Slashdot Mirror
Using a House's Concrete Foundation To Cool a PC
Agg writes "Well the slab gets poured on Wednesday so I thought I would sink 6 meters of copper pipe in the slab so that I can run my water loop through it when the house is finished. I hope to have water year round at about 16deg [about 61F]. No need for radiators or fans with chilled water coming straight out of the slab!"
How are you going to explain that if you want to sell that house???
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
I presume you mean 16 degrees centigrade, as opposed to degree Fahrenheit, or Kelvins or Rankines.
Brett
Just don't plan on being able to move your desk.
Copper would be a waste of money tho. Use one of the many types of plastic hose already made for this application.
that is what I want to know.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Concrete doesn't exactly have a high specific heat. You might just step out of your thermal efficiency range if you try to do more than cool one or two processors.
Doesn't the house shift and settle? Won't a standard 1 + 1/2 inch copper pipe break during that time?
I already have my media PC down in my basement to benefit from the constant supply of cool air. This is a great idea to further extract more benefit from a cool basement. Thanks for sharing!
You'll be limiting yourself to a single room within the house, probably a certain location within that room. Plus, as jawtheshark mentioned, it'll be an eyesore for any new owners unless you completely cover it up. To me, that kind of commitment isn't worth a small and some fan noise. If it's worth it to you, then go for it.
... literally. But why limit yourself to PC cooling? Turn the slab into a big radiator and pump air from the upstairs/attic through - you can moderate the temperature of your whole house.
The steel rebar and the copper pipe being in close proximity will make them act as electrodes on a battery. This will cause the steel anode to slowly be destroyed by the chemical reaction.
Is it a practical concern in your case? I doubt it, but if they haven't poured yet, it wouldn't hurt to wrap the copper pipe in some PVC tape. This will reduce the thermal coefficient though. Maybe just do it where it passes within a couple inches of the rebar.
Your PC would be so ice cool you could make novel cylinder ice cubes!
Slashdot needs Geekcode | Can anyone recommend any good SCIFI? My tastes: Foundation, Startide Rising, CITY, Ringworld,
Problem is condensation. If the water is colder than the air.
You must be watching a lot of pr0n.
since those aren't degrees.
You mention condensation but you don't suggest a way of dealing with it (I didn't read the entire 8 page thread though). There are many ways to cool water, but the water should never be cooler than the ambient temperature around the computer being cooled or else you will have condensation. I had this problem when putting my radiator out the window during winter.
I do hope there is a full write up posted after a few months or a year, to see how well this works.
In Soviet Russia jokes are formulaic and decidedly non-humorous.
If you were pouring the concrete, why didn't you put it outside of the concrete? You would probably incur less structural risk ... although I doubt a pipe that small would have much effect. More and more people are building new houses with geothermal exchange to help mitigate costs in heating and cooling.
My work here is dung.
fixing the leaks when it inevitably does - or will you be hopefully leaving that to the next sucker^Wperson that buys your house?
Use PEX instead. Copper will eventually fail. Look at the material that is used for radiant flooring.
Without proper thermal throttling, your roof could come off, even with a passive heatsink.
I think Antec makes a two-story-high fan that might work perfectly in such a situation, but the neighbors might be bothered by the LEDs.
In most areas of the country, it's not a question of if but when your house settles and puts some nice big cracks in your concrete. Whether or not it would be a enough to damage the pipe is another question, but if you're relying on it to cool a semi-expensive piece of hardware, I might be a little nervous about it.
Also, seems like this will severely limit your options for where to put your computer physically.
Are fans really that horrible? They make them fairly quiet now. Is that extra .4 Ghz really worth all that kind of effort?
What happens if the pipe starts leaking? Are you prepared to repair a cracked foundation?
Pex is much easier and may actually last longer in concrete.
Depends on who you've contracted the work out to. I'm not kidding. Some inspectors "know" the contractors such that they only do a cursory inspection of the finished product before signing it off.
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell.
He should, of course, just tell the truth. Dead pan straight. Perhaps with a suitably (but fake) embarrassed laughter.
In this case it would not hurt at all. A surprised, but friendly buyer. That's it.
Move on. Nothing here to see.
A number of years ago, Copper tubing was used in concrete for Hydronic heating. After a few years there were reactions between the Copper tubing and the concrete. In current Hydronic heating systems, PEX tubing is used. (cross linked polyethylene) It is a much better solution and has a far longer lifetime.
TFS is barely a blurb, while TF"A" is a post on a forum?
How the hell did this get deemed front page worthy?
Plus anyway, what about freezing? First freeze, crack go the pipes -- which are embedded in concerte. This is an idiotic idea, unless you live in Hawaii...
Caveat Utilitor
Ground Source heating/cooling is a pretty nifty technology, and can be applied to a whole house HVAC system, rather than just a computer. It obviously requires more tubing than a single computer would, and in most climate will still require some supplemental heating/cooling for more extreme temperature days, but it's still awesome. It does have some upfront costs though.
This idea to do it for a particular computer is a clever idea. I personally wouldn't want the pipe to actually be moving horizontally through my slab, I'd rather dig as small a diameter hole as is possible, but deeper under the slab, and just have the line penetrate the slab vertically. The deeper you go, the more stable the temperature becomes, and the less hollow copper pipe you've got running through the slab, the less you weaken it.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
And you haven't thought through the consequences yet? That my friend is a project that has failure written all over it.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Why? It's very similar to what they do when laying radiant heat into the floor (which is very nice btw, over ducted heat, helps with breathing problems).
Also, like a previous comment suggesting, maybe you should look into radiant heat tubing over copper.
