I have a bunch of computers which currently put out an uncomfortable amount of heat into the air. Not only isn't this very nice but it is wasteful. I have been kicking around the idea of trapping the heat by liquid cooling and feeding this hot fluid (probably oil) into a heat exchanger to play some role in either heating a thermal store or pre-heating water as it enters the boiler??
I am very new to all this and having a quick look on this forum there seems to be a wide range of views on the usefulness of thermal stores.
As a side note I am also planning to have Solar Thermal at some point in the future. We currently have a Gas Boiler and a megaflow unvented system.
Obviously once the thermal store (if this is used) has got to a certain temp it will no longer be useful to cool the computers however I expect to have a thermostate to divert the output from the thermal store feed to some other rad to cool the oil before it returns to the computers thus protecting them from over heating.
Where I am struggling a little is understanding how best to use this heat and how to specify what I need + what benefit this will actually give in terms of heating the water / house.
At the moment the three computers consume around 3kw however in the future it maybe up to 5kw or above and run 24/7.
I am positive that I haven't given enough information yet so ask questions and I'll do my best to answer
Thanks
Miles
I am very new to all this and having a quick look on this forum there seems to be a wide range of views on the usefulness of thermal stores.
As a side note I am also planning to have Solar Thermal at some point in the future. We currently have a Gas Boiler and a megaflow unvented system.
Obviously once the thermal store (if this is used) has got to a certain temp it will no longer be useful to cool the computers however I expect to have a thermostate to divert the output from the thermal store feed to some other rad to cool the oil before it returns to the computers thus protecting them from over heating.
Where I am struggling a little is understanding how best to use this heat and how to specify what I need + what benefit this will actually give in terms of heating the water / house.
At the moment the three computers consume around 3kw however in the future it maybe up to 5kw or above and run 24/7.
I am positive that I haven't given enough information yet so ask questions and I'll do my best to answer
Thanks
Miles