The problem is that it constantly sucks warm air from outside instead of continually cooling the inside air like an airconditioning does. Just mount the fan on the radiator, run it inside the shop and close all windows so no outside air gets in. Great idea to use an old radiator btw! Hope you get it working :)
In fairness it was not a waste of time you learned something everything is a learning experience now start over and find a way to make it better for yourself keep up the good work
I tried the same thing only I moved the whole system inside so it could recirculate the air through the radiator. It worked. 95 outside, the run cooled to 75.
Try flipping the water flow to enter the bottom to top so you get more water in the coils for a longer time to absorb more heat. Then put the radiator inside the show so you are not always trying to heat 90 degree outside humid air. You can also recirculate ice water through the coils instead of wasting hose water.
What if you could feed it with cool ground water from a shallow well? In any case. I think you need to feed the water in from the bottom hose, and flow out from the top. That way the radiator will be full of cool water, which it probably is not at present!
You can make it a little more efficient if you placed the unit inside the shop instead of outside. The logic behind it is, as the water starts the cooling process, the minor temperature drop that it causes gets recirculated back through the coils. The way you have it set up now all you are doing is contentiously pulling in the hot air from outside. So instead of pulling 95 degrees through it all day and blowing 85, after an hour or so of it running it could possibly be pulling in 90 degrees and blowing 80. Not really sure if the attic fan will help in the long run. You may end up just using it to draw out the heat from the start then closing it off. Kind of like a car. You start off pulling the air in from the outside then switch it over to circulate the cooler air in the car. I say just because this setup didn't work doesn't mean to just forget. I like that saying from Thomas Edison "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work". Let us know how it turns out.
hey,that's a gd idea.but instead of connecting the water hose & wasting water.get a large cooler with water & ice.connect a fish tank pump to hose while its inside the cooler.then get another hose to the bottom so water can go back into the cooler.there you are recycling the cold water around.but turn the radiator around so it can be inside the shop. your wall fan will draw out the warm air inside and the air drawing in from the radiator will be cooler. I perfected your idea & it works great in my garage at home.let me know how it worked out for you OK 👍
So I used an old heater core and zip tied to a box fan and, and ran it with cold water and ice in a 5gal bucket inside of a mini fridge on closed loop line, I only have to add water ever few days, works amazing
Another radiator to cool down the water? Or a chamber with a thicker line coming from it. Try a condenser A radiator is meant to have high pressure air being sucked through it by a moving car. A condenser can do the same but with a electric fan ripped off any junk yard hunk.
Air coolers like that seem to work better in less humid climates. My grandparents, who grew up in Montana, used a setup like this to keep their first home cooled in the summer. Here at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in Southeast Ohio, they don't work worth a damn.
the basic idea is great, you just need a way to cool the water more if I could make a few suggestions, you could put the radiator/ Fan Assembly on the side of the building that is in the shade in the afternoon when it gets the hottest. [ if you haven't already ] and spray paint your radiator with a light coat of white paint or strip the black paint off [ Dark colors absorb heat, light colors reflect it ] oven cleaner works great at removing paint just be careful, its caustic! also if you were to turn the fan around so that the pull side of the fan is on the outside or if possible reverse the motor rotation by swapping the two rotation wires inside of the motor [ if so equipped ] and put the radiator on the pull side of the fan. you would need a large tank [ galvanized seems to work best ] you would also need 2 circulating pumps. [ even large C.F.M swamp cooler pumps might work ] one to keep the water in the tank moving in order to keep it cool, and keep down algae that might clog things up. the second to pump the cooled water into the radiator and back into the tank. or you could build a small cooling tower to cool the water. Hope this helps you, I know what its like to suffer through severe heat with no Air.
Like where I live in TX your water is not very cold in the summer. If your used a recirculating system from around 8-10 ft deep in the ground, as well as put the radiator in a closed box not exposed to the outside heat it would reduce the temperature a great deal.
I think if you would mount an electric fan to the radiator, have a cooler inside the shop and a high output pump to move the water through the radiator and back to the cooler, I think it would work.
Your close. My sister has a home that is heated in winter and cooled in summer using this method, but a little more sophisticated. Have you tried filling the radiator from bottom to top.... given that heat rises? I bet it would work better if you did.
A cheap 5k window unit would have been better I know too small for that room but would least get down to the 70s range and a inside fan would help then because it was less humid are or do a 8k unit
well you almost had it. Run a hose from your faucet into a cooler just below your radiator, dig a hole in the ground to place the cooler. run a bought 100 feet of hose coiled up in the cooler and fill with ice. continue running the hose into the intake of the radiator. Connect another hose to the outtake of the radiator and place it in your lawn with a sprinkler attached to it. Turn on faucet and fan. Stay cool and water your lawn at the same time. Or if you have a pump use that to recycle the water for more efficiency and cooler air.
Could you put a pump into ice water and run it into it. Then have it return back to the ice water. It would cycle Thur and cold the place down. All you would have to do is add ice when it defrosted
there's no reason to put it in the window. There's no super hot air to blow outside like an AC unit. Place it in the room that you're trying to cool. Use a fan to draw the air from the room through it. Run the cold water in the bottom and the warmer water out the top and outside.
