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nonhuman · Jul 17, 2006, 08:33 PM

So here's an interesting little project I've cooked up for myself. My girlfriend has a cat that lives in her un-airconditioned apartment in Boston (where I'll soon be living myself). Boston is not exactly the coolest place in the world right now, and she's (my girlfriend) a little worried about the cat. In trying to come up with ways to give the cat a nice, cool place to hang out without spending tons of money I had the idea of building a water-cooling system for the pet carrier.

It seems like all I would need is a reservoir of some kind (could probably use a 2 liter soda bottle in a cheap foam cooler, if I used an open-top reservoir I could even put ice in it), some copper tubing run around the carrier to act as a radiator, and a fish tank water pump to circulate the water.

So does anyone with more experience/education in this sort of thing have any thoughts? I can't see any reason that it wouldn't work, but I'm also not sure it would really be effective enough to do any good. Would water kept in a cooler stay enough below air temperature to make this effective? Even without ice?

ibookuser2 · Jul 17, 2006, 10:25 PM

The system you describe will just heat the water in the reservoir very quickly. If there's ice in there, it will keep it cool a little longer but it won't last long. In order to make an effective system, you'd need to put another radiator somewhere where it's cooler, so that it has somewhere to cool off the water again. The heat has to go somewhere. Or you'd have to keep cool water flowing through it continuously and dump the warm stuff coming out, but you probably don't want to run the water all day long.

Just get an air conditioner. Unless you have some means of keeping the water in the reservoir cool (you could put it in the fridge, I guess) you're not going to do any cooling.

nonhuman · Jul 17, 2006, 10:32 PM

Originally Posted by ibookuser2

The system you describe will just heat the water in the reservoir very quickly. If there's ice in there, it will keep it cool a little longer but it won't last long. In order to make an effective system, you'd need to put another radiator somewhere where it's cooler, so that it has somewhere to cool off the water again. The heat has to go somewhere. Or you'd have to keep cool water flowing through it continuously and dump the warm stuff coming out, but you probably don't want to run the water all day long.

Just get an air conditioner. Unless you have some means of keeping the water in the reservoir cool (you could put it in the fridge, I guess) you're not going to do any cooling.

Yeah, that's what I was afraid of. :/

Oh well. I'm planning on getting an air conditioner anyway, just thought this would be kinda fun to build.

Mastrap · Jul 17, 2006, 10:47 PM

Here in Toronto water used to be free and unmetered. So if you moved into a house, water was just supplied, for free. When air conditioners first came onto the market some bright spark figured out that tap water was generally very cold and that if you just kept the water running over a heat exchanger you could air condition a house. A friend of mine still has one of these old systems running. He is dreading the day he'll be getting a water meter.

Rumor · Jul 18, 2006, 12:35 AM

You try making something that mist. The evaporation will create a tempature change.

Salty · Jul 18, 2006, 02:28 AM

Originally Posted by Rumor

You try making something that mist. The evaporation will create a tempature change.

Yey for humidity!

Doofy · Jul 18, 2006, 05:22 AM

Originally Posted by nonhuman

she's (my girlfriend) a little worried about the cat.

Girlfriend sounds like she didn't receive the memo, so here it is again:

Attention all cat owners. Your cat will automatically look for the hottest place in the building and sit there. Even if the temperature difference between coolest and warmest place in your abode is only 0.0000001 degrees, your cat will still find the warmest part. Even if you live in Death Valley and have no air con, the cat will head for the hottest place. This is because cats are made of asbestos. End of memo.

Rumor · Jul 18, 2006, 11:07 AM

Originally Posted by Salty

Yey for humidity!

The evaporation can deacrease the temp dramatically. I found this out at Burning Man in 03.

Gossamer · Jul 18, 2006, 11:32 AM

Who wants to smell wet cat all day?
lol@Doofy

Mastrap · Jul 18, 2006, 12:37 PM

Originally Posted by Doofy

Girlfriend sounds like she didn't receive the memo, so here it is again:

Attention all cat owners. Your cat will automatically look for the hottest place in the building and sit there. Even if the temperature difference between coolest and warmest place in your abode is only 0.0000001 degrees, your cat will still find the warmest part. Even if you live in Death Valley and have no air con, the cat will head for the hottest place. This is because cats are made of asbestos. End of memo.

Not ours. Right now it is really damn hot here in Toronto and the cats are sitting in front of the cool air outlets in our house.

Doofy · Jul 18, 2006, 12:56 PM

Originally Posted by Mastrap

Not ours. Right now it is really damn hot here in Toronto and the cats are sitting in front of the cool air outlets in our house.

Did they get the memo?

So everywhere is having a heatwave, huh? Hits 37 here tomorrow.

Gossamer · Jul 18, 2006, 12:59 PM

Originally Posted by Doofy

Did they get the memo?

So everywhere is having a heatwave, huh? Hits 37 here tomorrow.

Celsius? In that case we're at 27 right now (80F), but hit mid nineties yesterday, and it was HUMID. The bike ride home from work was not pleasant.

