Retrofitting a gas unit heater for hydronic heating/cooling?

[BioHazard]

I have this big 125k BTU sealed/explosion proof gas unit heater in my industrial shop. My neighbors have the same heaters and thousands of square feet to heat, nobody has A/C yet but we all want it.


I'm considering the possibility of a large cogen system that the entire industrial complex could use. This might allow me to use a large-ish absorbtion chiller to share with everybody. I think the only economical way to provide hot/cold air would be to retrofit the current gas unit heaters with hydronic heat exchangers.

Anybody have any thoughts on doing this? Would it work well to mount a heat exchanger on the front of the gas unit heater? It just has a giant fan in the back that blows through. Would I still be able to burn gas as a backup? Might have to remove the louvers on the front that direct the air, but, they're kind of useless anyway. Would this be some kind of code violation, modifying the heater as such? I would like to come up with a sort of "kit" that I could install on 5 or 10 of these unit heaters...

Just thinking outloud here...

[Thob]

All you would be re-using from the heater would be the fan - which I don't think saves you very much.  It seems to me that there's risk involved of blocking the air flow on the heater (even if very slightly), which could be seen as a code violation or possibly causing the heater to overheat.  Insurance inspectors, fire inspectors, and building inspectors are not going to like this.  I'd say just get your own fan and install another unit, possibly next to the existing unit.

Plus, what happens to your hydronic heat exchanger if someone fires up their heater?  Is there a risk of boiling water in the hydronic unit?

I'm really interested in what kind of absorption chiller you come up with!

[BruceM]

Lithium Bromide looks most appealing for absorption cooling. I'm furious that we aren't doing more to promote it's use, as the majority of AZ's peak loads are AC, and it would solve that problem beautifully, since it will operate on relatively low hot water temperatures from hot water solar panels.  Way more efficient than PV.

Instead our plan is the oxymoron-ic "smart meters", so that we can have "smart brownouts". 

Arg.

[mobile_bob]

@Bruce

amen bro'

bob g

[bschwartz]

Here is an interesting read on absorption coolers..... (not that I understood much of it)

http://www.redrok.com/wellsrussell.htm

[fabricator]

Lithium Bromide looks most appealing for absorption cooling. I'm furious that we aren't doing more to promote it's use, as the majority of AZ's peak loads are AC, and it would solve that problem beautifully, since it will operate on relatively low hot water temperatures from hot water solar panels.  Way more efficient than PV.

Instead our plan is the oxymoron-ic "smart meters", so that we can have "smart brownouts". 

Arg.

And your bill will be noticeably higher, the old eddie current disc meters were not fast enough the get every bit of the spike when a big load starts up like your AC, the new smart meters count every electron.