Browse Forums Heating, Cooling & Insulation 1 Dec 13, 2007 9:23 am Hi There
We were trying to cut down on the cost of our new house and my husband thinks the cooling might not be that good and that we could put in a wall mounted air conditioner later. Is Evaporative cooling worth having? Is it better than the wall mounted ones Many thanks Fin Re: Evaporative Cooling - is it worth having? 2Dec 13, 2007 9:28 am Hi Fin, it depends on where you are living. If you for example are in Qld or somewhere where humidity is a problem, then go for refridgerated instead of evaporative.
Obviously though there are price and running cost differences to think about too. We are hoping to go with ducted refridgerated for our place but if the quote is too expensive, then evap it is for us....in Melbourne it's not so much an issue with humidity anyway.... There have been some other threads that you might want to read as well. Do a search in the discussion tools area under air conditioning and see what the other threads have to say. Good Luck Re: Evaporative Cooling - is it worth having? 3Dec 13, 2007 9:29 am IMHO - Evaporative is better than nothing....but not great! It can also depend on where you live - it works well in hot, dry climates as it puts a lot of mositure into the air, but no good for a more humid climate. The advantage over the wall mounted air con is that it will obviously do the whole house rather than just one area. Oh...and its much cheaper to run than aircon. You just have to put with being a little "sticky" and keeping windows and doors partially open! Built Porter Davis "Dromana" 2007. Re: Evaporative Cooling - is it worth having? 5Dec 13, 2007 9:35 am Sorry V, just working on my next 1000 posts that's all.
But great minds think alike then hey? Re: Evaporative Cooling - is it worth having? 6Dec 13, 2007 9:45 am **Phoenix** Sorry V, just working on my next 1000 posts that's all. But great minds think alike then hey? Still working on that first 1000!! But I'm in a hurry now - done about 100 in the last 9 days Feeling left out of the 1K club Built Porter Davis "Dromana" 2007. Re: Evaporative Cooling - is it worth having? 7Dec 13, 2007 10:28 am I had refrigerated aircon in our last house and swore by it - but I also swore when I got electricity bills. The house we are building we are putting in evap because of cost and also that I prefer to have windows and doors open and not closed in summer. My husband however is insisting on a split system for our kitchen/dining/family area. We're building a big balcony upstairs and a large alfresco area downstairs and I want them to be used in summer and open everything up. Melb does however have some putrid days when you just want to be cool and watch the cricket. Evap uses water so I wonder when water prices are going to go up. Fi has moved in!! Re: Evaporative Cooling - is it worth having? 8Dec 13, 2007 11:13 am Of course you could design your house to use passive solar techniques and have no air conditioning.
For cooling, full brick and suspended concrete slabs combined with night time ventilation should be OK except for a series of very hot days in a row. Demolition August 2009, Construction Started September 2009, Completed December 2010 Re: Evaporative Cooling - is it worth having? 9Dec 13, 2007 11:34 am Correct Casa, - but in really hot climates - like Adelaide, Alice Springs etc, some form of cooling is desired on some days.
Evap is only good in hotter drier climates because Evap is just that - it evaporates water into the air and this has a colling effect, just like a sea breeze is generally cool as the wind blows across the water gathering moisture. Typicla design is an absorbent material has water trickles across it and the air (normally a fan) is pulled through the material to cool the house. A good passive design can use a cooling tower that actually sucks the air intot he hosue, so all that is required is asmall pumpo to curculate the water - which is evaporated so yes it uses water too - but not heaps. Refridgerated is just that - A pump pumps refridgerant coolant through a radiator to make it cool just like your fridge (this is the expensive runing costs bit) - then a fan pulls air across / through this cold radiator to distribute the cool the air in your house. Hence more expensive to run. Evaps need to vent to the outside via the house - ie you need to leave doors open so the moist air can flow in a out of your house. Refridgerated aircon is much better if you zone your house to ensure you are only cooling a small area - as they are expensive to run. And don't forget the trusty old ceiling fan - very cheap to run and very effective. In humid climes - fans are more effective as the air is moist and it has a cooling effect when blown across your skin. It's all about living with your environment as much as possible, design the house to suit it - then having tools available to adjust as desired during extremes via the above when it's getting too uncomfortable. Steve Re: Evaporative Cooling - is it worth having? 10Dec 13, 2007 11:50 am Lets hope one of those airconditioning "discussions" doesnt break out here!
