multi-floor tap system - doable?

[aangel]

Got a wild question for the experts:

Is it possible / feasible / a good idea to put my kegerator upstairs and run the taps one floor down? Assume I'll use insulated trunk line with either glycol or forced cold air circulation.

My motivation is: we're rearranging our livingroom and the 6-keg freezer stands out like a sore thumb in the dining room.

 

[day_trippr]

It is possible and feasible, especially using a glycol-cooled trunk line system.
Air-cooled is likely to be problematic in comparison.
You can find examples of both here on hbt...

Cheers!

 

[MaryB]

Other option would be a cold plate downstairs...

 

[froot]

Commercial bars usually employ pneumatic pumps to maintain pressure over the rise, in metric 1 meter/10 kpa otherwise your over carbonating your beer, obviously you could use a nitrogen mixer so the nitrogen is pushing the beer, but that's a lot of mucking around and an ongoing cost. Hope this helps.

Mike

 

[day_trippr]

In this case, there is no rise. Quite the opposite, in fact.
As well, if the lateral travel is small, the total line length could easily be within the realm of 1/4" ID line run under "normal" pressure.
Might need a choker but I suspect it's all doable...

Cheers!

[edit] Definitely experiment using the only beer line length calculator worth using as you'll find having faucets a typical 10 foot story below the kegs actually helps with the beer line length. If you're dispensing at 12 psi, for example, you'd need at least 14.5 feet of 3/16" tubing just to be in balance (and you could get away with longer).

It appears every foot of net elevation change equates to .39' of tubing, so a 10 foot drop would add ~4 feet of tubing versus having kegs and faucets at the same elevation...

 

[Dcpcooks]

You would want glycol to keep everything cold. Forced air won't work well enough to keep the beer in the lines cold and you would end up with major foaming problems.

 

[u81doughboy]

I agree with day_trippr on this. It should be an easy thing for you to accomplish, you have gravity working in your favor rather than against. Even foaming shouldn't be a real issue. Use the calculator as a reference.
I am no expert on cooling, but since cold air sinks, you might be good with a forced air system rather than glycol. The issue I see with forced air is the amount of volume you are putting thru your cooling line and the temperature you are outputting from your fridge. The downward nature of your setup will make the airflow calculation work in your favor as you shouldn't will need to worry as much if you are pushing air up. The real question is the return air--are you returning that to the fridge or are you letting that escape into the ambient room. If returning then that will be an issue for your fan. If not I don't see a real issue.