First, you can use anything (flexible or not) to connect from the copper pipe to wherever in the house you're going...so the arguments about being locked in one place don't...ahem..hold water. But...while the concrete slab is going to be a nice big thermal anchor, you also have to look at how quickly heat will disperse through the slab. You might end up with a hot core around the pipe that dissipates more slowly than you'd like. It will show up as the water slowly heats up on you. Not that hard to calculate...look up the thermal conductivity of concrete, and calculate the thermal gradient you're going to get for a given power input...will fall off like r^2 for a 1-d pipe.
Sorry to tell you that running Copper pipe in your slab is not the best of ideas. You probably should have used a non-metallic pipe, like the heating pipe Pex or other non-metallic pipe intended for underground heat-pump type applications. Then just increase the length you use to compensate for the poorer heat transfer.
Over time the copper is subject to corrosion from the concrete environment. Most often you will get localized corrosion (read pitting.) That can quickly lead to leaks and then tearing up slabs to replace the pipe.
A good example can be seen in different Frank Lloyd Wright homes which occasionally used the copper pipe for slab heating. A good friend of mine was faced with this issue in their tiled solarium slab floor. Being unwilling to lose the fine tile work, they abandoned the slab heat and added baseboard HW to replace the leaking copper in concrete system.
But in your situation you can just abandon the copper when it starts to leak. Hope you catch the leaking before it causes any other damage.
What you need to is to get a life. Seriously.
How is this any better than running a garden hose?
The water you get from a garden hose will be cooler too.
Just have it feed a tank with some added plumbing to regulate pressure to maintain a constant level. Temp gets too high? Have it flush out to a drain.
That's right. Use an old toilet.
As water disappears it automatically allows more in to reach the fill line.
If the temps get high, just flush.
Houses have been built with copper pipes and steel rebar and rewire in the slab for decades now without any electrolytic effects showing up.
Once the concrete is cured, it is no longer an electrolyte. Concrete is not a great electrical insulator, but it's not a great conductor either.
Putting moderation advice in your
you should put in a second tube for a rack of some sort to keep your switches and modems coolish
Biggest computer heat sink ever!
Getting rid of heat by dumping it into the ground is a great idea.
The problem is, you're dumping heat into your house's slab, not the ground. You need to put the pipes several feet underground.
All this is is a mild underfloor heating system. If that's what you're trying to achieve, ok, but if you're also paying for air conditioning to remove heat from the house, this is probably not worth it.
Putting moderation advice in your
I always thought it would be a good idea to use a copper strap to connect the cpu heatsink to the case which would act as a huge heatsink. Has anyone tried this?
love is just extroverted narcissism
Unless there's a specific code against it there's no reason why he wouldn't be able to. I work with the Building and Plans department at a county-level government office (I actually admin their software system). When I went through their checklists to add to the new system, it was mostly things you're supposed to do, rather than things you're NOT supposed to do. As long as you do everything on the list you're good to go.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
until the house settles, then you're screwed.
Stop being a slave and stand up for private property rights.
why would you ask slashdot when google has a much better quality of answer
http://www.google.ca/search?q=concrete+copper gives you:
http://www.copper.org/applications/plumbing/techcorner/problem_embedding_copper_concrete.html which gives you:
a number of articles including - http://www.copper.org/applications/plumbing/techcorner/pdf/corrosion_nonferrous_metals_contact_concrete.pdf
Negative.
http://www.copper.org/applications/plumbing/techcorner/problem_embedding_copper_concrete.html
They use PEX because it is cheaper and easier to install, NOT because of its longevity.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
OzPeter has his head screwed on right.
The time for R&D is before you pour concrete.
Imagine some designer at a meeting, "In three days, we're going into production our new product. I have a great idea for cooling the cpu. I'm going to change the shell moulds to include cpu cooling tubes."
Unless you live in Alaska or somewhere else where you'd have permafrost.
But if you can see Russia from your house, why would you ever want to waste your time overclocking? :)
Stop being a slave and stand up for private property rights.
yea, until your shoddy workmanship kills the family who bought your house.
Really? You are going to compromise the structure of your (presumably) expensive house in order to do what? Cool a PC? I can't wait to see this on failblog.
You need to insulate the copper from the concrete. I understand, although I'm not an expert, the salts in the concrete will eventually corrode the copper.
Likewise, you shouldn't put bare copper in the ground as the acids will eventually corrode the copper.
In this case, you would probably be better off with lots of plastic, even though it is a poor conductor of heat you can make up for that with a large volume of water in the system.
If you are in a location prone to freezing you should use something other than water for coolant. You may end up with a large temperature gradient in the slab between the interior (top) surface of the slab and the exterior (bottom) surface of the slab and the last thing you want is local freezing of your coolant loop. Obviously, if it never gets cold for extended periods, you don't have to worry about freezing :)
Seriously, while it's a cool idea, it's not going to be deep enough, imo. It's basically group level. Even when you have a basement that goes into the ground it's not always that cool except for perhaps the floor but that's usually a good 10ft down.
I live in the midwest, and did the same thing 4 years ago, when I had my house built... I use a heat-pipe to fluid thermal exchanger on my ESXi server as well as my gaming rig.
It will in no way harm your resale value, and if your inspector has a brain, it has no impact on the inspection...
Due to expansion and contraction concerns, I had that small (8`x8`) portion of the concrete isolated....
In my student days, a bunch of friends and I rented a couple of crappy student houses. They were next to each other, and only one house had cable internet access.
We solved the problem by digging a trench running from under one house to under the other. We dropped in PVC piping with a set of elbow joints, ran some cat 5 network cable through, and -- voila -- cheap(er) broadband for two houseloads of starving IT students.
Since the houses themselves were fit only for scrap timber, nobody really cared. And we saved a fortune in broadband bills.
Y'know big block of concrete.