In our new place we have had a couple of 30 deg+ days so far and most of the house has stayed nice and cool with no need for air-conditioning except maybe for the master bedroom which faces the afternoon sun.... ...which couldnt really be avoided as all our living areas have the "perfect" northerly orientation! (and eaves which shade the windows beautifully!) We have the ducted refridgerated air ready to go....but if we only need it 10 times are year then will be very happy - sooooo worth it on a 40 degree day to walk into that COLD air Built Porter Davis "Dromana" 2007. Re: Evaporative Cooling - is it worth having? 11Dec 13, 2007 12:15 pm hmmmm
no eaves!!! all the bedrooms upstairs with a northerly aspect! Refridgerated ducted air con is a must.... Cost to run? Who cares as long as I am comfortable.. Re: Evaporative Cooling - is it worth having? 12Dec 13, 2007 12:38 pm I had reason (work wise) to visit the design & assembly people from this place:
http://www.airchange.com.au/ach/products.asp?id=3 They make evaporative coolers that actually work as a heat exchanger - and don't introduce extra moisture into the air - all the evaporation is done 'outside' and the air is circulated through a cooled coil/membrane. The result is very little use of water (a lot of it is recycled around in the unit - somewhat like a cooling tower) and the air is not made any more moist than it is, nor is it dried out. The power aspect is the biggest thing. They consume something like 5-10% of an equivalent refrigerated aircon unit, so in older buildings & schools built with 'just enough' capacity in the switchboard, they can install up to 10 of these where they could previously only install 1 a/c unit due to power capacity. Dunno if they do homes, or strictly government & commercial work, but I reckon it's a great concept that makes evaporative cooling more desireable - as it loses the biggest negative with evap cooling - the moisture laden air. Re: Evaporative Cooling - is it worth having? 13Dec 13, 2007 1:31 pm commodorenut,
Looking at their site, they seem to be making ventilation units that preserve current internal air temp. Given that most refrigerated splits don't ventilate, I think that this would be much use in that environment. Re: Evaporative Cooling - is it worth having? 14Dec 13, 2007 2:29 pm how efficient is this evap cooler? like how much to run /hour? how much water used/hour?
i did try to googled it, but found no answer so far Re: Evaporative Cooling - is it worth having? 15Dec 13, 2007 2:49 pm I don't know all that much about it, as I was there solely to look at a small part that goes into them, but they had one running, and it was a cool breeze coming from it. They did briefly explain the process though.
There were 2 methods they showed me: 1. They basically bring in exterior air, pass it through a heat exchanger too cool it, then it enters the room. The interior air exhausted out through another heat exchanger - making the most use of the cooler interior air, rather than hot exterior air, and their is also evaporation occurring outside (to aid cooling). 2. They recirculated interior air through the heat exchanger & back into the room - further cooling it. Imagine a very thin waterproof membrane - water on the outside of it is evaporating (outside) while air passing on the opposite side of the membrane is cooled by that evaporation process - the air stays seperate to the water. Now imagine 100 of these sandwiched together in a block, with a large volume of air passing through the internal air's "dry" side, and a volume of water & air passing through the external 'wet' side. I don't know a whole lot about water consumption, but it was in the vicinity of a few litres per hour on one of the ones he showed me. Re: Evaporative Cooling - is it worth having? 16Dec 13, 2007 7:31 pm Interesting device CDN. Thanks for sharing it.
I'm still getting my head around it's cooling capacity v energy and it's good to see another approach. From the web site they seem to be geared towards the commercial space and changing air more so - versus pure cooling/heating . Is that correct? Steve Re: Evaporative Cooling - is it worth having? 19Dec 16, 2007 8:01 am Steve, if flew is building with H3nley, then they will be getting a 5 star rated Brivis ducted heating unit. It is standard in their houses. Re: Evaporative Cooling - is it worth having? 20Nov 01, 2008 9:10 am flew Hi There We were trying to cut down on the cost of our new house and my husband thinks the cooling might not be that good and that we could put in a wall mounted air conditioner later. Is Evaporative cooling worth having? Is it better than the wall mounted ones We have one: Pros - use much less electricity, fresh air constantly drawn in, maintains air humidity Cons - not so good in humid weather, can use a lot of water (check manufacturer's specs, can't do heating like RCAC, needs to be serviced and shut down annually (DIY or pay ~$100) traditional gable roof facade - Have you did the dark and light gray color combination in facade with gray stone in facade… 0 4211 In fairness nobody gave a crap about the ACCC and the gag clauses continued in the pro forma templates of a few other builders after the ACCC took on Wisdom, and more… 19 73474 Hi I am wanting some opinions about the build of a steel shed I am going to get one about 4.5 x 2.5 m steel shed and the height will be about 2.3-2.4m high The one I am… 0 14442 |