"Free" water?

hartge01 7/13/2016, 4:51 pm

Hey everyone!

I hope the summer is going well. Me, not so much. Decided to solarize and pine for the fall.

Anyway, I was wondering is anyone has thought about or maybe had experience with this idea. My air conditioner for the house started leaking the other day. I didn't have time to look at it right away so I stuck a bucket underneath the drip. Well, here in Florida the humidity has been sky high and it came pretty close to filling a 5-gallon bucket! (I live in a swamp) So I started thinking. What if I placed a valve in the drain pipe (pvc) that I could turn on and off and use the water from the condensation caused by the air conditioner running? BTW, the water is very clean.

Thank everyone!

Gary

Judy McConnell 7/13/2016, 5:35 pm

Sounds like a solution for a source of water - very clean water at that. My A/C drain exits through a downspout that drains into a birdbath.

Your idea sounds much more useful.

**AtlantaMarie** 7/14/2016, 1:55 pm

Yes, you can certainly do that! That's how my neighbor waters. We have our a/c discharge running into our 330-gallon tanks.

**Kelejan** 7/14/2016, 2:10 pm

Great idea. It would be interesting to keep a check on how much water to can get.

I hope it would not go against some state laws where you are not allowed to collect rainwater.

CapeCoddess 7/14/2016, 3:29 pm

I watered my house plants one year using a leaky a/c. But it's distilled water, right? So no minerals in it? Compost to the rescue!
cheers

CC

plantoid 7/14/2016, 6:21 pm

hartge01 wrote:Hey everyone!

I hope the summer is going well. Me, not so much. Decided to solarize and pine for the fall.

Anyway, I was wondering is anyone has thought about or maybe had experience with this idea. My air conditioner for the house started leaking the other day. I didn't have time to look at it right away so I stuck a bucket underneath the drip. Well, here in Florida the humidity has been sky high and it came pretty close to filling a 5-gallon bucket! (I live in a swamp) So I started thinking. What if I placed a valve in the drain pipe (pvc) that I could turn on and off and use the water from the condensation caused by the air conditioner running? BTW, the water is very clean.

Thank everyone!

Gary

I offer that you are better off to have it run freely down an unrestricted hose into an open topped barrel that can overflow when it's full . Popping a rolled up sock around the tube where it goes into the barrel so it can breathe and overflow helps keep out any muck or mozzies etc.

Shutting off the escape of water using a tap/valve in the AC units water discharge tube may well see it flood internally which could either short out the machine or cause you water damage in the area where it is situated depending on how it is mounted and where it is .

**Kelejan** 7/15/2016, 1:09 am

CapeCoddess wrote:I watered my house plants one year using a leaky a/c. But it's distilled water, right? So no minerals in it? Compost to the rescue!

CC

Why not make compost tea with the A/C water.

**AtlantaMarie** 7/15/2016, 7:16 am

Plantoid is correct in that overflow needs to be able to discharge freely. Not allowing that WILL cause a/c issues. We found that out the hard way...

hartge01 7/15/2016, 8:33 am

Thank you for the input, everyone!

Just to clarify, I would not disrupt the free flow of the AC unit discharge. I would simply be adding the ability to divert it to a container. Even if the valve became plugged the water would still divert to the outside (see my diagram in the link).

Even with the valve opened, some water would still flow to the outside. This is also in my garage on a concrete floor so even if the bucket overflowed, no harm no foul. Based on the little I know of fluid dynamics I am simply not seeing an issue with this setup. Just trying to get educated.

This forum is always great!

Gary

https://i.servimg.com/u/f35/16/10/37/27/ac11.jpg

**sanderson** 7/15/2016, 6:58 pm

Looks okay to me.

**AtlantaMarie** 7/16/2016, 6:19 am

Looks good to me too, Gary.

Our condenser is also in our garage. Hubby ran a line from the condenser to the outside & then connected it to the piping for the water coming from the gutters into our barrels.

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