Balanced heat exchange assembly

Claim 1

A heat exchange assembly for reclaiming heat from the refrigerant of an air conditioning system comprising: a water circulation means; a refrigerant circulation means; a plurality of tube-in-tube heat exchange coils connected in parallel in the refrigerant and water circulation means to receive refrigerant in one tube and water in the other for heat exchange therebetween; and means for ensuring a substantially equal rate of flow of refrigerant through each of the heat exchange coils, said means includes a refrigerant-in manifold pipe connecting the upstream end of the refrigerant tube of each of the coils to the refrigerant circulation circuit and a refrigerant-out manifold pipe connecting the downstream end of the refrigerant tube of each coil to the refrigerant circulation circuit, said inlet manifold pipe having successive decreases of cross-sectional area downstream of each said upstream end connection and said outlet manifold pipe having successive increases of cross-sectional area upstream of each said downstream end connection.