Moonshot discussion ( excederin headache # upteenth )

This won't go into the off-the-grid posts.  Just thinking out loud, so to speak.

This morning, I went outside, and started moving things around.  I am not satisfied with what I have done to climate control this trailer, without the need for a lot of a/c.

All of this may sound unrealistic, but it is my goal anyway.  I want to limit my a/c so much, that I won't even need it in order to be comfortable.

As of now, I am not even close.

It occurred to me that I am doing many things wrong.  Having the freezer inside is a mistake.  It probably adds ten to fifteen degrees worth of heat inside this trailer.  Yes, I think it is that much.

Yesterday, I turned it off for the hot part of the day.  The ice hasn't completely frozen yet.  If I stop now, it will impact the cooling in the bedroom at night.  It did last night.  I woke up in something of a sweat, because the thing had melted away all the ice already.

The freezer needs to be outside where it is protected from the elements, and won't put heat into the trailer.  That's a biggie.

Because, using the freezer means that I won't be cooling as large of a space.  It means less electricity usage.  It may also mean I won't need the a/c.

Sometimes, I use the dehumidifier.  I decided to try it again this morning.  It also puts a lot of heat in here.  That too must go outside, if I am to use it in order to generate water.

Now, inside the trailer, I must equalize the outside temperatures when it is cooler, and insulate when it is hotter.  In the morning, the trailer is cooler than the warming temperatures outside.  It catches up near noon, and then gets hot like outside during the afternoon.  Yesterday, I closed the place up in the afternoon, and it got hotter in here than outside.  That means I need to equalize with outside temperatures when the sun is the hottest.  This would be after 2 pm.

This suggests a routine.  Insulate between 9:30 and noon.  Open up the windows in the afternoon.

This still leaves me with a hot trailer in the late afternoon.  It won't cool down much until after sundown.

What to do in the meantime?

This allows me to segue into the usage of the swamp cooler.  I am trying to use a slushy cool mix of water, and this will allow a greater cooling effect for the cooler.  But the water doesn't stay cool for that long.  It would have to be constantly replenished.  Just like the way I am using the cooling mechanism in the bedroom.

But I don't want to use that ice.  But what if I used it more efficiently?

It is a thought.

If you use a gallon of slushy cold water per hour in the swamp cooler, you could get a theoretical cooling of a certain amount depending upon how warmer it gets.  Let's say to 65 degrees.  Then 33 degrees times 8 pounds of ice is equal to about 270 BTU per hour.  This is about what it would take to cool down the bedroom by ten degrees.

That figures about right in the bedroom.  It seems to cool down for about six to eight hours, and then the ice is melted.  I use maybe fifty pounds of ice from the freezer.

There are other things, but something has just now interrupted me.  I will pick up the discussion later.


Update:

The blogus interruptus is no bigus.  Yuk, yuk


Now, the work I did Saturday will give me an opportunity to do something that may be helpful towards my goal.  That's because the wood fencing planks work better than the plastic tarp.  So, I am replacing part of the plastic tarp with some fencing planks, and it should be a little better than now, anyway.

As I mentioned earlier in the post, that I was moving things around.  The idea was to put some space between the side of the trailer and the plastic tarp.  I moved the crate, and will drape the crate with the tarp now covering the south side of the trailer.  This requires some further work, but I have done some already.

That will be all for now.  If I have anything else to post, I will update.

17:15

This is really a tough nut to crack.   Here I am, old fart and all, and I am not up to par physically to do much more today.

Anyway, one of those things that happens when you aren't young and healthy anymore.   But I have this brother....

Maybe it is just an excuse.  But it really is a pain in the rear.  And for me that is literally true.

Right now, I am at the laundry.  Doing some chores, and then going home and turning on the doggone A/C.  Dammit.