Deleted
tying into your plumbing would be easier. it's basically the same effect, and won't require the whole loop nonsense.
after all, the pipes that bring water into your house run underground for miles, or at least bring up well water that is ground temperature anyway.
I would think that the concrete would warm up after a while and decrease efficiency of cooling. if you had running tap water your cold side of the system would remain at a ~50-55 degrees all the time. better watch your water bill, though.
I was thinking to use a toilet flush tank for the same purpose. Of course the water will warmer eventually, then just flush it :)
That first link is so bizarre, sitting within a post which otherwise seems very logical. My brain is short circuiting as it tries to find the connection between underground piping and spinach pizza.
I got a bunch of raised eyebrows when I had two four-gang electrical outlets (one from either leg of the house power) and an exhaust vent fan installed in one of my closets when we built our house. I wanted it for a server farm but couldn't convince anyone that I wasn't going to be farming something else.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
as nobody uses them.
Have you priced out that much coolant? Straight water? Not a good idea since the pump will go out if it doesn't have lubricant. The major plus I see is avoiding heat build up in the room. I used to have seven computers in a room so even in the winter I had to keep windows open. I see it being more attractive if you were running multiple machines off a common system.
I'm not so sure you'll have much luck with that system. What you are describing is basically an earth battery, most people who put that type of system in place are using it to STORE heat, because earth/dirt is actually a really good insulator.
What you need is something that will dissipate heat rapidly. Of course, if you can dissipate heat faster than you put it into the system it would probably work fairly well, but I have a feeling you will find that over time the ambient temp of the fluid will rise until eventually you will be circulating room-temperature fluid and not cooling anything.
It's called Galvanic corrosion and I think the project will have a very very short life since it looks like the rebar is actually in contact with the copper. I wouldn't be surprised if it only lasted a year or two before it starts leaking.
A good article on this is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_corrosion
BTW, this idea of wrapping some tape on the copper when it gets near to the rebar could make the problem about 100 times less severe. IOW, a very good idea.
Someone else mentioned that copper is corroded by the concrete, but this article (http://www.copper.org/applications/plumbing/techcorner/problem_embedding_copper_concrete.html) disagrees.
IANAHE (I am not a hydronics expert) but could you not add a closeable loop of copper to your incoming cold water? Unless you are in a hot place, the cold water incoming should be sufficient to cool or at least put some sort of heat exchanger in.
Shouldn't need to use the concrete.
(1st sig) If this were a snappy sig, you'd be reading it right now. (2nd sig) I'm a karma whore. >Insert FUD here
Talk about a heat sink. I'm a little surprised that this sort of technique is not more widely adopted at places like data centers; geothermal or water-source heat exchange, especially for cooling. I have been looking at using a water-source heat pump system to replace my electrical resistance heating/air conditioning system. Big incentives from the government.
Best regards.
There is no code violation for stubbing off and sealing a pipe coming out of a slab.
Yeah, that 6m of copper tubing will probably make the house explode, right?
Learn about Photography Basics.
Well, your habit of using the acronym "THC/IP" did rather give the game away....
However they had an old house. Instead of running the pipes to the concrete he decided to make a little hole to the wall and run pipes to the ground outside. The ground seems to work as an excellent heat exchanger. Just run enough pipe underground and it will cool down wether it's winter or summer.
And it's known for a long time. :)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Obviously, you haven't spent much time in concrete trades. Did you even notice the rebar in the photo? Before the slab crushes the copper pipe, it has to sever the rebar. Not happening.
The design is sound and the application is clever.
Best regards.
If you are worried that the weight of the concrete might compress the pipe fill it with water and close both ends. Water does not compress.
the tubing used for floor heating is the right one.
If you sell the house you can praise it as a value added as you can keep the house cool.
and you can connect your PC liquid cooling system to the heat exchanger/cooler/heater element.
I do not know in what climate zone you live, but you can even get some heating out of this.
go and do it!
Won't the concrete eat at the copper pipes if they are in direct contcact?
"Also, like a previous comment suggesting, maybe you should look into radiant heat tubing over copper."
This. I used to live in Alaska and radiant heat slabs were very common. The problem was making sure they never went without heat in the winter. If they did, you ended up with burst pipes and a cracked slab. Big headache.
The fix is burst-resistant flexible tubing. There is a product called Aqua-pex that fits the bill perfectly. Does not burst when frozen, has a 100-year warranty and is easy to install as it is flexible.
The other problem with copper in concrete is that the concrete itself is corrosive. It WILL eventually eat through the pipes leading to all sorts of headaches. Usually, when this happens the only fix is drain them and cap the pipes. Most people in Alaska with radiant flooring, even when using Aqua-pex, lay down a second circuit in case there is a problem. They simply hook up the back-up.
Another suggestion. If you DO use copper tubing, use alcohol, or some other coolant such as glycol, rather then water. You will have better heat transfer as well as less corrosion. This is, of course, assuming you have a closed loop circuit (would be foolish to have anything but).
6m of copper tube will corrode, and leak eventually undermining the slab resulting in a crack. In a cold climate it will eventually freeze also causing the slab to crack. I assume your being facetious but there are the facts. House won't explode but the bill to repair the slab will be horrendous.
You mean, stand up for fee simple title rights. You don't own that land. You just hold the title for a little while.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
3" cover is most certainly not required. Most commercial floor slabs are 2.5" concrete on 1/2" form deck (9/16 for the pedantic). A 4" slab will have two layers of rebar in it - either as WWR (gauge wire on a 6x6 grid) or as actual rebar up to 1/2" in diameter. That means as little as 1-1/2" of cover over the steel.
The 3" you may be thinking about is clear cover for steel reinforcement when slabs are cast against earth. In that case, it's to minimize water infiltration and protect the steel from corrosion.
