Evaporator coolers

Stevebrunel

Full Member
Posts
1
Likes
0
I am considering purchasing a small water type evaporator cooler. Some consider these to be air conditioners but that would be a generous interpretation I suspect!

I ate looked at the williston force on the net and has some very good and very bad reviews. Total cool have asimiler looking unit at about three times the price.

Does anyone have any experience of these coolers??

Thanks Steve
 
I don't have any direct experience but I looked into them once before.

Apparently they are not very efficient and a lot of fake reviews recommending them. How true all this is I'm not sure but it put me off buying one.
 
We had one many years ago, it was quite big and we used it in our daughters room when she was young. You could fill it with water and/or ice and it blew out cooled air. It also had oscillating vents so blew the cool air around the room.
Not as efficient as an air conditioning unit, nor anywhere near as noisy, but it certainly worked.
I wouldn’t recommend a cheap unit, get a good make, and the bigger the better.
 
Had a couple over the years in the house, and for 100 ish watts very impressive, the water tank is the limiting factor some are too small so you get stressed (hot) filling them up, I did buy one for the van about 10 years ago and sent it back.
 
The only thing I would consider is that as the water evaporates it increases the moisture in the air making the air more humid. Sometimes it is better to be hot and dry rather than warm and sticky :)
 
Admin said:
The only thing I would consider is that as the water evaporates it increases the moisture in the air making the air more humid. Sometimes it is better to be hot and dry rather than warm and sticky :)
Click to expand...
Oh yes Phil, better to use a damp flannel on your forehead and neck in a van with maybe a fan on and the windows on the shaded side open and the Heki open to let the heat rise out
 
If you put silver bubble wrap on sunny side hinged windows with suckers you can open them too for through draught, the foil blocks the sun while the air blows through the opening below. Same for the roof windows. Without shading these you could be getting the equivalent of a couple of electric fires coming through.
 
Some of them are ridiculously expensive for a tin box with a 12v fan on them, which they basically are. You could use a large plastic container, fit a couple of computer fans one end, a couple of baffles made of sponge, put in some water or ice, make a couple of air outlets the opposite end, and have your own evaporator for a 10th of the cost.
Personally, I wouldn't want the additional humidity in the van, either.
 
To have a useful effect, you need the van shut up - no windows or roof open, which defeats the object of having natural ventilation to cool it down. These units will never compensate for the additional heat held within the unit with the windows shut, so are rather pointless, in my opinion.
 
Get your external screens on (keeps the heat outside in the first place)
Top vent open and feed cool air in from bottom of the van.

Evaporative coolers are mostly a waste of time as we don't get the dry heat that is, needed to make them work properly...
Beware if you come across any that have the cloth membrane cycling through the water tank as over time it's possible for the tank to end up with a stale smell and IF the water temp gets up to 37 there's a possibility of legionella forming....

Get a fan and a mist bottle and spray cool water on your skin in front of a fan IF you want to feel fresher
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who viewed this discussion (Total:0)

Back
Top