Tell me about evaporative (swamp) coolers..

[greybeard]

Looking for something to use on a patio to drop airtemp a few degrees for my wife on all these 100+ deg afternoons. Right now, using a high velocity fan but just blows 101F air around. Not really much good unless you're sweating a lot. I know they don't work well in high humidity but I'm in Central Texas. Just want a small portable one on rollers to blow directly on people.
I had an uncle/aunt in Dallas when I was young that had them in their windows and they worked somewhat it seemed but the lady at the local Ace Hardware said ya had to put cold water in them for them to work. I had a friend back in East Texas that had a very large one they used under a canopy when they had BBQs and other gatherings and it cooled pretty good with just regular water and I understood all these years, that they just worked on the principle of latent heat of evaporation and cooled because some of the water evaporated as the air was blown across the wet media. Am I mistaken? Will one work with just tap water?

Something along this line:


My other option is to spend a couple hundred more for a portable real AC that vents the hot air out a hose on the back. It's about the same size but is a lot heavier and uses more electricity. Usually stick the hose to vent out a window. I have used one once before and worked well to cool a bedroom when our central unit crapped out at the old place...dunno how well it would work on a patio.




Won't be cooling the whole place, just provide her with some cool air in her patio zero gravity chair. (yes, sometimes, she's hi maintenance but I'm too old to go lookin for another one)

To use here:

 

[simme]

Portacool is a product used in cattle barns at shows. Sat in front of one several days in Wichita Falls, TX in 2008 at the junior national simmental show. On wheels. Hook up a garden hose and plug in 120 volt and get cool air out. They make residential versions as well. Never seen or used the residential versions, but I think this will work for you.

Residential Evaporative Coolers - Portacool Evaporative Coolers

RESIDENTIAL EVAPORATIVE COOLERS Home, Sweet Portacool There are times when sweating is fun: hot yoga, tubing on the river with chilly water on your backside, and taking first place at a hot chili eating contest. Beyond those, feeling sweat trickle is not as desirable. It means that your body is...

portacool.com

 

[TexasJerseyMilker]

There is always the home made Redneck Air Conditioner.



I made one. You cut out holes for the fan and PVC L and fill it with frozen pop bottles full of water. I set it to blow on the bed. It lowered the temp 2 or 3 degrees.

 

[greybeard]

I set it to blow on the bed. It lowered the temp 2 or 3 degrees.

Well I suppose 102F is better than 105F...........

 

[greybeard]

Portacool is a product used in cattle barns at shows. Sat in front of one several days in Wichita Falls, TX in 2008 at the junior national simmental show. On wheels. Hook up a garden hose and plug in 120 volt and get cool air out. They make residential versions as well. Never seen or used the residential versions, but I think this will work for you.

Residential Evaporative Coolers - Portacool Evaporative Coolers

RESIDENTIAL EVAPORATIVE COOLERS Home, Sweet Portacool There are times when sweating is fun: hot yoga, tubing on the river with chilly water on your backside, and taking first place at a hot chili eating contest. Beyond those, feeling sweat trickle is not as desirable. It means that your body is...

portacool.com

Hopefully, but 3.4 stars reviews isn't very promising and there were alot of "I'm returning this item". Quality seemed to be the biggest negative..

 

[1982vett]

Shoot…if ya just want to sit in front of a cool air stream…https://www.walmart.com/ip/Midea-5-...k9RtlFffbxMhNiQSlZQaAiPUEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

Set it on a table beside her. Cool air blows at her and the hot air goes the other direction.

I use one out in the dog kennel.

 

[Ouachita]

We have a large portable swamp cooler here at the shop, but we have too much humidity most of the time.

For your purpose, this is the ticket. I've bought a dozen of these over the years and given to customers to use in their aircraft. Just need a 12 volt source on your patio, fill it with ice, and you'll have a couple hours of cold air. The fan force is impressive. You can use crushed or block. Find the perfect sized Tupperware container and roll your own.

I'll bet they are offering a discount this week because of EAA Airventure in Oshkosh WI.

Home

B-Kool Portable Cooling Systems

www.b-kool.net

 

[Travlr]

@greybeard
We had a swamp cooler in Arkansas, which can be pretty humid. Regular culinary water hook up and a thermostat. It worked noticeably better on hot, drier days than on humid days, but still worked regardless. The unit needed the filter media cleaned or replaced fairly often to function well. It seems like anything made to cool the air has some noise and as I get older that noise can cover up a lot of conversation. That's really the biggest downside of a swamp cooler in my opinion.

 

[TexasJerseyMilker]

That B Cool is just a $300 high tech redneck airconditioner.

Those 2 or 3 degrees with the RedNeckAC feels a lot cooler with the wind chill effect.

 

[sstterry]

They make a portable one for tents called the zero breeze, but I am not sure it would work well in the open.

 

[wbvs58]

I had one years ago at my workplace on the coast and it did lower the temp but the humidity there spoiled the result. Out west of here most farm houses had big units mounted on their roof, they were in an area where lots of heat but very low humidity and I believe they worked very well. This was in the days before wide use of split system AC.

 

[MurraysMutts]

Port a cool. All the way.
Quite simply, it'll work!
You'll love it.

Everyone swear by using cold water or adding ice. That ain't how it works. Just add water

 

[bbirder]

GB,
check this out. You may want to install a mister on your patio. There are several available from kits to complete systems. They claim to lower temp 20 degrees.
https://www.amazon.com/sspa/click?i...-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&psc=1
My grandkids use a form of them around the pool.