Freezing of the slab is theoretically possible in a very, very cold environment, but not unless the house is left unheated for an extended time as subzero temps and the typical ground temp is below freezing (an ice lens would have to be able to extend from the exterior of the slab all the way to where the embedded pipes are). In that case the whole house would have to be "winterized" with all lines drained.
IAASE (structural engineer), BTW.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
If your pipes burst, you're not using enough ethylene glycol in your circulating fluid.
Yeah, that 6m of copper tubing will probably make the house explode, right?
Depends on what it gets filled with.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Well the slab gets poured on Wednesday
Seeing as it's already Wednesday, the work's either in progress or already completed. Read through the comments, OP, and either congratulate yourself on your idea or bite your knuckles and say "Oh, shit!"
When this topic gets reposted you'll be able to let us know whether the doomsayers were right.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
You should plumb the slab with standard hydronic heating tubing - terminating in the furnace room but also bringing the loop up the wall into a "jumper" in the computer room wall - in a box like you'd use to install water for a washer. Jumper the furnace room or computer room end depending on whether you're using it for the furnace or the computer.
This is easy to explain. Hydronic tubing will also be considerably cheaper and possibly longer lasting than copper, and may be a resale bonus for the house.
It will also let your computer help heat your house in the winter.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I would like to see the results of this in quarterly periods over the next year to see if this is actually a viable cooling resource.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
All slabs crack...
you don't need frozen pipes to cause that.
"Hmm. I am to metaphor cheese as metaphor cheese is to transitive verb crackers!"
The force needed to move the water in a loop will increase as the length increases. I'm not sure by how much. But an excessive length of pipe may mean your existing water pump for your PC is no longer strong enough to be effective.
Yeah, a website dedicated to promoting copper is a real reliable source on the longevity of copper. Meanwhile, the architect and the guy who lives in Alaska (where these systems are common) up thread tell a different tale.
Google searches and regurgitating the first link are no substitute for knowing what the hell you are talking about.
You mean copper.org has a document that prefers copper over PEX? Shocking.
-nd
When I built my house, I wired every room with about 500 yards of CAT-5 into a 110 block in the basement. 6 months after we moved in, I bought a wireless router. Doh.
-nd
you will not get a better heat transfer fluid than water. Don't be stupid. adding glycol to the loop will depress the freezing point and eliminate pipe bursts in the event of long term heat outage. You can add anti corrosion chemicals at 1mL/L_H2O to prevent corrison, no need to destroy the heat transfer properties of the water.
I assume you're unaware of the fact that copper tubing in contact with and running up through concrete slabs is already a very common thing to find in some older houses. Simply wrapping the copper tubing in foam negates the corrosion concern. If you're not into being cheap about it, there's also special copper sleeving sold for this sort of thing. It's perfectly safe if you do it right.
Neat idea. On paper anyways. It'll be interesting to see how it turns out.
But so much for "going green". I'd imagine you'll need a relatively hefty electric pump to keep water circulating through that big of a pipe. Sure seems like overkill for a PC, overclocked or not.
I'd be curious to see how much power the pump draws for that. Maybe my hunch about needing a big pump is wrong and you could get away with a regular fish tank pump. Still seems like overkill, but hey.
http://www.copper.org/resources/properties/protection/underground.html
That site says that concrete does not corrode copper. My experience seems to back that up. (Yes, I've built and I've demolished buildings.)
One problem that might cause corrosion, is allowing anything to be electrically grounded through the copper. Read the link. Using a double insulated pump would be a good idea, but not necessary.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
If you place a copper pipe in your floor slab it will eventually be loaded by the slab because of differential settlement. The pipe will eventually get cracks in them. These cracks will leak. If you are running closed-system cooling you're CPU will suddenly start overheating because you'll have lost all your water. If it's an open-system and you're continually adding water into the cooling system then you will leak water underneath your slab. This can cause major problems if the leak persists over years and years. Don't do it.
If you want to do this right, tell the contractor to auger a 12" hole 10' straight down from where you want your cooling system. Place coiled copper piping down in there and then fill it in with concrete. Do not pour the slab over the top of this drilled shaft. Do not pour the slab continous with this drilled shaft. Get some expansion material (30# felt for instance) and isolate the drilled shaft from the slab.
And I thought Engineers trolled Slashdot...
So Copper and Concrete. Fine combo, no worries. But concrete and steel, there is a magical combination! --
- Concrete is weak in tension, steel is strong.
- Concrete is cheap, steel is expensive.
- Concrete is durable against wind and water, steel needs protection.
- And when it counts, they get together -- they expand and contract nearly at the same rate with changing temperature.
Concrete and steel, are a perfect match, just mix the proportions for the job at hand!
When you say 'either leg of the house power', you don't mean different power phases, do you?
You can have great fun with co-connected kit (eg a printer and a server) when they are on separate power phases - sparks can fly!
Copper pipe in cement + time = leaks
In the 50's when they were cranking out cheap housing, slab houses with copper piped radiant heat in the floor
was the spec. They all started leaking from electrolytic corrosion and had to be retrofitted with baseboard.
Side note: Also made conditions really sweet for termites.
My basement computer lair shares a wall with a storage room, so I've been thinking about cutting a hole and ducting the computer fans through it, basically using the computers to heat the storeroom. There is already a heat vent in that room but I have it dampered down. Any pros and cons to doing that? We don't have air conditioning since Seattle is rarely hot enough for it. Piping computer heat out of the house would seem like a waste of energy the other 95% of the time.
Okay, I get it, he got the informative for the Aqua-pex. Problem is, Ethlyene glycol decreases water's ability to transfer heat. What it does is raise the boiling point, lower the freezing point, and retard corrosion. Replace your coolant mixture when a voltage measurement between fluid and pipe exceeds one volt.
