If you want to beat the scorching heat but you don’t have the cash to install an expensive air conditioning system in your home, there’s an affordable and environmentally-friendly alternative: evaporative coolers.
What is an Evaporative Cooler?
An evaporative cooler is a specific type of air conditioner that harnesses the power of water evaporation to cool the surrounding air temperature. As the water evaporates, it turns from liquid into gas. During this process, the highest-energy particles will leave the water first which will cause a drop in the air temperature.
This process applies in the air in your home, particularly in the room where the evaporative cooler is located. If the environment is dry, the evaporative process will lower the air temperature. This is the same principle that works when you simply mist the air around you with a water bottle; as the water quickly evaporates in the hot air, you will feel cooler.
How do They Work?
Using evaporative technology, an evaporative cooler will lower the temperature in your home. The basic components of a evaporative cooler consist of a fan, a thick pad, a water reservoir, and a control panel that controls the machine. The fan will take in hot, dry air from the surroundings and force the air through the pads. The pads have already absorbed water from the water reservoir, and as the hot air passes through the pads, the water molecules trapped inside the material will evaporate and cause the temperature of the air to drop. Efficiently evaporative coolers can cool the air as much as 20 degrees cooler! The fan will then blow out the cooled air from the machine into your room.
Modern and high-end evaporative coolers have additional features that will make your experience more convenient and enjoyable. Some of them have hygiene filters that remove mildew, dust, and other floating particles in the air so that the cooled air comes out fresher and cleaner. Others have an ice pack that allows you to put ice, which further cools the processed air. Finally, there are models that have features like fan speeds, oscillation, or even remote controls so that you can find the perfect speed and direction to cool the room to your precise preferences.
Pros and Cons of Evaporative Coolers
There are both pros and cons to using evaporative coolers. In general, there are two major advantages that evaporative coolers have over conventional air conditioning units. First, evaporative coolers are more energy-efficient. Since evaporative coolers use less electricity to operate compared to most air conditioners, you can cool a room and save on electric bills! In fact, a standard air conditioner can use as much as seven times the amount of electricity to cool the same room as an evaporative cooler. This is because evaporative coolers only need to power the fan, while air conditioners have to use a compressor to force the refrigerant into a small space and to pull the heat out of the air. What’s more, evaporative coolers work more efficiently in hot and dry spaces, while air conditioners have to work harder to cool those same spaces. The second benefit is that evaporative coolers are more sustainable and environmentally-friendly because they lower your carbon footprint and they do not use any chemicals during the cooling process.
However, there are still drawbacks to using evaporative coolers. The main drawback is that air conditioners simply work better to cool a room in terms of temperature. Air conditioners can cool a room down to temperatures that an evaporative cooler cannot do. Furthermore, evaporative coolers are not recommended for large spaces because they do not have the power to sustain the cool temperatures. They work best when positioned directly towards you.
The Cleaning Institute
