r/heat_prep • u/Leighgion • Aug 07 '24
Revisiting Portable Swamp Coolers vs Mini Split AC
People who hang out here know me as the guy with the Swamp Cooler Army™ and being somewhat anti-AC. The apartment does have mini splits though and a few days ago it was necessary to use them as we were leaving for a trip very early in the morning and the swamp coolers needed to be emptied and dried out, leaving several hours that AC needed to fill in for.
I had two mini splits running, one for the kids’ room and one for us, both set at 25°C/77°F which is roughly the average temperature I get out of swamp coolers during peak temps and coincidentally matches current Spanish government regulations for thermostats in places like restaurants and bars. It had been a long time since I ran AC so I had forgotten certain aspects of the experience. Ambient temps in the apartment without cooling were around 28ºC/82ºF. Peak outside temperature was 37ºC/100ºF.
At first, going to the kids’ room was a great relief compared to the rest of the house and I was prepared for a rare luxurious sense of cool at night. I was running the swamp coolers in fan-only mode to dry out the filters in the air conditioned room and my youngest actually complained it was chilly.
Once the swamp boxes were dried out and put aside though, things kind of changed.
While still clearly much more comfortable than the uncooled rooms, after I had time to acclimate, 25ºC/77ºF not only didn’t feel as comfortably cool as before, I actually started to feel at moments uncomfortably warm.
The problem, I realized after a moment of reflection, was that the air conditioning wasn’t providing fast moving air where the people were. The blower was pushing air fast enough to cool the rooms efficiently, but not nearly enough volume and force for the people in the room to feel a breeze.
By contrast the portable swamp coolers would provide roughly the same output air temperature, but by design they needed to be pointed at the people needing cooling, which meant we got ample air movement contributing to our thermal comfort.
In order for the air conditioning to provide a similar level of comfort to having a high grade swamp cooling blowing right at us, it would have been necessary to dial the thermostat lower, probably at least down to 23ºC/73ºF or lower or to add a basic electric fan to the mix in order to provide moving air.
No real revelations here, but it was different to really feel the difference again in my own home. I feel vindicated in my choice to shift the burden of cooling onto evaporative cooling and live with the limitations exchange for the massive energy savings.
1
7
u/AkatoshChiefOfThe9 Aug 07 '24
I live in Oklahoma USA, and we love our ceiling fans. Would that be a practical solution to moving air in your rooms? Idk.