As I write this, it is 103 off with 29% humidity. Inside, without the central air conditioner running, it is 102 and 30% humidity. I filled up this gizmo, turned it on and the air comes out in front of the unit is 91 with 45% humidity.
As this cooler works by stopping the change of water into gas, open your window and let the air circulate, so that moisture does not build up to the point where you are in a sauna and sweat that - UM - a person who is in a sauna.
It will not cool an entire room, but if you want to be typing away on your computer, as I do, you will sit in one place. So sitting next to the refreshing breeze with an ice tea and you will be happy as a clam.
Here are some figures on how it works and what is reasonable to expect from this cooler. . .
Everyone knows that to generate steam, you use lots of heat to the water. You will be pleased to know that if you dip a towel in water and hung to dry, the liquid water turns into steam, and in the process absorbs heat. How much heat, you ask?
Water weighs about 8.3 pounds per gallon. Turn over one kilogram of water to steam, you must apply for a 910 kJ heat. Multiply 910 times 8.3 and you get 7553 kJ. So if you can trick a swamp cooler to evaporate a gallon of water for an hour, it will be (approximately) in a cool place as much as a regular window unit is estimated at 7500 BTU.
But this machine pretending to evaporate about half liter of water (about one pint) in one hour. A pint is 1 / 8 of a gallon, which is about 1 kg of water, so you can go out from this machine will cool at a rate of 900 BTU per hour, which is about 20% of what a small window air conditioner will give.
Yet this is evaporative coolers significantly more energy efficient than a plug-in AC unit.
This cooler draws 60 watts. Compare with a window AC unit that draws about 20 times as much power (1200 watts and above).
If electricity costs 10 cents per kWh:
This chiller will operate at 160 hours (one week) for $ 1.00
A window AC unit that draws 1000 watts will work for 10 hours for $ 1.00
Think about what you need to cool down before choosing a cooler.
If it's just you and you are not too fussy about sitting next to what is essentially a fan with a little chill, this will do the trick. But if you need to cool the entire room from 100 degrees F to 85 or below, you must definitely an ordinary air-conditioning.
Another note. . . by ice helps a little but not a lot because
to melt 1 kg ice, it only takes about 140 kilojoules of energy compared to 910 kJ required to evaporate the water. So you get 6 times the benefit of the evaporation of water compared to just melt it. No doubt it helps, but do not worry too much about it unless you happen to work for an ice-making business and has plenty of free ice cream available.
Bottom line - I'm glad it does what it must do because it's just me sitting beside my computer. And it is much more affordable for me and much easier on the environment.
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