ice/water evaporative coolers/air con

[Robthebrit]

Has anybody had an experience with any of the water/ice evaporative coolers? I have seen them as basic as a cooler full of ice with a fan on the top to fully intergrated systems. I understand they greatly depend on humidity and will only work well in dry climates but I cannot help but imagine they do not work too well simply because the cooling capacity and power consumption of a typical truck air con system is quite staggering.

Rob

 

[BajaTaco]

Scott Brady has a little one for the rooftent that he really likes. I borrowed it for my trip to Nevada this past week, but never needed it. So I still have yet to try it out. It's a little evap unit that has a small fan - not much draw, uses 12VDC.

 

[91xlt]

"swamp cooler" is what i know theese by. they actually do work decent...in low humidity, the more humid it is, the less good they are.

 

[77blazerchalet]

Last night I printed out a 1979 Treasure Search magazine article which had a glowing review of the old Recair evap coolers - click on the last page in this link for the part about "Evaporative Coolers": http://brochures.slosh.com/frame.shtml?chalet/treasuresearch

The people in this site http://www.turbokool.com/aboutus.html were so pleased with the Recairs, the rescued the old comapny from oblivion when they couldn't find repair parts. Check out the rest of their site for more details.

Now if I can just find the publisher of Treasure Search, Ken Doe, to find out how he knew there were only 1,780 Chalets ever made (see the first page of the article), he is our 'official source' for this figure........

 

[Carlyle]

We use an evaporative cooler to cool our entire home. In southern Colorado this is standard on the houses here and for us works much better than an ac in our dry climate. Right now it's not an issue with the outside temp at 6 F. If I traveled only in dry climates, I would definitely be using a permanent swamp cooler on the camper as well. I have considered getting the portable dc unit for Baja trips. Ice is plentiful in all small towns, even if you wouldn't drink it and it gives you an extra place to stash more beer! Also, the humidity it produces feels good to the lungs.