Mastrap · Jul 18, 2006, 01:26 PM

Originally Posted by Doofy

Did they get the memo?

So everywhere is having a heatwave, huh? Hits 37 here tomorrow.

It was 36 yesterday, with high humidity. I was not happy. Sunday I had to spend five hours in the car, same temperatures. Guess when the damn car AC decided to pack it in. That's right, on Saturday.

Today it's an almost balmy 29 degrees. Nice. And both cats are on the cool slate kitchen floor.

davesimondotcom · Jul 18, 2006, 01:29 PM

Put together a cheap swamp cooler - get a block of ice, put it in a container, and put a fan behind it. It'll blow cool air.

We used to do that in the dorms my first year in college. Well, until we figured out it really doesn't work that well. But it felt like we were doing something. And that's the point, isn't it?

Mastrap · Jul 18, 2006, 01:31 PM

Evaporation is key, isn't it? I know people who put damp towels in the freezer, then had the fans blow cold air through those.

ort888 · Jul 18, 2006, 01:44 PM

Originally Posted by Doofy

Girlfriend sounds like she didn't receive the memo, so here it is again:

Attention all cat owners. Your cat will automatically look for the hottest place in the building and sit there. Even if the temperature difference between coolest and warmest place in your abode is only 0.0000001 degrees, your cat will still find the warmest part. Even if you live in Death Valley and have no air con, the cat will head for the hottest place. This is because cats are made of asbestos. End of memo.

This is not true. I had an apartment once and we could only afford to have a window unit in the bedroom. For reasons I won't get into now, we could not allow my two cats into the cooled bedroom unless they were supervised. At any rate, we had a heat wave come through and our apartment was about 110 - 120 degrees. My poor cats spent most of the day laying down in the bathtub because it was the coolest part of the apartment. They would just lie there panting. It was very sad.

At any rate, you can now get air conditioners for less the $100 new. A few months ago I saw new window units at Circuit City for $70. Just get one of those.

nonhuman · Jul 18, 2006, 02:43 PM

Originally Posted by Mastrap

Evaporation is key, isn't it? I know people who put damp towels in the freezer, then had the fans blow cold air through those.

Right, so in theory if water from an open-topped reservoir were being circulated through copper tubing in and around the pet carrier, the water should be cooler than the air due to evaporation, and the circulating water should therefore absorb the heat from the cat carrier and transfer it to the reservoir where it is expended by increasing the rate of evaporation.

The question is whether evaporation will keep the water temperature cooler than the air temperature because other wise it would just be circulating warm water through the tubing and having no real effect (or possibly even heating the pet carrier if the water were to get warmer than the air). It seems that keeping ice in the reservoir (the more the better because it will just melt into more water to replace what's evaporated) would ensure that some cooling effect of the pet carrier was accomplished.

nonhuman · Jul 18, 2006, 02:45 PM

Originally Posted by ort888

At any rate, you can now get air conditioners for less the $100 new. A few months ago I saw new window units at Circuit City for $70. Just get one of those.

Yeah, gonna be buying an AC when I get there for sure, but it'll be going in the bedroom where the cat will generally not be allowed because of my allergies.

Although she is a rather hypo-allergenic cat, so she might be allowed in the bedroom for a trial run...

brassplayersrock² · Jul 18, 2006, 02:48 PM

there are NO circuit citys in boston that i know of
there are however an occasional target and bestbuy that carry acs. you can try a truevalue hardware, but theyre a tad pricey for everything

nonhuman · Jul 18, 2006, 02:52 PM

Originally Posted by brassplayersrock

there are NO circuit citys in boston that i know of
there are however an occasional target and bestbuy that carry acs. you can try a truevalue hardware, but theyre a tad pricey for everything

I know Sears (there's one in the Cambridgeside Galleria) has some sub-$100 ones.

Brien · Jul 18, 2006, 02:56 PM

Target has some in the 60-70 dollar range.

kaze0 · Jul 18, 2006, 03:07 PM

My target only carries Haer. I've had **** trouble with them and their warranty sucks. It's not in home, you have to pay for shipping, so essentially there is no warranty. I picked up a Maytag last year for 100$ at BJ's wiht 5 year in home warranty, although I havent had any problems. Both of my Haers didn't even last a few months.

MrsLarry · Jul 18, 2006, 04:35 PM

in related news...

http://www.petfountain.com/

Doofy · Jul 18, 2006, 05:18 PM

Originally Posted by MrsLarry

in related news...

http://www.petfountain.com/

That rocks.

Thanks for the link, Mrs.

::maroma:: · Jul 18, 2006, 05:34 PM

I think there might be a market for something like this.

How about a Kitty Igloo? Of course it wouldn't be made of ice, but would be made to look like ice. And it would be in the shape of an igloo (of course). And inside the plastic would be the water cooling system you described. Could build it so everything is hidden and all you gotta do it plug it in.

That would sell, I guarantee it!

KeriVit · Jul 18, 2006, 10:48 PM

A kigloo!

nonhuman · Jul 18, 2006, 10:49 PM

Originally Posted by KeriVit

A kigloo!

An iggy?