Brivis evap water usage

New house built (moved in June 2014) with a Brivis evaporative air con. According to the contract it's a P54.

The first summer our water bills, for a house with only two adults and a newborn, were astronomical. We weren't watering lawns or washing cars, so just normal showers/dishes/laundry/toilets and our bills were around $1000 each. There's no leaks (I checked myself and then we had a plumber confirm and have a look at our taps and stuff as well.) the only thing we thought it could have been was the air con because it seemed to dump water quite often - but having never had evap before I thought it was normal. Our most recent water bill was great (about 300) but obviously we weren't using air con in Melbourne over the winter :p

The last few days we have started using he air con again and it still seems like it dumps too often. We can hear a constant trickle in the dowe pipe when it is on, and also noticed it dump after only being on for one hour (when it dumps we can hear it run down the roof and it overflows the gutters and drips onto the grass as well). Are these things normal?? Talking to an electrician at work he says his only dumps every three days :/ I'm scared of our next water bill!

At our 12mth inspection the guy found the water pressure was too high so he adjusted it. We did see a difference with the pressure in the showers!

Whereabouts are you living and what is the water quality like? It sounds like your model of evap cooler could be a constant bleed type which continually bleeds water when the pump is running and tops up with new water if the water quality is not up to scratch.

We live in the northern suburbs of Melbourne... I don't know anything about water quality :/ we're supplied by yarra valley water.

I suspect your drain pipe is not sealing. My last house had evap. There is a short white PVC pipe in the basin or water reservoir. It has an o ring. If the drain pipe is not in place properly the water will continue to drain and as the water level gets lower it will continue to refill. I suspect that this is the issue. Easy to check but it involved getting onto roof. It works like a toilet cistern with a ball float cut off valve. If it is under manufacturers warranty call the appliance company for them to suss out the water usage issue. You can check it yourself but it requires getting on a ladder so don't unless it is essential and call for maintenance instead.

We're in Perth but water usage should be the same. I fitted a 210litre drum at the base of the drain line from our evap and used the dumped water as top up in the pool. In the middle of summer with the air con on 24 hours we'd get about two drums full - 400 litres - so I'd imagine that's what you should be using at worst.

Melbourne's water quality is pretty good compared to say Adelaide where the water is considerably harder.

It could be the o-ring in the dump valve as goody59 mentioned but as you describe it happening since day dot it isn't likely it has perished to the point it can't seal but still be the case. I agree to get Brivas out to have a look due to your concerns with excessive water usage. You might have to dig out some bills to have some hard figures to pass on to them.

What a great idea about recycling the dumped water for gardens and the like! I never thought of that. I will take that idea and run with it.

After reading this thread I decided to measure how much water my evap cooler dumps.
It dumps 10 litres/hour

Thanks everyone!

Brivis came out for us (very quickly, I'm impressed with their service!). The guy adjusted a drip tray that stopped the constant stream going down the downpipe. He also adjusted the float so it didn't fill up to the brim like it was, which he hopes will stop the constant (hourly) dumping. He also adjusted some setting on the pad that had it dumping 12 minutes after shutoff and changed it to 45 minutes.

We haven't had more hot days since he was here to test it out but should do over the weekend, we need to monitor if it's made a difference and report back to them. fingers crossed it has!

Interesting.....

I've had a Brivis evaporative dumping water continuously all last summer. It dumps through the snorkel pipe even when the solenoid has raised it to it's highest level. Decided to call a technician who took a 5 minute look and said it was the water level sensor ($200 call out fee thanks!) He replaced that a week later and it still did the same. So then he says the level sensor is fine, it's the control module ( in the roof unit). He then would not come for about 4 weeks and after many broken promises I told him to forget it. So I ordered a new control module online and replaced the pads at the same time myself.

Unfortunately still dumping water continuously through the raised snorkel. I'm thinking the control module was probably fine. Where to next? What could it be? Any help much appreciated.

Hey Mikell, I have a feeling it’s just Brivis that are no good! We’ve had nothing but trouble with our heating and cooling systems.

I THINK the dumping problem was solved back then, to be honest I avoid using the air con as much as possible (have worked out a system for opening and closing certain blinds to keep the house pretty good, and lucky it doesn’t get overly hot here) all because the dumping experience put a sour taste in my mouth. I hated wasting so much water!! So far this summer I’ve only turned it on twice.

Evap air con, by the very nature of how they work, use water. The dumping is to get rid of high density water which includes salts, This is to maintain good quality water in the system.