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Tuesday, March 13, 2007
These are "chillers".
They are designed to keep the digital presses cool.
They suck, they pump, and they blow. (Pardon the expressions.)
More like fire-breathing dragons.
They breath in fresh air, chill the pipes, and pump cool water
to the press by the gallon. The warm water returns to the chiller.
Then, hot air is exhaled at about 6,000 cubic feet per minute.
(That's a lot of hot air.)
Now, in the winter, that hot air feels really nice.
But when it is already 110 degrees indoors, with 0% relative humidity,
you want that air vented to the great outdoors, where we can do our part
to contribute to the global warming ;-)
But there's the problem. (No, not Al Gore, although, he is...)
It's the vacuum that is created by blowing out so much air.
And opening the roll-up door is not a solution.
The presses require a controlled environment.
68-72 degrees, with 50 to 70% relative humidity, (non-condensing).
That means cool and moist, without being dripping wet, or dusty.
The solution, move the chillers outside. Let them vent.
But they will need some form of shelter.
Can't have them getting rained on, nor snow, nor gloom of night...
But where, and what kind of structure?
There's a generator over here:
And a roll-up door over there:
And along the side of the building is the driveway access.
Each chiller needs a solid foundation, power, & plumbing.
And it can't be too far away from its designated press.
With room for expansion for up to 10 presses,
and a footprint of about 10x10 feet, that would be a structure
of about 1,000 sq. ft., perhaps tied to the back of the building,
and covering both the man door and the roll-up door.
That way, we can have access to the chillers for maintenance,
provide enough ambient air for warmth during the winter so they don't freeze up,
and doors that we can close in order to keep the noise down.
We can still use this fancy duct work, but maybe
we eliminate the flexible section to reduce the height.
Indoors, we will construct a wall to create a manageable air space
for the new air conditioning and humidifying equipment.
We can build it here just to the right of the stairs:
There are no obstructions overhead, like lights,
ceiling fans, conduits, or windows. We can add some swinging doors
for the pallet jacks to wheel in and out, will minimal disruption
to that nice, clean, cool, moist air. Then we can open the roll-up door
in front, to let the fork lifts in and out...
Meanwhile, the rest of the finishing equipment
like the stitchliner:
the cutter:
and the UV coater:
will be moving across the street...
Oh, and the air compressor, too.
On the way home, coming into the valley,
you an see how big our lake has grown.
Or to just enjoy the sunset...
But the lake is now covering half of our property,
and that of our neighbors on both sides.
