Rainwater-Plenum For Sustainable HVAC

I don’t often go out-of-character into facilities management, but this add-on Rainwater-Plenum For Sustainable HVAC deserved a look-see. Notice that it converts large-capacity square commercial downspout to round underground pipe via the largest diameter on-site-constructed PVC Plenum I have ever seen. If the downspout inflow was capable of being handled by the underground drain outflow, I am not sure the need for such a massive water collection Plenum. But then Fluid Flow was never one of my loves in college.

For sustainability fans: turn the Plenum sideways; mount the outflow to insure that the Plenum chamber half-fills but the drain itself remains submerged; add a third pipe to the top to siphon off entrapped entrained air; and this system could power air distribution and natural, falling-water-based air conditioning and dehumidifying. Ha! Find that in one of your Fluid Flow Equation Books. In a less energized era, such systems were even upsized to ventilate entire mines through use of falling water. This knowledge passed down verbally from grandfather-to-father-to-son here in the Antracite Coal Mining Region. Why use air pumps or chillers to accomplish what a waterfall and a few length of pipe can do naturally?

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