Small, inexpensive A/C unit...legit?

[Tobra]

[MBAtarga]

While vacationing as a youngster with my parents in East Texas in July, I still remember my grandmother adding ice cubes in the afternoons to her two swamp cooler water trays. Her house was built in the early 1920's or so and had no central AC or window AC units.

[Baz]

Originally Posted by Tobra

Thanks, Tob....pretty cool....no pun intended!

[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by dad911

For a couple hundred they make room ACs that vent through a 4" dryer vent.

I may do a minisplit, so it hangs on the wall out of the way (I could use the heat here also)

Yeah, or they make little plates that let you vent through an opened window.

[flipper35]

Originally Posted by Tobra

We did something similar for our dog when we lived in the low desert. I had a HVAC booster section with the fan build in and had an extra transmission cooler to pump the water through. That unit was attached to the top of her house and we ran it during the hot part of the day. We also had a kiddie pool filled with sand and a soaker hose buried in it so she could dig and lay in that as well.

[speeder]

Originally Posted by asphaltgambler

Prolly work OK out on the dry midwestern states, definitely not on the southern east coast

Which dry Midwest states are those? You can wring the weather out of your t-shirt here in WI.

Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy

I’ve toyed with the idea of a small heat pump unit for my garage. They aren’t super expensive, the outside unit is small enough to wall or roof mount, and they work reasonably well. Unfortunately I don’t have 220VAC in my garage, which would be pricey since the electrical box is on the opposite corner of the house.

Denis have you looked at the freestanding A/C units that plug into a 120VAC wall outlet? You have to manually empty the drip tray but they work well to cool a room. At a past job we had a few to cool conference rooms with poor ventilation.

Originally Posted by dad911

For a couple hundred they make room ACs that vent through a 4" dryer vent.

I may do a minisplit, so it hangs on the wall out of the way (I could use the heat here also)

Yep, I’ve owned one of those free-standing, vent through a dryer hose deals for years in L.A. It works really well where a traditional window unit doesn’t fit, you just have to empty the water when it gets full and the unit shuts off.

Even Los Angeles gets humid enough to where the de-humidifier function is half the battle won. In the rest of the non-desert parts of the country, it’s more than half.

[speeder]

Originally Posted by Tobra

Smart kid! I wonder how many BTUs that are-up is, though...IOW, do you need to sit right in front of it.

[asphaltgambler]

The genius service director bought 4 giant versions of these to cool the bays down in 2007. I looked at one realized it was a swamp / fan. I went to him and said " You know those things put MORE moisture into the air right? Why do you think it's so bad here when it's in the 80's / 90's? Because we're in Virginia and it's always humid!"

Dumd @ss.....

[masraum]

Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy

Denis have you looked at the freestanding A/C units that plug into a 120VAC wall outlet? You have to manually empty the drip tray but they work well to cool a room. At a past job we had a few to cool conference rooms with poor ventilation.

The AC in our apt went out a while back. It only took the guys in the apt a few hours to find the leak, get the parts and fix the issue, but in the mean time they brought one of those in. There was a panel with a large hose (like a dryer vent hose, but at least twice the size) that went in a window and then the unit sat on the floor. It seemed to work really well in our case.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by widebody911

It's basically a tiny swamp cooler, and nothing new under the sun. Thermodynamics ain't free - you have to dump that hot air somewhere.

I bought a similar one at a swap meet for $20

those look like AC vents from an 80s GM vehicle.

[svandamme]

I don't understand how any intelligent person can fall for that nonsense.

You cannot get heat out of a room with a shoebox sized device
AND NOTHING TO MOVE THE HEAT OUT OF THE ROOM.

[svandamme]

Monoblock airco's with dryer hose work for small rooms
But as they blow hot air out
they cause low pressure in the house.. which means you will suck exterior air in the house through various gaps in the insulation/shell of the room&house.

They don't work well for big rooms/houses on really hot days

[WPOZZZ]

My gf's friend bought two of those. One for him, and one for her. I looked at it and there is a pullout tray that you soak in water then leave in the freezer. It looks like it is made of air filter material. Then there is a well that you have to put water in. I told her it is like sticking a block of ice in front of a fan. I don't think she has used it.

[speeder]

Originally Posted by svandamme

Monoblock airco's with dryer hose work for small rooms
But as they blow hot air out
they cause low pressure in the house.. which means you will suck exterior air in the house through various gaps in the insulation/shell of the room&house.

They don't work well for big rooms/houses on really hot days

You should see the giant version of those that they use for film production or other remote cooling of large spaces. I worked on a film once where they had to cool a HS gymnasium in an old military school w/o A/C on a 98 deg day in southern MN. Humidity was probably around 95%.

The unit is the size of a railroad car on the trailer of a semi and it had a hose about 3' in diameter that blew the cold air into the school. The hose was pretty long. The hot air and condensation from the A/C unit just emptied out the other side of the condenser on the truck. Pretty impressive...it really cooled and dehumidified the huge auditorium full people.

[Baz]

Swamp coolers are how we cooled our greenhouses when I was a grower in the indoor foliage industry.

One end of the greenhouse consisted of a porous fiber with water cascading down it and the other end a series of large fans that sucked air flow through the wet air end.

They did a fantastic job to keep things cool.

[Baz]

That was back in the 70's. They now have advanced materials like cellulose products that are more efficient.....

[Tobra]

Friend of mine in HS had a dad that was into orchids. Had the largest non-commercial greenhouse in the state. He used misters and fans to keep it cool in there, like 20-30 degrees cooler than ambient temps

[svandamme]

Originally Posted by Tobra

Friend of mine in HS had a dad that was into orchids. Had the largest non-commercial greenhouse in the state. He used misters and fans to keep it cool in there, like 20-30 degrees cooler than ambient temps

Well you can cool things with water & sun
But that won't work indoors.

[Rtrorkt]

https://www.thenational.ae/uae/environment/old-wind-towers-the-new-cooling-system-1.503775

Traditional cooling. Drape wet muslin at the top of the tower and let it cool the air therefore dropping it down into the dwelling.

[fxeditor]

I'm going to say no, it probably doesn't woork. Looks similar to the ZeroBreeze that was debunked by Thunderf00t a little while ago.