 

[simme]

Misters are also used to cool cattle in hot barns at shows. My experience is they are high maintenance and wet everything. They work best if fed at a high pressure so the mist is well atomized so that the water evaporates. They need to be mounted on a high velocity (noisy) fan to keep the air moving to give time for complete evaporation of the water before the fine water mist can coalesce and drop out on the ground. They don't atomize very well at 50 psi and end up wetting everything. Hard water will also leave deposits on the nozzles and disrupt the spray pattern and cause them to spit. Filtration will be required on the water feeding the misters. Yes misters work ok around a pool, spraying people with a fine mist. I think you end up with wet floor, wet furniture and wet people on the patio in this application. Chicken houses here were built with both evaporative cooling (cool cells) and high pressure (200#+) misting nozzles 20 years ago. Misting has been abandoned due to wetting the chickens and litter. All cooling now is with cool cells and fans. Same principle as portacool, but packaged differently.

Murray knows. Maybe got one in the shop. Portacool or one of the other manufacturers of cool cell technology. Water evaporated off a large surface area on the pads. Water stays in the unit. Cool air comes out of the fan, not water mist or droplets. Get one large enough for the area.
Here is a big version:

Cool-Space 500

Cool-Space 500 is the industry-standard industrial air cooler for large spaces of up to 6,500 square feet (600 square meters).

bigassfans.com

In an enclosed space, humidity increases over time from the water added by evaporative cooling. In an open outside area like the picture, that does not happen. That moisture in the air moves on to the rest of the world and the area does not saturate like an enclosed area.

 

[greybeard]

I've seen those misters many moons ago at amusement parks like Six Flags and Astroworld. (I did say it was long ago).

I don't think a mister would be in the future. Ok for a couple of minutes then she'd remember why she was so insistent on leaving East Texas.

Noise isn't an issue. We've been together right at 30 years. She quit listening to me long ago.

 

[Stonewall Joe]

Looking for something to use on a patio to drop airtemp a few degrees for my wife on all these 100+ deg afternoons. Right now, using a high velocity fan but just blows 101F air around. Not really much good unless you're sweating a lot. I know they don't work well in high humidity but I'm in Central Texas. Just want a small portable one on rollers to blow directly on people.
I had an uncle/aunt in Dallas when I was young that had them in their windows and they worked somewhat it seemed but the lady at the local Ace Hardware said ya had to put cold water in them for them to work. I had a friend back in East Texas that had a very large one they used under a canopy when they had BBQs and other gatherings and it cooled pretty good with just regular water and I understood all these years, that they just worked on the principle of latent heat of evaporation and cooled because some of the water evaporated as the air was blown across the wet media. Am I mistaken? Will one work with just tap water?

Something along this line:
View attachment 32897

My other option is to spend a couple hundred more for a portable real AC that vents the hot air out a hose on the back. It's about the same size but is a lot heavier and uses more electricity. Usually stick the hose to vent out a window. I have used one once before and worked well to cool a bedroom when our central unit crapped out at the old place...dunno how well it would work on a patio.
View attachment 32898



Won't be cooling the whole place, just provide her with some cool air in her patio zero gravity chair. (yes, sometimes, she's hi maintenance but I'm too old to go lookin for another one)

To use here:
View attachment 32899

For a porch or barn alley they work pretty well, they have to have water in them or you just have a fan, we have a couple in the lab of our plumbing school and it helps a lot. You can buy a residential one at Lowes or Home Depot or Tractor Supply

 

[TexasJerseyMilker]

BigAzzFans- thats quite a site. https://bigassfans.com/evaporative-coolers/cool-space-500/

 

[lavacarancher]

Looking for something to use on a patio to drop airtemp a few degrees for my wife on all these 100+ deg afternoons. Right now, using a high velocity fan but just blows 101F air around. Not really much good unless you're sweating a lot. I know they don't work well in high humidity but I'm in Central Texas. Just want a small portable one on rollers to blow directly on people.
I had an uncle/aunt in Dallas when I was young that had them in their windows and they worked somewhat it seemed but the lady at the local Ace Hardware said ya had to put cold water in them for them to work. I had a friend back in East Texas that had a very large one they used under a canopy when they had BBQs and other gatherings and it cooled pretty good with just regular water and I understood all these years, that they just worked on the principle of latent heat of evaporation and cooled because some of the water evaporated as the air was blown across the wet media. Am I mistaken? Will one work with just tap water?

Something along this line:
View attachment 32897

My other option is to spend a couple hundred more for a portable real AC that vents the hot air out a hose on the back. It's about the same size but is a lot heavier and uses more electricity. Usually stick the hose to vent out a window. I have used one once before and worked well to cool a bedroom when our central unit crapped out at the old place...dunno how well it would work on a patio.
View attachment 32898



Won't be cooling the whole place, just provide her with some cool air in her patio zero gravity chair. (yes, sometimes, she's hi maintenance but I'm too old to go lookin for another one)

To use here:
View attachment 32899

Sure GB, they work. As you know they do their job by evaporation. High humidity means less evaporation so less cooling. My folks had one years ago in S. Texas (high temp AND high humidity) but it kept the whole house reasonably cool.

 

[greybeard]

I went another path. Portable AC. It's ok as long as she has it blowing close to her. Hokey setup, but it works. (the wood square is so I can put it in my little shop window when she isn't using it.)

 

[Lucky]

The Porta cools work great. Used one's are priced pretty fair on FB market place too.