We used to use alcohol in radiators, because it does all that stuff and increases thermal conductivity, too. But there were some problems with fires when people used too much. So we just stopped. If you put 100% ethlene glycol coolant in your cooling system it will work, albeit at a very poor efficiency. You might get away with it in the winter.
If you want something you can just use a little of, there is Red Line Water Wetter, which is often used in racing in all-alloy systems, in which it is sufficient to prevent corrosion. It actually also increases thermal transfer.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Coper is the wrong thing for this application. The contact of your rebar to the copper will setup an galvanic corrosion problems. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_corrosion Under floor heating systems use PEX like everyone is suggesting. Get some and use it. Get the kind with the aluminum in it. The heat transfer is better. If it's too late to change then you must use something kind of antifreeze in this system. Even with PEX I'd use it because water can still burst PEX and crack your concrete.
It all starts at 0
Run the cooper under your fridge, it'll help cooling.
ONE MILLION DOLLARS!
I'm always dismayed at the discussions on topics that are in my field. (PhD thermophysics) It reveals to me that most "geeks" are in fact charlatans dispensing advice based on primitive rules of thumb and unrelated facts. Trusting their conclusions is a huge gamble. I often trace the problem back to a failure to properly generalize their narrow experience. I thought this skill was the primary aim of a technical education... I always identified it as the key advantage of the educated. What am I missing?
In Texas most modern houses (say less than 50 years old) are on slab construction with embedded copper pipes. Older houses are frequently pier and beam. There are no regulations for copper coating the pipes going through concrete, and plumbing failures of copper pipes in foundations are decently rare. Rusting and failure of iron pipes under foundations before copper became common, isn't infrequent though.
The guy who posted TFA is not real bright. He had an extremely good idea, planned it out, and executed it magnificently. Then, he screwed it all up by posting about it on Slashdot. Self proclaimed architects and engineers have shot the idea full of holes. *sigh*
Wait! It's me who isn't real bright!! TFA was just trolling to see how many idiots would answer!!!
Damn, this gets confusing......
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
This comment is worded exactly as worded. Any application of clever "Fixed that for you" corrections will be "appreciated".
There. Fixed that for you.
P.S. No, I don't think I'm clever.*
* I preemptively agree that I'm not clever.
Well if you read the text at copper.org (an unbiased source?) it really sounds more like it is "technically" possible, but there are a lot of common factors that can ruin the install. Heard that MA will not allow you to put copper pipe in slabs for radiant heat (thousands of failed copper installs in slabs in MA provide an ample counter examples). Pex tolerates thermal expansion better, can even handle cracks since it flexes and can handle cinder and fly ash. In short it is better
"The copper tube must be completely embedded in the concrete and adequate provision for thermal expansion should be provided where the tube enters/exits the concrete."
"provided that allowance is made for the lateral thermal expansion and movement of the tube and protection of the tube from abrasion. This can be done by insulating the tube where it passes through the wall or by wrapping the tube with an approved tape (to avoid abrasion) and installing it through a sleeve. Please refer to your local plumbing code for specific requirements regarding the protection of pipes and tubes passing through concrete and masonry floors and walls."
"According to the Portland Cement Association the interaction of copper with both dry and wet concrete should not cause a corrosion concern. However, copper should be protected when it comes in contact with concrete mixtures that contain components high in sulfur, such as cinders and fly-ash, which can create an acid that is highly corrosive to most metals including copper."
Now that's a protocol I can endorse! How many grams per second do you typically get when downloading? Is there a flat monthly fee? What are good ISPs* that don't do traffic shaping? Is it easy to encrypt your packets and do you have to pay extra for the aluminum foil/scent resistant wrapper? Can you download across state lines? Or even from Ethiopia?
*Indica Service Providers
What an incredible waste of time and effort.
Unfortunately, the Beowulf cluster went up in smoke.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Well, so nice post, haah! Your mind help me so much! I'm not sure if you mind the thing I'll do here. Im an online seller for the Timberland shoes|Gucci shoes|Prada shoes and Gucci bags|Coach bags|Prada bags, and the pretty Adidas sunglasses|D&G sunglasses|Dior sunglasses are my products also. Alright, seems I have to make the apology for my NFL Jerseys|NBA Jerseys|NHL Jerseys|MLB Jerseys, they are the most hot items on my sites, are u interest in them?
Download speeds depend on hardware. Toking ring is somewhat outdated, you were probably all using that back in high school; but still works ok. Ethernet isn't actually that much faster; but the ether has synergistic effects.
Ammonia FTW.
First of all, I wouldn't bury all of your cooling pipe in the foundation. The foundation will likely be slightly warmer due to the heat transfer to your house. You should instead bury the pipe in the ground outside and run it into your house. This is done all of the time for geothermal heat pumps, so I suggest you read up on them.
Second of all, you need to remember that heat transfer is not instantaneous. Just because you expose your hot coolant to 14 Degree temperatures for a few meters doesn't mean you will get 16 degree coolant on the other side. It really depends on how much heat this machine is giving off in the first place. You will have to sit down and do some calculations. Fortunately, if you have some basic knowledge of electronics, many of the same formulas apply to heat transfer.
Good luck on your endeavor.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
What happens if you leave your server running all the time in the summer though? I think the concrete will heat up to a certain point and not dissipate much of the heat, so your cooling would become ineffective.
If you have a backup electric cooling system it's okay; or maybe I'm wrong about the way concrete dissipates heat.
When you say 'either leg of the house power', you don't mean different power phases, do you? You can have great fun with co-connected kit (eg a printer and a server) when they are on separate power phases - sparks can fly!
