Snowboarder Bo posted on another thread that he really likes the small evaporative air cooler unit he purchased. I remember being stationed in the Mojave Desert where the concrete open squadbay barrack were equipped with ‘swamp coolers’ and they did a fairly good job of cooling things down in that arid environment.
My question is in your opinion would an evaporative air cooler be a worthwhile purchase for someone living in Michigan that wants to use it for a 10 x 12’ upstairs bedroom?
What is the relative humidity of the air you want to cool? Evaporative coolers work better with lower humidity. And they will raise the humidity in the space you are trying to cool. Probably not a good solution in Michigan.
Additionally, evaporative coolers are built like junk. I hated working on them when I had them. Even brand new, they are cheap crap.
Edited to add: if you have regular air conditioning in the rest of the house, don’t do this, all you will do in increase the latent load on the AC.
Seconded.
Humidity is going to make a big difference. I knew somebody who lived in Abilene (TX) where evaporative coolers worked well. They moved ~100 miles east to the Fort Worth area, which is more humid (though still pretty dry compared to the swamp that is East Texas) where it wasn’t worth using.
I would think most of Michigan would be too humid for a swamp cooler to work well.
You can also look at each month.
Keep in mind we’re talking about two different things here that work on the same principal.
There’s the local “personal AC” Snowboarder Bo referenced, which is really just a mini humidifier that cools the air around it by adding humidity to it, inside your house.
Then there’s the roof-mounted type which humidifies the outside air, and uses coolant of some kind to transfer the heat from inside your house into that now-cooler air.
Both require dry air and a source of water.
Also, see this explanation of the small kind:
These do not work well in the midwest (specifically the eastern half Midwestern United States subdivisions - Midwestern United States - Wikipedia) in general, humidity is high throughout the region throughout summer.
The consensus seems to be that it would be mostly ineffective and a waste of money.
This map from Sylvane is pretty good: evaporative-cooler-map-best-locations.png (1302×1125) (sylvane.com)
States in the “good” areas frequently have morning humidity (when humidity is usually highest) that tops out in the low 50s, while in the Midwest most states have morning humidity in the low 80s. The “good” states have humidity that dips into the mid-20s at later parts in the day while the midwest the humidity might stay above 60 the entire 24 hour day. The midwest does have low humidity in…winter, when you don’t need a cooler. But the climatological patterns in the Eastern U.S. are such that the same time you need cooling, it’s typically humid, so evaporative coolers just aren’t great here. Out west many people say they’re almost as good as an AC.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen one (in use or for sale) here in the midwest.
The key is humidity level. Those work great in really dry heat, but not in humid heat.
Even in the driest of climes they’re good for maybe a 20-degree reduction in temperature, okay if you’re in the 90s but here in Phoenix, shortly before the monsoon season starts the daytime temps are typically in the 110s which means it’s “only” 90 inside.
Then the monsoon hits and the humidity shoots up from single digits to 30%* while the temp declines to, oh, 105. This is when we’d start seeing headlines, Man shoots wife, kids, dog, and self. Only the tightest of wads have stuck to swamp coolers; the rest of us have opted for heat pumps.
*You guys in Atlanta can stop laughing now.
