Port-a-cool. Opinions wanted

[fred d]

I am thinking of getting one of theses units

I am in metro Houston.
Days starting in Early June thru late Sept are as follows
Low of 75 high of 95 90+% humidity 20% chance of rain. When I leave for work at 6:30am it is already in the low 80's

1. Does the unit dump humidity into the cooling space? I don't want to have things rusting because of the cooling system.

2. Are they effective in a high humidity environment

 

[930dreamer]

From what I've read, it's a nice looking swamp cooler. In Houston it would be a bad choice. I have a rolling swamp cooler in my shop(Amarillo), no rust issues and it will knock 5-8 degrees from the air, but in Houston you need to remove the moisture from the air.

 

[NKlamerus]

We had one at my shop. Did NOT work. Humidity didn't dry the water in enough time to chill the air

 

[Haveblue]

We sell these on the side, so we tried different models in our shop. the results were the same with all of them...smallest to the largest units. We experimented with running a large unit at night with the shop closed up. When you walked in in the morning, everything was damp, even at the lowest settings. They are better at making humidity than cooling. I think in a dry climate they may work decently well dropping the temp by a couple of degrees, but for the money, an ac unit would be much more effective.

 

[IOWNJUNK]

Work great outdoors, used to set them up backstage at outdoor concert sites and they make a noticeable difference. Indoors I can see everything becoming very wet.

 

[Bib Overalls]

The big box stores tend to sell those things in the South in cycles. One summer they have them in their stores and they sell a bunch. They are all returned and the store eats the loss. For several years they don't sell them. Then, they roll over managers and bean counters and someone says "Why aren't we offering these things in places like New Orleans and Houston? There big sellers in Phoenix and Albuquerque." And the cycle starts again.

 

[Shop Specialties]

Quietaire is located in Houston. You should stop by their facility and check out the Quiet Cool coolers in person.

 

[jacob_coulter]

I think it would be a bad choice for that climate, you really need it to be dry, otherwise it's just a fan, only worse because it's making the place even more humid.

 

[Falcon67]

Houston? Maybe if you keep it stocked with ice. We looked at one for our race trailer - even here in mostly dry west Texas it's more fan than cooler. I spent $250 with a friend that had a good working 1989 Coleman Mach RV unit. Now I gotta figure a way to get it on the roof.

I've lived in Houston and I would not consider any swamper as a decent cooling unit.

 

[junkyardwarrior]

Houston? Maybe if you keep it stocked with ice. We looked at one for our race trailer - even here in mostly dry west Texas it's more fan than cooler. I spent $250 with a friend that had a good working 1989 Coleman Mach RV unit. Now I gotta figure a way to get it on the roof.

I've lived in Houston and I would not consider any swamper as a decent cooling unit.

Well said. We have one at work, and I had originally thought about purchasing one for my home shop. It is a waste of money. I checked into the pricing and went into sticker shock. $3000 for a humidifier. No thank you, our air is plenty wet already. I need something that cools and DE-humidifies the air. In other words, a real a/c unit. The one we have at work, on a typical Arkansas summer day, the ambient is usually 97-101 degrees F, with relative humidity of 60-70%. Nice and juicy. Temp coming out of the port-a-cool is 95°, and even more humid-even with the doors up, we are seeing moisture on the ceilings, walls, especially the doors to the parts department where the a/c in that part of the store cools the doors off. They sweat, and drip. It might work "OK" in the Mojave Desert, but not here.....waste of money if you ask me. In our shop at work, we'd need approximately 21 tons of a/c capacity with the lack of insulation. That too is out of the boss's budget, or he says it is anyway. It's a small shop inside a metal building with almost zero insulation...winter time ***** just as bad as summer, one of those infared nat gas heaters, keeps it in the 50's if it's 30's outside. I usually bring my own electric and plug it in, leave it running all day to keep my feet warm.

 

[Fixin'Stuff]

These are indeed just giant swamp coolers, also known as evaporative coolers. They work AWESOME if you live in the desert, but as the humidity increases, their effectiveness drops off quickly. Water drops in temperature as it evaporates and these things can evaporate a lot of it very quickly. They can drop the temp by 30 degrees when it's 105 and 5% humidity outside. But by the time the humidity increases to around 50% their effectiveness has dropped drastically. As I write this, it's 91F and 58% humidity in Houston. Not good for these things. See the chart about 2/3's of the way down this page: http://www.air-n-water.com/Common-Swamp-Mistakes.htm for a good idea of what they're capable of.

Also, in order to work best, they need to be constantly drawing in dry, outside air, while venting stale air out the other side of the building. If it is just recirculating the air in a house or shop then pretty soon the humidity in the building will rise to the point that the cooling effect stops.

All it would do in Houston is raise the humidity indoors. We DON'T need that!

I just have a 2-car garage, but I can't stand to be inside it most of the time. It's getting insulated and a mini-split heat pump added to it soon, so I can get back to fixin' my stuff!