How do you cool water???
Anybody have any ideas on how to make your tap water cold. I live here in Arizona, and in the summer the tap water is do dang hot it's hard to even take a shower. I've looked online for a product that would do this job, but haven't found anything. Any ideas???
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buy a smaller house with less plumbing. or insulate your water lines [:o)][:o)][:o)][:o)] 0 -
+1 on insulating your water lines. 0 -
Go buy another fridge and run your incomming water line through the middle of it, coil the water line for the best result. You can set it up next to you hot water heater. Then you will have a water heater and a water cooler. 0 -
Put ice in the glass.
Jeff0 -
John;
Around here, water lines are buried at least 2 ft. below surface to prevent freezing in winter. At that depth, tap water will equalize to the temperature of the ground, 55-60 degrees. I asume that in AZ, the water lines are nowhere near that deep, but your tap water is actually absorbing heat from the ground as the sun heats it up. I'm not an engineer, but you could dig a hole in your yard at least 2-3 feet deep, install a coil of water pipe at least 200 ft. and connect in series with the supply line. The ground temperature would be lower at that depth, and absorb some of the heat out of the tap water. Anyone else think that would work?0 -
i think you would have to dig deeper than that to achieve the 58 degrees. any one else/ 0 -
If you succeed in cooling your incoming water, you'll just be spending more for hot water.Leave it beeeee.[^]
Jeff0 -
sounds like mother earth news but you can get small 110volt refrig or freezer for less about $100..water line into container inside that will stand pressure...water line out to tap...bigger unit- bigger container...set thermostat just above freezing... 0 -
Move out of Hell. 0 -
copper coils in a fridge and make the water run through them. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by ironjohn929
Anybody have any ideas on how to make your tap water cold. I live here in Arizona, and in the summer the tap water is do dang hot it's hard to even take a shower. I've looked online for a product that would do this job, but haven't found anything. Any ideas???
I live in Tucson for over 4 years in the early 90s and never had that problem. Anyone else in your neighborhood have the same problem?0 -
I would go with a fridge with either a coil or a small holding tank inside, almost like a beer tap setup. As noted above make sure the line going to your hot water heater branches off before the fridge. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by nemesisenforcer
Move out of Hell.
[:D]0 -
Check and see if you have lines passing thru and exterior wall on Southern or Western side of house. If so, they need insulation. 0 -
Sounds like you have a problem. I would fix the orginal problem before I would looking into some kind of cooling.
My guess would be that you need to insulate some water lines better.
Found out if anyone in the neighborhood shares this problem also. Maybe it's a city/county water utillity problem.
A frig won't work, due to the lack of time it the water would spend in the frig. You have to have some kind of water to water heat exhanger it can get expensive.0 -
Happens around here every once in awhile. Our municipal and rural water districts are all supplied from surface water, and the temp of the lakes can get pretty high sometimes. If it bothers you that much, the suggestion of digging a dry well of sorts, and installing coils, is probably the best one. 0 -
Its the same in Florida...Hard to get cold water out of the tap...always about coolish, but never cold....and I have been on both coasts and north florida...same thing....
I always have bottles of ice water in the fridge, and a big jug of ice cold water as well...0 -
Here In NW Penna. we have to thaw it out before we can drink it!!![:D] 0 -
Hate to tell you guys, but the fridge method would not work.
All you would get is a blast of very cold water, and then it would run out.
There is no "recovery time" when water is running through a simple coil, inside of a 38 degree space. Not enough time to transfer heat.
For that to work, you would have to have a storage tank, with a recirculating pump, actuated by a t-stat.
It would need to be about the size of a water heater, to provide enough water to shower with.
Not a practical idea, although I know several ways of doing it, if money is not an object![:D]0 -
quote:Originally posted by jimdeere
John;
Around here, water lines are buried at least 2 ft. below surface to prevent freezing in winter. At that depth, tap water will equalize to the temperature of the ground, 55-60 degrees. I asume that in AZ, the water lines are nowhere near that deep, but your tap water is actually absorbing heat from the ground as the sun heats it up. I'm not an engineer, but you could dig a hole in your yard at least 2-3 feet deep, install a coil of water pipe at least 200 ft. and connect in series with the supply line. The ground temperature would be lower at that depth, and absorb some of the heat out of the tap water. Anyone else think that would work?
hell water would freeze in june here if the water lines where that shallow.
last one we put in under the main drag was 7ft down.
in the allies that don't get snow removal they let us put the in at 5ft min depth. jsut in case they do get plowed.0 -
The cold in Philly is about 82F. That's the temp of the reservoirs. 0 -
Why not just buy one of these? 
Or build one of these?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bong_cooler0 -
That is NOT typical of Tucson, ask Mercury. I have spent a lot of time there and you can get temps on the desert surface of 160F, but it drops pretty quickly as you get into the ground. Cave temps there are higher than in some other parts of the country, but you should get coolish tap water not hot. We are about 2500 feet higher in elevation and a bit further North, and we get temps in the upper 60s in summer. 0 -
Hey all, thanks for the ideas. I'm kind of set up for this problem that everybody in the neighborhood seems to have. First, our water comes from a resevor that is surface level and open to the ambient air. Then the water lines to the house are only only 18" under ground. I was thinking about the referidgerator idea, and calculated needing 155 linear feet of 1/2" tubing to make 5 gallons of cold water. I'm thinking that if the water was 38 deg in the fridge, that water mixed with hot water from the hot water tank would be enough for a comfortable shower. What do you guys think? Any other suggestions? Anybody ever seen a commercial device for this? 0 -
Dig a deeper well. 0 -
beritta. Put one in the fridge and you will have cold drinking water. 0 -
quote:needing 155 linear feet of 1/2" tubing
Since you won't be using copper [price it lately?], why not use 500' of Pex?0 -
You guys talking about the fridge thing not working...My great-grandma had an oak ice box (old fashioned fridge for you young guys [:D]) that had a cut out on top that held a ceramic jug of water turned up, like today's office coolers. There was a copper line running through the fridge, down to the ice plate, and the line was coiled under the ice storage, and routed out the side to a tap. I never have seen it work, but mom has it in her house. Kinda neat! 0 -
quote:Originally posted by iluvguns
You guys talking about the fridge thing not working...My great-grandma had an oak ice box (old fashioned fridge for you young guys [:D]) that had a cut out on top that held a ceramic jug of water turned up, like today's office coolers. There was a copper line running through the fridge, down to the ice plate, and the line was coiled under the ice storage, and routed out the side to a tap. I never have seen it work, but mom has it in her house. Kinda neat!
Can you post a picture, that sounds really neat!0 -
Let my mother in law move in. She's got such an ice-cold personality, you won't even need a/c in Arizona in the middle of summer. 0
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