Has anyone tried a big Portacool unit (swamp cooler) for their garage in/near San Jose, CA? I always thought we had low humidity, so that an evaporative cooler would work well, but it looks like the actual humidity is up in the 45-55 range on most hot day, which I fear is too high for a Portacool to do much good. Any actual experience?
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Portacool in Silicon Valley?
- Thread starter tom86951
- Start date
LS6 Tommy
Well-known member
The ones we had at one of the highschools I worked at were supposedly good until you got up above 75% RH.
Tommy
Tommy
cvairwerks
Well-known member
We run them from May until November here in the DFW area. Humidity runs as high as 100% and they still help some.
Doc Hollywood
New member
- Joined
- Aug 16, 2009
- Messages
- 3
I have a good size one that I used indoors for a while when the building super would not turn on the ac on Saturday since we were the only ones working. It worked well but now that other businesses work on Saturdays we now have ac. My unit just sits there now.
TangoFoxTrot
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jan 23, 2009
- Messages
- 1,961
Installing it in a wall or a ceiling makes a huge difference versus a portable one that wheels inside the garage.
I have a large portable one and it just takes the edge off.
I have a relative that installed a slim one in his wall and it not only cools down the garage he even leaves his door open to cool the house with it. Feels like AC, but this is in a dry climate.
I have a large portable one and it just takes the edge off.
I have a relative that installed a slim one in his wall and it not only cools down the garage he even leaves his door open to cool the house with it. Feels like AC, but this is in a dry climate.
The Tool Tyrant
ALLIANCE MEMBER
Before we finally put AC in the shop, I bought their (Portacool) 72" BMF and it sucked big time. The ONLY times I would use it as an evaporative cooler was when we had a santa ana, and the humidity was super low. The rest of the time I just used it as a fan. I have a humidity gauge in the shop and when I would run it it would raise the humidity way the hell up...any raw metal would start rusting.
If you live in the desert it would work great, but if it was above 10% humidity, it sucked.
If you live in the desert it would work great, but if it was above 10% humidity, it sucked.
Shop Specialties
Well-known member
The key is proper air movement in/out. The #1 problem is people treat them like an A/C unit and close all the doors and windows then the humidity skyrockets.
The Tool Tyrant
ALLIANCE MEMBER
The key is proper air movement in/out. The #1 problem is people treat them like an A/C unit and close all the doors and windows then the humidity skyrockets.
Our 12X14 roll-up door and twelve 4'X8' skylights were all open...It still sucked. Pissed me off with their BS sales pitches regarding effectiveness at certain humidity levels.
I spent a great deal of time experimenting with the water flow rates and nothing seamed to help. As I stated, if the humidity was below say 10%, it worked okay...if we had a nice dry santa ana, then it worked awesome.
Shop Specialties
Well-known member
Our 12X14 roll-up door and twelve 4'X8' skylights were all open...It still sucked. Pissed me off with their BS sales pitches regarding effectiveness at certain humidity levels.
I spent a great deal of time experimenting with the water flow rates and nothing seamed to help. As I stated, if the humidity was below say 10%, it worked okay...if we had a nice dry santa ana, then it worked awesome.
Without even standing foot in your shop I can tell you had bad air movement. You want to work with Mother Nature and go with the natural air flow to move the cool air from one end of the shop to the other. Water flow rates were not your problem. This is a very common issue and 9x out of 10 no one takes the time to think about the air flow of each single building. I have shops in the same town right across the street from each other and 2 totally different results 100% due to natural air movement.