New guy question

[marriedguy1]

Ok this may not seem to be a smart question to you guys out there, but here it goes.
I had seen a home improvement type TV show and they had an outside condenser unit that had a tub/tray on the bottom of it that coils ran through to cool the refrigerant quickly. It had a float and a water supply line to keep the water supply high enough.
I saw this sometime back and have not seem anything like it since.
Does any one have any idea who makes this or if it is even a good solution for a 22 year old house with the original GE 4 ton unit still in place.
I know I am asking alot of questions so any help will be appreciated.
Thanks

[Roy Benson]

recommend it. First on most condensers the hot gas goes in closer to the top of the coil. This idea is probably more for sub cooling. Second on a GE unit the compressor terminals are near the bottom of the compressor and the last time I checked water, ground and electricty do not mix well without some type of reaction.

[Breeze]

It was a new unit at a supply house. The water would be pumped to top of a coil like thing, which had a fan to cool the water and the water cooled the refrigerant line that was in the well.
My first thought is the water sucks here SATX (as you might know) and other thought was the pump could get clogged easily, or so it seemed. I have not seen this system anymore.

Now a days you can get some high enough seers out of units that water cooled should not be needed.

Welcome to the forum.

[diceman]

Build a portable shower outside, around the unit, the kind with the top circle of pipe and a shower curtain around it. Then everytime someone in your house takes a shower out there, you will be saving energy as well.

[Charlie]

Way before my time on that kind of installation. Some of the old salts may know.

Welcome to TALK-AIR

[BamaCracker]

They use to sell a setup that clipped to the condeser, and sprayed water on the coil in a fine mist (only when the compressor ran)

It really lowered the amp draw and head pressure, but rotted the coils away in a year or two. You'd go to one of those units and there'd be a round circle directly in front of the spray nozzle with no fins at all. :)

I don't recommend it.

[marriedguy1]

Thank you for all the responses. I had kind of forgotten about our sorry water here in SATX.
My wife and I bought this house last September and we did not have to go through a hot summer with this unit. Now that it is starting to get hot we are beginning to see big dollar signs.
This unit seems to be on the small size for the house. The house is a 2 story with 2600 square feet divided almost evenly up stairs to down stairs.
One other little problem is vaulted ceilings every where and the previous owners did quite a bit of adding and now upgrade to A/C system. They did add a Frierich unit with an outside condensing unit in a game room addition, but nothing to the upstairs addition.
Once again thanks for all the responses.