Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/06/21/miniature-portable-evaporative-coolers-work-kind-of.html
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It trades a dry heat for a ■■■■■ cool-er. And if the air is already saturated with humidity, you’re hooped.
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BoingBoing has been hawking these things for years. I swear I remember that it was shortly after a big discussion about them that the ads stopped having comment pages created for them.
Having a comment page for the ads was a lot of fun, but maybe not for the advertisers.
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I really miss the comments page for ads, but I can see why the feature was given a time-out, too much criticism and verbal abuse for products that were just okay.
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My dad once told me there were places in old cars where you’d put a block of ice for cooling the cabin. (I have no idea if that’s true.)
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There’s a reason they were called swamp coolers, and it’s not because they worked well in a swamp. It’s because they make the space they cool feel like a swamp. If you live in a desert, knock yourself out. It’s an inexpensive way to cool even an entire house. You don’t even have to live somewhere with high humidity for them to be less effective. Anywhere that’s not extremely dry, they aren’t going to increase your comfort.
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At the risk of saying the obvious: if it’s not too swampy where you live and you can do it, put in a ceiling fan.
After years of telling myself to get off my ass and do it, I finally got off my ass and had a ceiling fan installed in the main room of my apartment last year, anticipating the heat waves of the future.
The goal was to minimize the cost (in terms of dollars and the environment) of air conditioning. I figured we’d be able to set the thermostat a little higher, shave a little A/C use off. But in fact we haven’t turned the air conditioner on once since we installed this thing, and for the past four days it’s been topping out at around 32C/95F plus humidity (humidex 40C+).
I live in a moderately humid area (Great Lakes), and I have to say: for something that uses so little electricity it does an amazing job. And unlike a desk or standing fan, it’s nearly silent.
Of course, to get away with this you you have to be willing for a place to still be hot when it’s hot. It’s not chilly in here, like a coffee shop or the office buildings where I used to work. It’s hot, but still bearable; pleasant, even. You know, like a good summer day. So I’m satisfied.
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In NC when you hit peak summer and walk out in the morning it is a lot like that sceen from “The Abyss” when he takes in that first breath of liquid in the deep dive suit. You have to consciously continue to breath and take in the heavy wet air until you acclimate. Air conditioning in the South is just as much dehumidification as it is cooling the air - swamp coolers are pretty much a no go.
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Yep, I went to undergrad at Texas A&M. I’m familiar with that climate. Also, my first engineering job after undergrad was with an HVAC manufacturer which got its start making swamp coolers for the Air Force. By the time I worked there, they no longer made them, but we still occasionally had to supply parts for old ones.
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Swamp coolers also use a lot of water – 3-15 gallons (11-57 liters) per hour was one figure I found. Some desert areas with water scarcity are already restricting or at least discouraging use of swamp coolers.
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In addition to what others are saying, there are other issues with the desktop swamp coolers that involve slime/algae/mold/mildew growing in the tray or on the filter that I leave to your imagination.
So yes, the most economical solution for you is a 5000 BTU window unit. They’re rated for 150 sq ft, so it’s not that much overkill.
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They are good when you are outside in a hot, dry place. But in your house they quickly run up the humidity and the evaporating stops happening.
You definitely don’t want to use an evaporative cooler near an AC.
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As others have said, these things are useless outside of dry heat environments. Just get the smallest standard window A/C (or portable floor model) unit available. It won’t hurt anything if it’s over-rated to cover twice the space you’re trying to cool, it’ll just run for shorter durations at a time to reach whatever temperature you have the thermostat set to. Having one that’s undersized is where you run into problems.
Split window units are the way. I have been meaning to post about them.
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Usually grot shops on sites like these are what I consider “flyover sites”, but since it goes to support BoingBoing I occasionally stop in to see if there’s anything suitable I might buy to support them.
I did find a really great product there once; it’s a replacement remote control for an Apple TV that doesn’t suck. https://store.boingboing.net/sales/button-remote-for-apple-tv-bluetooth-infrared . I highly recommend it to anyone with an Apple TV.
And when they did have comments enabled I tried to not to badmouth their products. I figure it’s helping pay the bills, so maybe don’t crap on them? I guess not everyone saw them that way, though.
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For those who can’t install a ceiling fan for one reason or another, from personal experience I can recommend a Vornado brand Whole Room Air Circulator.
They say it moves air the way a ceiling fan does; I was skeptical that it really was anything more than an ordinary fan, but IME it really is different. I got one last year in the middle of a heat wave, and liked it so much that I bought an additional one this year. I’ve never liked having a fan blowing on me, but this isn’t like that. I usually put it on low, which is pretty quiet. Like a ceiling fan, it obviously can’t make the space cold, but it’s amazing to me how a little bit of gentle background air circulation can make a hot or warm space very pleasant.
The model I have is 533XT, off the shelf at Target for $49.99 plus tax. (Vornado does have other models, including bigger ones, ones that are metal rather than plastic, and ones that have remote control, but I don’t have experience with them.)
(Disclaimer: I have no relationship with Vornado or Target—just a happy customer who was surprised to be so happy with it, sharing info in case it helps anyone 
)
Wait, I should give an Amazon link for BB affiliateness, shouldn’t I? This one looks to be nearly identical but for the control knob, it seems…
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Speaking of which, I don’t understand a certain regionalism- whole house fans in the southeast. Our house in Memphis had one, and it was amazing, this enormous aircraft propeller-sized fan in the attic that turned every open window into a powerful fan- except the air it’s sucking in is very humid, even/especially at night, which made it slightly useless. Where it would really work well is the dry southwest/SoCal, where no houses I’ve seen were built with them. We’ve considered trying to install one here because as soon as the sun sets it’s pleasantly cold outside, but inside it’s still too hot to sleep. But it feels stupid to run the A/C at night when there’s all that cold air outside. Regular fans on open windows doesn’t quite do the trick in the 3 hour time-window from sunset to going to bed and needing to close windows for security and noise, but a whole house fan would get all that air changed out enough to cool the house for the night.
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For a site that has been related to “maker” stuff, this seems like a cool (!) fun project for your situation:
(ETA Or save some money, skip the copper and pump and just do the home depot bucket-with-ice-and-fan version)
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