worzel

You have to have a window or door open for evaporative so the air can circulate. But is it best to just have one open a crack or to have several wide open. With minimal opening you would think you get to keep as much of that air you have cooled inside. But if you have more does it increase circulation and hence cooling? Or maybe start with lots of openings to flush out warm air then reduce?

After 3 1/2 years I probably should have asked this earlier!

mulben

With minimal opening you would think you get to keep as much of that air you have cooled inside. But if you have more does it increase circulation and hence cooling?

If you close off the air flow to much it will decrease the efficiency of the cooling. Leaving more open depends on the capacity of your cooler .

Simple test is turn it up full on
Shut every opening
Open patio door or windows till the air stops" humming" thats your capacity.

Ours is Front door,large patio door and 5 windows on first lock.
Obviously you dont run it full all the time if ever.

Just find a happy medium

bridie

with ours we had to have at least one window open in each room....

Radlam

Having windows open will mean you are trying to air condition the outside world. Not a good idea for the electric bill!
There will be sufficient fresh air being dragged into the rooms without the need to leave any windows/doors open.

What sort of a/c units do you have?

worzel

Evaporative.

Radlam

Just been doing some reading up on these, not come accross these sort of systems in the UK. Something for me to learn I think when I get over!

I did find this out for you:

To provide effective cooling, evaporative air conditioners need to be able to create airflow through the home, exhausting hot air outside. To assist the cool fresh airflow through the home, open windows and outside doors that are furthest from the outlet vent. In the rooms that have vents you should provide an opening to outside that is approximately twice the opening area of the vent.

Hope it helps,

Rick

worzel

Yes it does, thanks. We usually have the laundry door wide open, patio door wide open and bathroom window in the en-suite half open. They are effectively at the far ends of each "wing" of the house. But probably wider open than suggested. Just having the patio door 1/3rd open is enough to allow air to pass easily without straining the unit.

Ducted evaporative is very common here. But there is an increasing trend for warmth over winter so people are having more reverse cycle units in each room, ducted heating or even ducted combined cooling / heating. We just put a jumper on and fire up the Rinai in the main room with small oil-filled heaters in the bedrooms.

Radlam

Yeah, im much more at home with refrigerant based a/c over evaporative.

I think its not really popular over here because 9/10 its required more for heating than cooling, certainly domestic wise anyway!

I found this aswell for the hotter days:

Also on occasions of hot winds you may need to reduce the openings on the windward side of the house and increase the openings on the other side to compensate.

Bit obvisous really I know ha!

rockpeblar

We do something very similar in the winter - I mean let's face it, it's not exactly freezing here in winter. I'm sure an extra layer of clothing is more environmentally friendly than running a heatpump aircon unit or two!!

Radlam

You trying to put me out of a job????