Evaporative Cooling

[tribey]

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.

You're preaching to the choir neezy. Having sweltered under numerous evaporative shitboxes in various abodes in the past decade I am well versed in bending over backwards to make the f#cker feel loved, but it gives me nothing in return, except legionnaire's disease I'm tipping.

Next time I'll be sure to be the chairman of the selection committee.

 

[Crimson Azure]

get refrigerated.
we have evaporatave and after aroun 36 degrees it doesn't do much at all.

Foud out the same thing, it didnt work that well during the day but at night it was a bit better.

 

[rocker_oz33]

we build a house last year and went with a reverse/split inverter and its great not that expensive.l got it on special and kept it till the new place getting build the builder put in on a internal wall for us with the motor on the off side of the house.l fell that the Evaporative Cooling use more power and cool down places in the house that don't need cooling down and the evap needs to be on all day and it only cools get a split heating and cooling and no ugly box thingy on your roof

 

[vealesy]

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

This is all false.

Evaps are cheap junk that cool outside air by 10 degrees.

Reverse cycle cools the air TO 10 degrees.

 

[Wahooti Fandango]

Works very well in my house and worked very well during the three days of 43.

 

[Kram]

Evaps have all been pretty effective in the houses I've had it in WA. Reverse is of course better but you pay for it in the power bill.

 

[Xtreme]

Have had ours for a number of years and i'm not sold on it. It does help out a bit, but there are too many variations you have to consider to get the house at the right temp (which doors or windows to open and how wide do you leave them open, temperature + humidity outside).

Quite often i've found it to be cooler if it remained turned off, i'd sweat more with it turned on and i'd find it more of an inconvenience than anything else. There have only been a couple of times over the last few years where i've found it useful.

Last weeks heat it was ok, obviously didn't cool the house down to 0.... but a nice 20-25 degree temp (although on friday... the weather did almost defeat it, when the house temperature was the hottest it had been). It's good if you want to prevent the house from increasing in temperature. I find that it doesn't 'cool' the house down during the day, but if you want a method to gradually cool the house down towards the end of the day when the heat has subsided (albeit by 5 degrees), evap cooling does the job. Through those hot nights last week i was cheering it on when it was helping drop the temperature by a few degrees every 20 minutes

 

[Kram]

I think it also depends on what you are used to, living in Kalgoorlie last summer I thought it was fine but then I worked days at the Nickel Smelter in long pants and sleeves in the day. If you work indoors with ice cold conditioning it might be more annoying when you get home.

Wouldn't might putting ducted evap in my current home as all we have is a split system in the living room which is good but doesn't help the bedrooms. Could use the cheaper evap until it gets very hot and then use both Only problem is the house has very limited roof space, not even enough for a manhole..

 

[JimDocker]

You're preaching to the choir neezy. Having sweltered under numerous evaporative shitboxes in various abodes in the past decade I am well versed in bending over backwards to make the f#cker feel loved, but it gives me nothing in return, except legionnaire's disease I'm tipping.

Next time I'll be sure to be the chairman of the selection committee.

There has never been a case of Legionnaire's disease that has been attributed to evaporative air conditioners.

Evaps do not work particularly well in humid areas. If I lived in one of the Northern states, I would probably go for refrigerated.

In areas where humidity is only a problem very rarely, I would go for evaps. I replaced the evap on my house last year and got a top of the range Cool Breeze model. It has no trouble keeping our house at a perfectly liveable temperature. I think most people seem to want to feel cold when they are inside on a very hot day. This is not particularly healthy, expecially if you have to go in and out at different times. The evap delivers air that is more moist than the air outside, the refrigerated system delivers air that has almost all the moisture removed which can cause dry eyes and irritated sinuses.

I work in an office with refrigerated air con but have to go out into the workshop 20 times or more times a day. I do not think the constant change of temperature doea my health a great deal of good, plus having sinusitis, I do not enjoy it either.

The environment is also a consideration. While the inverter wall splits are relatively low power users, most refrigerated systems use substantially more power than evaps. The amount of water that an evap uses is not that great and in my case wehn we turn it off and the water is dumped, it goes via PVC tube onto my garden.

 

[j0nni]

Ours has been working great today with the extreme heat, I don't know much about our system but we paid a fair bit extreme for the stronger one.

 

[azreal]

I always thought our air con at work was shit/dying/cheap and nasty/ineffective but then i found out it is evaporative and that it is working "just fine". I have split sytem inverters-fujitsu at home...they are the best I have ever come across...aaaahhhhhh

 

[jimmy35]

Cool thread .

 

[Scotland]

Air-conditioning is for soft *****.

If people designed and built their houses properly there'd be very little need for air-conditioners where most of the Australian population live.

That being said, refrigerative >>> evaporative every day of the week.

 

[Herne Hill Hammer]

In 2006 I was living up near Cobram in Victoria, bloody hot. Our home that we bought had one of those old Weatherwalls, it finally died so I had a huge split system inverter put in. It was mounted in the lounge and it would cool the lounge, dining room, kitchen and hallway. It never had enough punch to make it to the bedrooms so we used to have pedestal fans at the bedroom doors to suck the cold air in or if it was too hot the whole family would sleep in the lounge for a week.

