Evaporative cooling is a method of converting hot air into a cool breeze using the process of evaporating water. It is similar to the cool refreshing effect you feel when you immediately step out of a pool.

Evaporative coolers utilize the natural process of water evaporation along with an air-moving system to create effective cooling. Fresh outside air is pulled through wetted filters that cool the air through water evaporation. A blower wheel then circulates the cool air throughout a room, home, or business.

Cooler Temperatures - More Comfort!
Evaporative air-cooling creates cooler temperatures a number of ways:

• It lowers actual temperature and will nearly always deliver cooler air under a wide variety of typical summertime climatic conditions.
• It lowers effective temperature - the temperature you feel - by at least an additional 4º to 6º. In some cases, the temperature will be lowered more, depending on relative humidity. The rapid motion of cool air increases skin surface evaporation resulting in body heat loss.
• It reduces radiated heat. The constant flow of cool air absorbs heat from all exposed surfaces and results in a reduction of the heat radiated to the human body.

Environmental Benefits
Evaporative cooling provides 100% fresh, cool air continuously while traditional refrigerated air conditioning utilizes a closed system that recirculates the same stale dry air over and over. Constant air movement of the evaporative cooler pushes hot air out removing dust, pollen, smoke, odor, and pollution and replaces it with cool fresh air.

Unlike air conditioning, evaporative cooling does not require an airtight structure to operate at maximum efficiency. In fact, you need to allow your home to "breathe."

Opening doors and windows or installing Up-dux™ vents to let air escape to the attic properly ventilates your home.

Evaporative cooling is also an environmentally-friendly alternative to air conditioning since it has no CFC's or HCFC's.

Energy Savings
Evaporative coolers use 70% less power than air conditioning.

Example:
A 1500 square foot home is located in Phoenix, Arizona where the dry bulb temperature is 107, the wet bulb temperature is 71, and the wet bulb depression is 36.

Air Conditioner
Assuming air conditioning supplies 500 square feet of cooling per ton, 3 tons of air conditioning would be required to cool a 1500 square foot home. Since an air conditioner would probably run most of the time in this climate, its electric usage would be approximately 3.6 Kw per hour depending on your utility.

Evaporative Cooler
Using an Essick, Champion or Tradewinds cooler with a minimum of 5000 CFM and ¾ horsepower motor, total power consumption (motor and pump combined) would be approximately 0.991 Kw per hour.

Results
If the air conditioner and the evaporative cooler ran for a comparable period of time, the ratio of energy for the evaporative cooler to the air conditioner would be 0.991 Kw per hour to 3.6 Kw per hour, or 0.275. This means the evaporative cooler would use 72 ½% less power than an air conditioner to cool the same area in the same environment.

Energy Cost Savings
Assuming a new energy cost of .14¢ per Kwh, this comparison would result in a possible net savings of ($362.88 - $99.89) = $262.99 each month! With this type of savings, evaporative coolers are a significant cost effective alternative to air conditioning.