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Evaporative Cooling

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The Hulkster

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Me and the wife are about to start building a new house.

We are thinking about getting evaporative cooling throughout the house instead of the reverse cycle which is better but way more expensive.

I was just wondering if anyone knew if the evaporative cooling was any good. How does it go on a 35 plus degree day.

We were in a display home on the weekend and it had it and it seemed ok.

Is it cheaper to run compared to reverse cycle.

Cheers.
 
I have evaporative and I can say that it's easily as good as reverse cycle. The only place where it's not as good is in humid climates, which in Victoria is rare. Other than that, its way cheaper and easily as effective as reverse cycle. Well recommended, I had mine installed for around $3800, does the whole house (3 bedroom) and it works very well. Not only that you can leave the doors open so it's great for a indoor/outdoor lifestyle.
 
We got it put in our house about 3 years ago now and I really hate it. Our house is a double story, and it really doesnt work well at all. We have since had to install 3 ceiling fans around the place to try and cool the place down.

I find the coldest place to stand in the house is directly outside the door/window you have open for it, where you can feel the breeze coming out of the house.

Also as Magnum said on the humid days, it is terrible. It has a distinct smell as well that sort of a cross between that hospital smell and cat piss!!

I wouldn't recommend it, and am very disappointed that we didnt fork out the extra costs for reverse cycle. We actually got the tech back after he installed because we thought that it was broken, but apparently thats as good as it gets apparently.
 

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Aussie Assault said:
We got it put in our house about 3 years ago now and I really hate it. Our house is a double story, and it really doesnt work well at all. We have since had to install 3 ceiling fans around the place to try and cool the place down.
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Neighbours got one done (double story) and we got ours done not long after, theirs is not much chop upstairs because Evap cooling was not specially designed for double story houses (because of the heat rising factor).

My parents rant and rave on about it how it has saved them from the heat, however from my perspective it does little to cool the house down (as much as say a proper air conditioner would).

90% of the time i find myself sweating a lot more due to the way the Evap Cooling works, and a lot of the time i am better with it turned off than turned on.
 
Xtreme said:
Neighbours got one done (double story) and we got ours done not long after, theirs is not much chop upstairs because Evap cooling was not specially designed for double story houses (because of the heat rising factor).

My parents rant and rave on about it how it has saved them from the heat, however from my perspective it does little to cool the house down (as much as say a proper air conditioner would).

90% of the time i find myself sweating a lot more due to the way the Evap Cooling works, and a lot of the time i am better with it turned off than turned on.
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Yeah it not so much upstairs thats the problem because you can usually place yourself where a vent is blowing and get a bit of the air, its more downstairs that it doesnt have any affect at all.

As you say as well it does tend to make everything feel like it has got moisture thru it, and does sometimes make you sweat. I have not and would not recommend these systems to anyone.
 
Well we have it in our (Single story), 4 bedroom, decent sized house.

I find it definately works. The one in my room blows right on me and right now i am asolutely freezing. However if i take two steps backwards that won;t be the case. I don't think that they are of particularly high quality. Comparing it to air conditioning is a joke, as air conditioning will really cool your house down.

However that is also particularly expensive. Exaporative cooling is also bad on humid days like today. It certainy works and i coudnt live without it, but that said i would rather air conditioning.

I should also mention that at some peoples hosues taht i know it works fantastically. Always cold, seems like the house is air conned but it isnt. Not sure why it is better at some houses ad not others.
 
We have it and it does the job well. I do have an ear problem which seems to be set of by air conditioners. The evaporative doesn't seem to affect it.
 
Having lived with both types of airconditioning I'd suggest you bite the bullet and purchase a refrigerated unit. There is a reason why these units dominate the market even though they are more expensive to purchase and run. I found the evaporites were next to useless on mildly humid days (when for me anyway I need airconditioning the most) and on really humid days they actually make matters worse by putting more moisture in the air. They work ok in dry heat but still not a patch on refrigerated. Plus with refrigerated you can go reverse cycle so it heats as well and this type of heating is one of the most efficient on the market.
 
I am currently living in a bungalow with absolutely no insulation and a tin roof which is at maximum exposure to the sun at all times! It gets so hot in here that I often have to leave the computer off because it sounds like it is about to blow up. It gets stuffy as all hell in here in the summer, (and freezing cold in the winter). I bought an evaporative cooler, thought it might do the job. At the moment I am getting jack all out of it during the day, but it does an ok job at night. That's if it is blowing right on me.

Any tips on how to make full use of this thing? The bungalow is about 10 square metres, and there are two windows which are never exposed to the sunlight.
 
I've always had refridgerated aircon. I get the feeling the only people that think evap is great are the ones that have never had the real thing or people that like being hot.
 