A mate of mine up there has a sizeable business called 'Central Climate Control' I asked him about evaporative and he said they're good but they struggle when it's humid or extremely hot (but they were getting better with regards to extreme heat). Another mate up there who is a builder put a huge extension on his house and had evap. installed. I went around there one afternoon when it was about 45C. The house was opened up and when I walked inside it was beautiful, I was very surprised.

In '07 we moved back to Geelong and another mate around the corner has ducted refrigerated in his house, we went around there New Years Eve '07 when it was 40 plus, as we were the first to arrive the house was beautiful and cool but as more arrived and the doors were continually being opened and closed (he has a pool out the back) it was useless, he almost would have been better turning it off to save himself the running costs.

Our house in Geelong is double brick with ceiling fans and roller/security shutters. It would stay nice and cool for a couple of hot days but by the 3rd would really start to heat up. I was switching from working straight day shift to rotating shifts so knew I would need something extra to help me sleep during the daytime and with two little kids in and out all the time I decided on evaporative. We had it installed to 8 points (4 bedrooms, family room, kitchen, dining room and front lounge room) for about $4400. It works a treat, we couldn't be happier. Even with the extreme heat of last weekend and Saturday just gone it's been a ripper and has kept the house nice and comfortable.

We keep the shutters down, but not closed all the way, we leave the gaps between the slats open and can still open the windows a couple of inches for the ventilation.

 

[STFUJEFF]

Had evap in my place in Port Melbourne
Perfect
I got the biggest unit you could get and on full the it would blow the coffee table out the door
But to leave it on(bees dick speed) all night it was like a sea breeeze,
Dad had one in Eastern Suburbs
His was not strong enough
at it basically didnt do much

 

[The Kipster]

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.

bullcrap.....I have had both and ducted reverse cycle is outstanding and shits all over evaps

 

[Herne Hill Hammer]

bullcrap.....I have had both and ducted reverse cycle is outstanding and shits all over evaps

In your opinion.

 

[vealesy]

in my opinion too, and im a fridgie.

the maths and science involved in the two concepts, evaps dont come close.

 

[The Kipster]

In your opinion.

That's right......nowadays the consumption of power between both is comparable...evaps don't heat during winter and depending on your summer day they do little in certain environments...
refrigerated all year round baby

So therefore -

Refrigerated>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>country mile>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Evaps

 

[Rambo Stallone]

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.

Well on humid days it's shit,it don't do much,trust me i like the cold.The days when it's hot its o.k,but down in Australia the weather is getting more humid.I think I'll go for the refrigerator one later on even if it's not great for the environment to keep cool.What's the point of having a Air Conditioner to put it at 24 when it should be about 18 at least.One thing when you get it,make sure you clean it next summer to use when you use it,the pads/filters get so black and a lot of people don't.

I wonder why they get ill,it's easy to clean if you like to go on the roof to open it or get someone to do it pro. My friend reckon his never cleaned his he has had for like 10 years,he reckons you don't need to,i wonder why he has breathing problems.

 

[JimDocker]

in my opinion too, and im a fridgie.

the maths and science involved in the two concepts, evaps dont come close.

A bit over the top to talk about maths and science !

Some people prefer the more natural feel of an evap. No science or maths there. Obviously some people like it to be 16 degrees inside when it is 40 outside and only a refrigerated system can come close to that. I think it is unhealthy to have such a massive difference in temp, especially when people are moving in and out regularly.

I have a 16 month old boy. I like to leave the back door open so he can go in and out as he chooses. The evap still keeps the house cool and it does not dry the air out which again, I think can be unhealthy

 

[Kram]

With the price of power set to rise dramatically I'd certainly go Evap these days in non humid areas anyway.

 

[vealesy]

[/b]


A bit over the top to talk about maths and science !

Some people prefer the more natural feel of an evap. No science or maths there. Obviously some people like it to be 16 degrees inside when it is 40 outside and only a refrigerated system can come close to that. I think it is unhealthy to have such a massive difference in temp, especially when people are moving in and out regularly.
I have a 16 month old boy. I like to leave the back door open so he can go in and out as he chooses. The evap still keeps the house cool and it does not dry the air out which again, I think can be unhealthy

yeh i spose. what would i know, only been in the industry 7 years.

 

[Herne Hill Hammer]

Who cares how long you've been in the industry. I have evap and I'm saying that for my needs it's ideal. It depends on what peoples' requirements are.

Let me ask you this. If you have refridgerated and you have young kids running in and out, opening doors, leaving doors open. Is the refridge any good? I would say that in my experience as posted earlier it's next to useless.

 

[vealesy]

Who cares how long you've been in the industry. I have evap and I'm saying that for my needs it's ideal. It depends on what peoples' requirements are.

Let me ask you this. If you have refridgerated and you have young kids running in and out, opening doors, leaving doors open. Is the refridge any good? I would say that in my experience as posted earlier it's next to useless.

Lol, well i spose if i had kids they would be made to sit the **** down and enjoy the fruits of daddys hard labour.



Prolly why i don't have kids.