Evaporative Cooler Product

Overview

An evaporative cooler, or swamp cooler, lowers air temperature the same way sweat cools skin: by evaporating water. It uses no refrigerant and no compressor, so it draws a tenth of the power of a comparable refrigerant air conditioner. The catch is that it only works well in dry air — the drier the incoming air, the more water it can evaporate and the bigger the temperature drop. In a humid climate it does little.

The unit is a molded Housing & Frame standing on casters. A reservoir in the base, the Water Tank, holds the water. The Circulation Pump lifts that water to the top of the Cellulose Cooling Pads, which line the air-intake faces and stay wet by gravity. The Blower Assembly pulls room or outside air through those soaked pads and pushes the cooled, humidified stream out the front Discharge Louvers. A Control Module module sets fan speed and turns the pump on.

How it works

Air entering the cabinet passes through the wetted Cellulose Cooling Pads — corrugated cellulose stacked to expose a large wet surface. As the air gives up heat to evaporate the water clinging to that surface, its dry-bulb temperature falls, often by 5 to 15 °C in dry conditions, while its humidity rises. This is purely a phase change: no mechanical cooling cycle is involved, which is why the only moving parts are a fan and a small pump.

Water management keeps it running unattended. The Circulation Pump continuously recirculates tank water over the pads, and whatever does not evaporate drips back down to the reservoir. As the level drops, the Float Fill Valve opens to admit make-up water from a hose connection, holding a steady level the way a toilet tank does. The Control Module board runs the Blower Assembly at the chosen speed and drives the oscillating louver motor; on most units the pump can be switched off to run as a plain fan when cooling is not wanted.