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Using a House's Concrete Foundation To Cool a PC

Posted by timothy on from the thinking-deeper-than-built-in-cable-drops dept.

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!"

12 of 465 comments (clear)

  1. Resale value of house? by jawtheshark · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How are you going to explain that if you want to sell that house???

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    1. Re:Resale value of house? by seanadams.com · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Who cares, it's a couple pipes sticking out of the slab. Cut 'em off if you're worried about it.

    2. Re:Resale value of house? by Cmdr-Absurd · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How are you going to explain that if you want to sell that house???

      Call it radiant floor heating?

    3. Re:Resale value of house? by Goaway · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't know about you, but if I buy or make something, it's for me. I'm not there to take care of it for the next owners. If I wanted that, I'd rent.

  2. Sell it? Get it past inspectors by Shivetya · · Score: 3, Insightful

    that is what I want to know.

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  3. Why Stop at Concrete? by eldavojohn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

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  4. Re:Sell it? Get it past inspectors by Pyrion · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

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  5. It gets poured on wednesday .. by OzPeter · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And you haven't thought through the consequences yet? That my friend is a project that has failure written all over it.

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  6. Re:It will work fine. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Copper makes the most sense in this application.

    Copper makes the most sense for conducting heat. BUUUT this is a moronic idea. If anything goes wrong there is no way to fix it short of breaking through the concrete to get to the pipe. The house could settle or shift and crush or break the pipe (or there could be an earthquake).

  7. Re:copper and steel don't mix by orsty3001 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    First house ever built on land that needed a sacrificial piece of metal.

  8. Re:Sell it? Get it past inspectors by lwsimon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yeah, that 6m of copper tubing will probably make the house explode, right?

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  9. Re:Cool by flaming+error · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I don't get it - are you suggesting that geothermal exchange violates the laws of thermodynamics? If so, please explain your reasoning.