I have evaporative and it works a treat. Even in extreme 37+ temps we find it is much better than refrigerated. The bonus we find with evap is on a mid-high 20's day when it is not really hot enough to run the cooling we can run the fan only and get fresh air through the house. At night we run the cooling on minimum and it is like having a gentle seabreeze blowing. Also find it is much easier to control how much the house cools down with evap. My experience with refrigerated is if it is 31-32 outside and you have refrigerated it is about 18-19 inside. However with evap I can normally have the house about 22-23 inside so there is not a great difference when you go outside, which is why I think most people think refrigerated is so good because of that huge difference. Also at about $1 a night to run on the lowest setting it is not going to break the bank during a long hot summer.

My advice would be to go to a retailer that sells both types of units and talk to them
 

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The Hulkster said:
Me and the wife are about to start building a new house.

We are thinking about getting evaporative cooling throughout the house instead of the reverse cycle which is better but way more expensive.

I was just wondering if anyone knew if the evaporative cooling was any good. How does it go on a 35 plus degree day.

We were in a display home on the weekend and it had it and it seemed ok.

Is it cheaper to run compared to reverse cycle.

Cheers.
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Having lived in Both Qld and Victoria get split systems one big sucker for the living area and another for the main bedroom. You can get splits if you want two bedrooms on the same machine but I wouldn't recommend it. When its really hot in Geelong you will be mostly in the living area any way


Inverter splits systems also have the advantage that they are very cheap to run on heat as well

Cooling the whole house through ducts is pretty expensive to put in and run
 
If you get an evaporative unit make sure it is big enough for the house area.

I think they are great if you have kids going in and out a lot or patio areas such as pools and verandah's your in and out of.

You must have some doors or windows open so the air vents through the house to get the full effect.

Higher humidity areas closer to the bay or beach may cause a problem, I'm in an inland country area semi arid. So it probably works better out here.

On hot dry days it generally knocks the ambient tempature back 11-12 degrees from outside.

Another idea is install an evaporative unit and run a refrigerated one in the bedroom. But beware refrigerated units tend to dry your throat and airways out a fair bit when you sleep in a room with one going.

Good insulation is a big key as well.
 
Live in melbourne and i have evap, one suggestion is to get the biggest and best model you may pay a grand more than a standard model but well worth it. of couse evap is not as good and refrigerated, but as it is cheaper to run you can have in on 24/7 during the summer, it like haing a cool breeze running throught the house.

i work night shift and sleep from 3pm to 11pm, and never have any trouble sleeping, i even sleep with the doona on sometimes.
 

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I hate the evaporative shitbox on our roof more than anything in the world. I'm amazed they're legal it's that ineffective.

They sound like a single-engine cessna and even when you stand directly under a duct it feels no cooler than a simple oscillating fan.

Hiring a bloke with a callipo in his mouth to hang from your roof and breathe on you would provide superior results.
 
de_LICA_ish18 said:
I've always had refridgerated aircon. I get the feeling the only people that think evap is great are the ones that have never had the real thing or people that like being hot.
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I agree, we just bought a new house and put refrigerated air con in...so nice on the hot days...

The thing that convinced me to not bother with evap cooling was that it doesnt work well on humid days, a hot and humid day is when i most want/need my air con to cool me down.
 
dyertribe said:
I hate the evaporative shitbox on our roof more than anything in the world. I'm amazed they're legal it's that ineffective.

They sound like a single-engine cessna and even when you stand directly under a duct it feels no cooler than a simple oscillating fan.

Hiring a bloke with a callipo in his mouth to hang from your roof and breathe on you would provide superior results.
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Your unit must be very old. The new models are whisper quiet.

It's quite simple. You can't expect an evaporative system to work like a refrigerated. If you want icy cold, don't get evaporative. It's important to have other means of keeping the house cool. Insulation is a must. Don't let the sun in, keep your windows/blinds shut (or better still, get roller shutters fitted) and the biggest tip - don't wait for the house to heat up before you turn it on. If you know it's going to be a hot day, put it on in the morning. If there is a hot wind blowing, don't open doors/windows on the side it is coming in, open the other side. If your house is getting too humid (and it's not extremely humid outside), you need to open more doors/windows to let the moisture out. If you live somewhere that it is always humid and warm, it's probably not ideal. If you live somewhere that humidity isn't a big problem, then it will do a very good job of keeping your house cool. Make sure you get a big enough unit to cool the area you have - trying to cut costs will only leave you with an ineffective unit and bigger costs down the track when you have to replace it.
 
Our evap died at the end of last summer. It worked OK except for heatwave conditions where it struggled after day 3. Pointless on humid days (admittedly rare in SA, but still). The other negative was that it had to be turned off when we went out and needed to lock the house up, because you need to have at least a couple of windows open to run it.

My sister and her husband did a fair amount of research when they renovated and extended their house and that saved me the trouble of doing any. Reverse cycle came out the winner and we installed it a few months ago. Pretty happy with it so far and have doubts the evap would be coping in this heat.
 

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