That's absolute nonsense. It is done all the time, especially in data centers where a pair of outlets on opposing phases is wired with a common neutral. It gives you double the power for just one more conductor. Or for 3-phase, triple the power for two more conductors. It is explicity allowed by NEC (210.4, "mulitiwire circuits") and is perfectly sound wiring practice. Even a UPS will have its own outlets on opposing phases, because it makes for a much more efficient design internally.
Just trying to pass on my own experiences with Alaskan environment and cooling/heating systems.
I plumbed my ENTIRE house with Aqua-pex (no pesky building codes to deal with). And before I did so, I bought a 20 foot length, filled it with water, capped both ends, and set it outside at -40F. It never burst. Even after a few temp swings of about 50F, there was NO noticeable deformation. I seriously doubt you are going to experience such extreme temps. The other advantage of Aqua-pex is that you do not need any joints IN the slab. Any joints in the circuit simply become another possible location for a leak. Aqua-pex also has a very high shear resistance, so if you are in a earthquake prone area, it provides some protection in that regard.
As far as coolant, notice I listed ALCOHOL first. Yes, glycol is not a very good conductor of heat, but it is better then burst pipes (if you insist on using copper). The advantage of alcohol is that it will absorb any moisture you fail to remove from the circuit and dilute it, rather then just have that water pool in one location and continue it's corrosion.
Not sure if anyone else mentioned it, but you need to increase the thickness of the slab (dig deeper dude) wherever you have the circuit as the circuit itself becomes a weak point in the slab. Think perforated paper.
I do not think it will be an issue here, but the one thing I DO know about Aqua-pex--it cannot withstand long-term UV exposure. It will become brittle if exposed to UV light for any length of time. The solution is to simply wrap it with aluminum tape in any location it is exposed, such as outdoors in sunlight.
"You will have better heat transfer as well as less corrosion"
Actually you will have poorer heat transfer, as the "Specific Heat" of water is higher than an alcohol/water mix. Water stores more energy per gallon, and thus able to transfer more heat per gallon than alcohol. Alcohol mixtures are used to prevent the system from freezing, as the freezing point is much lower than simple water, and the drop in performance is easily compensated for in most designs (i.e. a bigger radiator). Most race cars run water with a rust inhibitor for this reason, not an alcohol/water mix like the family car.
If the surrounding earth really is at 16 degrees or less and you heat it you would be melting permafrost and your house might sink into the mire. Perhaps you are not using the Fahrenheit scale.
You're going to end up heating the slab.
Before you do any of this look into geothermal systems for the proper plumbing to put in concrete. For example copper joints sweated with solder will fail in concrete because of the caustic chemicals in the concrete. The first water heated slabs using copper failed because of this. The next thing to consider is just how cold your concrete will get. Geothermal systems usually have to bury pipe below 8 feet in order to get enough heat/cool to work. In NY state the ground temp is 50 degrees at 8 feet or more year around.
That's probably because any sane modern builder is gonna run the copper pipe across the ceiling. It's a hell of a lot easier, and far less likely for the pipe to be damaged during installation (the rocks in concrete can pierce the copper).
He's the dude you need to Make It Right. One place he built on TV (the New Orleans/Hurricane Katrina place) had a geothermal HVAC system, so it's possible.
Of course, when the Slashdot boys see what a hunk of beefcake he is...
...laura
I used to live in the fastest growing suburban community in TX, with decently strong building codes. I watched hundreds of houses go up, and I can assure you that every one I saw had their 1st story cold water lines run in copper in the foundation. It is par for the course here.
Have you watched much Hometime or any other home improvement / build show? Most of their builds in the Southern US seemed to have at least some copper in concrete plumbing.
I'm not sure if you think sharp rocks would puncture copper during the pour, or after it hardens and shifts ever so slightly. But I don't think there is much of a chance of either happening when you use rigid type L copper pipe.
I'm sure that the women will think this is the hottest setup that they have ever seen. Oh baby, look at him, geekboy has a concrete cooled CPU so that his porn pc wont overheat.
-Cnik
Why is it that we haven't built datacenters in places with natural cooling. gives a new meaning to the phrase, sent to siberia.
I know I am not the only one with this obvious Idea.
music lover since 1969
Are you telling me you'll be pouring a concrete slab directly on the ground, without any insulation between it and the soil? That sounds rather wasteful to me... you'll be better off by insulating underneath that slab - hard foam like styrofoam works fine - to save on your heating efforts.
If you want to cool your computer dig deeper (2-3 meter) and bury a coil or length of hose, or put that coil/hose in the lake/stream/other body of water which happens to be flowing past your house to be...
--frank[at]unternet.org
Tye copper will corrode, get condensation, leak and crack the concrete in less then a decade.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This reply is in support of prior posts, and is only meant to be of an informative nature.
I love hearing about water additives.
Especially when in regards to cooling computer equipment. One commonly sees ethylene-glycol/water mixtures in watercooled rigs. I can't help but wince and then shake my head in disappointment whenever I see the neon green flowing through their Tygon or Primoflex.
Provided as a quick reference: http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/thermal-conductivity-liquids-d_1260.html
PC's are not automobiles, and the cooling systems for each have very different requirements. Unfortunately, many PC enthusiasts fail to take this into account. Glycol mixtures will always decrease thermal conductivity within a PC's watercooling system. Additionally, the added viscosity tends to inhibit flow, and wear down centrifugal pump parts prematurely - in much the same manner that submersion systems chew through cooling fans.
In short, using a glycol-based solution within a PC environment is not desirable - ever.
Veterans of the PC watercooling game who have done their research will concur that the best anti-surfactant, anti-fungal agent to use within a PC's watercooling system is Red Line's Water Wetter.
Lastly, plenty of very good reference material on the subject of water cooling (and much, much more) can be found at http://electronics-cooling.com/
It is completely acceptable to bury/embed both hard drawn and annealed copper water tube in concrete. Decades of satisfactory service experience with the use of copper tube for in-floor radiant heating systems, water distribution systems and snow melting systems attest to the compatibility of copper tube embedded, encased or in contact with concrete
Speaking as a house owner whose copper pipe embedded in concrete slab did fail, I disagree with your disagreement.
