Our condo is getting a new cooling tower. The old one, a galvanized unit from ~1994 is rusting away.
As a condo board member, I'm working with the contractor re the specs. And having just this week attended the annual parks conference that focused on stormwater issues, and also being the guy who tests the water in our local creek, well, I couldn't just sit around and let us buy just any old cooling tower.
So the one we are looking at has a 414 ton capacity. It can evaporate 9.94 gallons of water per minute. That got my attention.
That's 596.4 gallons of purified drinking water, that we buy from the water department, every hour.
Atlanta has very expensive water, btw.
One of the speakers at the conference was Brad Lancaster (google him), who spoke of rainwater harvesting in Tucson. He also has a youtube video with a localized talk for Amman, Jordan, where he spoke of catching air conditioner condensate. So that got me thinking.
He is also a car-free bicyclist - very worth knowing.
We have about 600 fan-coil units in this building. The condensation (and there is a lot in humid Georgia) goes down the drain, and is sent to our local water treatment plant, even though it is clean water.
Still with me? So how about sending that water to our cooling tower instead? It's free water, and it's super pure.
I asked the contractor. Oh, and we also have 2,000 gallons of water tank storage capacity in our boiler room. I was saving it for a rainwater catchment system, but this is better.
So the contractor says, "sure! We do it all the time!"
Well that was easy. But if I hadn't asked, it wouldn't be happening.
So always ask. You might be surprised by the answer.
Good for the environment, good for the association's budget.
