Walk-In Cooler

[Charlie]

I'm interested in a unit to maintain the temperature of a room between 60 and 70F. You can do that with a window AC unit, but I'm wondering how difficult it would be to split the condenser and the evaporator like in a central AC unit. That way you could run the refrigeration lines in a convenient place and avoid having a through the wall installation.

Charlie

[Quin]

I'm interested in a unit to maintain the temperature of a room between 60 and 70F. You can do that with a window AC unit, but I'm wondering how difficult it would be to split the condenser and the evaporator like in a central AC unit. That way you could run the refrigeration lines in a convenient place and avoid having a through the wall installation.

Charlie

These are commercially available, but they are 2-3x more expensive than a comparable window unit. Try a search for ductless air conditioner or split air conditioner. A 6000 btu unit sells for around $800.

[Wild Bill]

Here is a nice write-up by Forrest Duddles about assembling a cold room and using a dehumidifier to provide the cooling.

[Charlie]

These are commercially available, but they are 2-3x more expensive than a comparable window unit. Try a search for ductless air conditioner or split air conditioner. A 6000 btu unit sells for around $800.

That's about what I figured, and I think the capacity of pretty much any home type central unit will be too large.

I was more interested in splitting up a window unit. I can't think of a good reason why it wouldn't work. You'd have to modify the cabinet, plumb the refrigerant lines, wire it up, attach controls and deal with Freon. Wait a minute... this is starting to sound like a lot of work!

EDIT: I forgot about the fan motor. All the window units I've seen use a single motor with a fan on each end: One for the condenser and one for the evaporator.

Charlie

[big tom]

I am currently planning on putting on an addition to my house. I live in Colorado and we have basements around here. So the addition will include a basement brewery w/ trench drains, a large extractor fan, and there will be a nice bar and a walk in cooler behind it to store my brews. I can hardly wait to build that cooler, it will be about 10x8, and I plan on using a lot of insulation and window ac unit.