In fact, I know of numerous houses in our city where his has happened.
Our plumber also concurred that it was just a matter of time. They only did it that way when they built the houses because it was cheap and easy to do (he used to work in construction installing them years ago).
There may be a way to do it so they don't fail, but it can be a big, giant, expensive mess if they do.
I made this mistake when I was in high school, and my chemistry teacher even agreed with me (wrongly).
If you were correct, explosions couldn't occur, because the initial heat released by the initiation would shut down, rather than speed up, the reaction of the remaining mass of explosive.
The only case which I can think of where you could be correct is when there is a/are competing reaction/s which would be sped up even more by the rise in temperature (the reverse reaction in an equilibrium situation), or which remove critical ingredients of the the reaction in question (e.g., the denaturation of an enzyme vs. the reaction which it catalyzes).
use crushed moon rock for the concrete, and a pipe made from the bones of Dwarfs filled with leprechaun tears.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Back in ye olden back to the land commune days, when we were building cabins and houses on the *extreme cheap*, we tried to scrounge as much building materials as possible, so we used old bed springs and steel bed frames from the dump for "rebar".
copper + sitting on iron rebar + water in concrete slab + alkaline concrete == anode + cathode + electrolyte == battery.
the copper is going to develop a hole bunch of rot-outs from electrolytic corrosion, and your cooling is going away without notice.
if you haven't poured yet, either put in stainless steel piping, or pex.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
I'm maybe moving to a house that has a cellar with a well in it, an active one that water flows through, so the cellar is damp and maybe slightly cooler than normal.
Would the cellar not automatically act as a sort of cheap ground source heat pump, in terms of equalisizing the temperature of the rooms above it?
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Concrete corrodes copper. There are also issues with thermal expansion.
Still, cool idea, as long as you're not going to move your fridge.
Another advantage of PEX is that you can put pressurized air into it before pouring the slab. This slightly stretches the PEX and gives the installation some expansion room so that if water freezes in the tube you don't shatter the foundation
they let you post to slashdot from federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison?
I am unfamiliar with Redline Water Wetter, but it sounds like it has many of the properties of alcohol, but with the limitations of alcohol addressed, such as flammability.
Alcohol, and I assume Redline Water Wetter, does not change viscosity to any great extent, and thus my suggesting it first.
One other point. Make sure you purge all the lines of ANY air. Even alcohol can oxidize. A small hand actuated vacuum pump (available at most auto parts stores) should be sufficient to put the system under a decent vacuum.
One thing I am unsure of is conductivity in event of a leak INSIDE your PC. I really have no information in that regard, but I can see it being a concern.
Just make sure the pipe doesn't actually touch the rebar and it should be OK.
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
I think he's referring to other bad plumbing and electric shortcuts that often DO hurt people.
But hey, whatever, right?
Depends on who you've contracted the work out to.
If you mean who the general contractor is, I think it's him. He said in the forum "I'm doing the house as owner builder".
The contact of your rebar to the copper will setup an galvanic corrosion problems.
He's already said in the forum "Im going to separate the copper so that it is not touching the steel reinforcing bar." Of course, that won't protect him from the concrete (as others have pointed out) but the rebar won't be an issue.
Even if you were to cool a good sized server farm I would think that a good sized automotive radiator in the basement and a pump to circulate the water. I would bet that the radiator wouldn't get warmer than 10F over ambient and no complexity of broken lines in the concrete. A small fan or two to move air through the radiator would increase capacity and lower the temperature rise but I seriously doubt you would need them.
By the way, poured concrete seems to crack at corners of basement windows so be sure you don't bury pipes that cross a potentially notched section of concrete.
Of course, once you insulate it, i suspect that will have a bit of an effect on the cooling properties of the design.
Alcohol, and I assume Redline Water Wetter, does not change viscosity to any great extent, and thus my suggesting it first.
If anything, Water Wetter reduces viscosity. It's primary action is as a surface tension reduction agent. Secondarily, it also prevents corrosion. Unlike ethylene glycol, it doesn't make up a significant fraction of the coolant volume. As I recall, the 17 liter cooling system in my VW required only one 350ml bottle of Water Wetter.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Well it's a good thing no one's ever heard of "tye" copper (google hits = 0), so that won't be an issue. Regular run of the mill drawn copper is perfectly safe poured into concrete. We've been doing it for a long time in the plumbing business with no problems.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Of course, you tested how the copper will react with the concrete... You might want to look into PEX.
I'll second the Red Line water wetter. It decreased the 90*F+ summer weather operating temperature by >15*F in my ZR-1 (no other changes to the cooling system) so heat transfer is significantly improved. Using it in a geothermal water chiller is a great idea!
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
For a home PC this is really a dumb idea. Its not like we do not have a lot of cooling options that work and work well. This is what happens if the geek gene runs out of control.
Australia generally doesn't insulate (or heat) their floors, the winter temperatures just aren't that cold. The ground temperature is sort-of midway between the cold spring nights (just above freezing) and hot summer days (30 - 35 degC), so the ground is a moderating influence. In winter the cloud cover generally traps the atmospheric heat and overnight temperatures are much milder.
Most of the heat loss/gain is through the ceiling it's most cost effective to insulate there. A small portable gas heater is enough in winter, and a fan or airconditioner in summer.
Doesn't that defeat the purpose of using copper tubing (i.e. its thermal conductivity)?
