On 10/7/2015 10:14 AM, Oren wrote:

They call them swamp coolers because they turn anything short of a
desert into a swamp

They put humidity into the desert hot air, cooling the skin. They
pretty much fail to work when humidity reaches ~40 - 45%. Then it
feels like a swamp.

Cheaper than AC, but they need plenty of maintenance -- filters
cleaned, pumps, etc. of hard water minerals. Portable/wheeled units
are used in shops and garages.

They are *delightful* during the dry part of Summer. It feels better
than ACbrrr at an equivalent temperature.

But, they are hard to "adjust" to ensure moisture doesn't build up
in the residence.

Then, if you try to use *dual* cooling (ACbrrr), you spend energy pulling
that moisture *out* of the residence.

Lastly, they are not intuitive to control. It's not like an ACbrrr
where you can just turn the thermostat to your desired setting.
For a given RH and temperature (i.e., dewpoint) there is only so
mch water that the air can absorb, only so much cooling that
you can obtain with this mechanism. Once you get to that point,
any further increases in outdoor temperature *or* RH will be directly
reflected to the interior temperature/comfort level -- regardless of
how "low" you set the controls!