas. The tipping point for efficiency is usually around 0-10°F, so it’s not something that equatorial areas need to worry about. But up north, it becomes more and more of a consideration.
Some newer ones can operate down to -22F. I’m in a place that hits those kind of of temps so I’d want a wood stove as a backup. I guess a ground source heat pump might be a better fit around here.
We do they are called air conditioners
Hot water radiators are designed to work with temperature deltas in the 110 degree F range (target 70 room temp, 180 water temp). In the summer your temperature deltas are much tighter, you can only get to at best 32 F before the water freezes and with a target of 70 that’s only 38 degrees of temperature delta trying to cool the room. They simply won’t work efficiently enough for it to be worth it, not to mention being on the floor is very poor positioning for summer.
What does deltas mean in this context?
I know I could search it but eh I’m creating content right!
There is a cooling strategy like this called “chilled beam” but has all the issues listed below by other posters; condensation management and power usage.
Interestingly heat spreads better than cold (I’m not an entirely reliable source for this so take it with a big grain of salt) but essentially since hot things are more energetic they have a tendency to spread but since cold things are more static, cooling is more difficult. Also radiators use blackbody radiation to emit heat via light the same way metal heats up when hot whereas there’s no cold equivalent to this.
It’s more because of the temperature differential. The more difference between the temperature of two objects, the faster they change temperature. A radiator with 50 degree water is ~30 degrees warmer than the room (or 80+ degrees for a steam rad), while cold water is going to be 10-15 degrees cooler than the room. Any colder and you need to use not-water so it doesn’t freeze. Condensation or frost is also a big concern to avoid property damage.
Because temperature gradient. And heat radiates. Cold doesn’t radiate.
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The royal we