Also, if you read the rest of the thread leading up to the GP, you'll see that the post you replied to was in response to someone suggesting that building codes were unnecessary (or somehow encroached on private property rights). Sure, it's perfectly safe to install copper tubing in your foundation "if you do it right." And that's exactly what building codes are there for, to ensure that people do it right. Otherwise, you end up with a situation like you have in a lot of developing nations (or even the U.S. a few decades ago) where you have buildings collapsing on people, or constructed without regard to fire safety, etc.
That depends on what you put in the tubing ;)
But the nice thing about PEX is that it will swell up to 5x its original size before bursting, meaning that your floor will crack before your pipes burst.
in north america residential service is 120/240. the transformer has a centre tap on the low side. so you get two 120v legs to the centre tap and 240 between the two legs. i think...
See, I'm a man of simple tastes. I like dynamite, and gunpowder... And gasoline! Do you know what all of these things have in common? They're cheap!
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
In North America, most service is 120/240. The house I grew up in -- just down the street from the substation -- had three phase 120/208 power in it. You got 120 by hooking one phase to ground, and 208 by connecting between any two phases.
How many exhaust fans?
Be a damn shame to lose a few thousand dollars of gear because the closet roasted the hardware alive before you noticed that the cheap $20 fan failed.
This is why there's nothing but "aluminum external HDD enclosures" now, instead of those absolute p.o.s. ME-320's with their tiny 2cm fans that quietly die after a year and roast your drive to death. (I'd like to throttle the people responsible for the ME-320).
Better than ducted heating (I could never stand that when I visited the US), but worse than normal radiators, since the convection of warm air lifts all the dust from the floor.
Fleur de Sel
*sigh*
the rest of the world uses this for quite a while (occasionally). Some people fill a metre or so gravel below their houses to use as natural heat storage - pump warm air through in summer to cool down, pump cold air in winter to heat...
the german Reichstag even uses two Aquifer-reservoirs for this, the lower one (300m below the building) for heat.
Of course using it *only* for computer cooling is new ;-)
Our neighbors have frequently speculated on why we have window air conditioners in our closets. I tell them that we grow mushrooms. Fortunately, they don't yet know that half of our home's 200A service is routed out to the garage.
What could possibly go wrong? Fucking ricers.
POKE 36879,8
just plug them into the same outlet, or power bar.
"radiant heat into the floor which is very nice btw"
You probably have no idea how this affects your blood vessels in your feet?
Because the water will be cooler then ambient air temperature you will get condensation and risk water damage to components. In addition even without high levels of moisture where you are risking drips you still risk enough condensation for mildew. Just think of what your shower generates for mildew... With that much pipe your PC(s) will not be able to warm the water enough to bring it to ambient temperature...
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Those people should have a home inspected before they buy it, then.
Learn about Photography Basics.
Think about getting a well... Get all of your water through a 100 foot deep hole in the ground, it passes through a bunch of filters and comes out cleaner than water sold in plastic bottles.
Its also the temperature your looking for when it comes up. Which could work for your pc or your whole hvac system. I'm not sure what the temperature is but if its midrange bringing in 55 degree water into your boiler would reduce cost... using the same through a chiller would give you cheap A/C.
My experience is that concrete does corrode copper. I have had to chip out and drill underneath house slabs to replace common cold water copper runs.
Funny- but lots of houses in Levittown had copper radiant floor systems that failed and were attributed to the copper. We also have houses in Florida and Long Island developing pinhole leaks- either due to impurities in the copper, or environmental degradation. Either way- a single, jointless run of PEX is a hell of a lot safer bet (especially considering it can flex) than a copper pipe that can corrode, has lots of joints, and can't flex.
Couldn't you use the plastic tubing they use now for hot water baseboard heating systems instead of copper? I don't know if it's as conductive as copper, but I'd think if you ran it through the concrete it would have a similar effect.
The slab will crack, probably in the middle of the copper pipe. Use flexible radiant floor piping or do it outside. The outside pipe run can be horizontal or vertical. Horizontal is easier to do yourself. And since I just had my slab repaired, check out the AB Chance website on helical screw piers, hopefully you will never need them.
i thoughts on this are:
1) water is good on absorb heat but it needs great volume in order to stay cool for a long time so you will probably need a water tank
2) coper tubes are not good it such situations cause the chemical reactions with water will generate dirt and probably damage the CPU waterblock and the circulator after some time
3) concrete absobs heat also but it emits all of it during the night. If you are from Tassie, Australia you will be having a great problem during summer.
best solutions:
1) use if able a water tank of 10-15 gallons or more and put it underground at least 6 feet and use plastic tubes (the shorter distance the better), and you can use the air pressure for circulation cause of the height difference between computer and tank (this will be kinda tricky but will be totally noiseless)
2) if you have a nearby stream or river throw the tubes in it and use a normal circulator for the water flow. (nice idea but the odds for that are too close to zero)
Another benefit of AquaPEX over copper would be that you needn't worry about the copper contacting the steel reinforcing bar in your slab. Metal to metal contact like that causes all sorts of problems without some sort of dielectric union. The AquaPEX doesn't have the heat transfer capability of copper, true, but what it lacks in thermal conduction could be made up for by simply increasing the amount of linear feet you bury.
And also, as parent has noted, concrete is corrosive. Corrosion is bad.
Cheaper and easier to install is also a good argument for PEX, no? :-)
If you dump it in the slab, it's a maintenance problem. If you bury it in your back yard, well then it's just another heat pump.
Put it under dirt, the big companies insist on it because it simplifies installation, and provides for easy expansion (or potential removal). If it's in the slab, it's yours forever, and if it breaks/proves inadequate, you're out of luck.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
This is all very well but i wonder if you have given any thought at all about the reaction of the lime in concrete on copper pipe give it six months then pressure test it you'll find it will probably be leaking now matbe if you hace used on of the modern plastics you would be onto something .
Pete .