thoughts on keg cooler

I was looking in my basement for a place to set up the kegs I will be getting soon and had a thought. I have a water softener that we are not using. What if I was to build an insulated box large enough to hold the kegs and run 100' or so of PEX around the inside of the box connected to the fittings where the water softener is now. Every time we use any water in the house it would flow through the PEX and the temp inside the box should stay fairly cool since our tap water temp here is usually < 50 degrees. Almost free refrigeration?

Does this seem like it would work? Anyone else done something similar?

I congratulate you on a good idea. I think it would work, but it would affect all of the water in your house. I'm not sure how much the flow would be diminished after having to flow through 100' of hose. You will lose a bit of pressure, but if your water is that cold, I say go for it.

Might be able to get by with 50' or maybe step the size up from 3/4 to 1" for the "cooler coil" to reduce the pressure drop.

would be about 5.5 psi drop for 100' of 3/4" or 1.7 psi for 1"

If the water pressure in your house is generally really good, than that much of a pressure drop won't hurt. Especially if you go with the 1". I work for a water company and our systems generally run about 60psi.

May have to try it out. A 100' roll of 3/4 is only $41. Thinking out loud here.........If I cut it in half and paralleled 2 50' lengths it should give less head loss and more surface area for heat transfer.....