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Although swamp coolers and air conditioners were invented to turn hot air into cool, the science behind each method is quite different.

What is a swamp cooler?
It’s just another name for an evaporative cooler. Water is used to wet absorptive pads around the sides of the cooler. A fan or “squirrel cage” draws outside air through the pads and the air is cooled as the water in the pads evaporates. The major benefit of this type of cooler is that you only need to power a water pump and a fan to draw the air through the pads.

They typically use between three and 10 gallons of water per day. That’s equivalent to a few toilet flushes or, on the high end, a short shower.

Unless the relative humidity is lower than 30% or so, swamp coolers are not very effective. They work well in the southwest, west Texas, and parts of Idaho, Washington, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana. In those areas you should be able to achieve a 20 degree differential between outside and inside.

Also, for a swamp cooler to remain effective it must exhaust as much air as it takes in. This means keeping a window open. If you don’t, the humidity will rise and so will the temperature of the air blown from the cooler.

Air conditioning, on the other hand, is popular because it will reliably dehumidify and cool the air, no matter where you live. This how an air conditioner works:

The compressor compresses cool Freon gas, causing it to become hot, high-pressure Freon gas. This hot gas runs through a set of coils so it can dissipate its heat, and it condenses into a liquid.
The Freon liquid runs through an expansion valve, and in the process it evaporates to become cold, low-pressure Freon gas. This cold gas runs through a set of coils that allow the gas to absorb heat and cool down the air inside.

Mixed in with the Freon is a small amount of lightweight oil that lubricates the compressor.

Swamp cooler vs air conditioner: which is cheaper to operate?

In our friendly contest the swamp cooler wins handily. For similar sized units, even an air conditioner with and Energy Star rating uses 4-5 times the power needed to run a swamp cooler.

The difference is the amount of energy required to power an air conditioner compressor versus the electric motors used in a swamp cooler.

Which is better for the outdoor environment?

Unless you believe that soon to be outlawed R-22 refrigerant leaking into the atmosphere from your air conditioner is a good thing, the swamp cooler wins again. The swamp cooler maintains a Green profile by mimicking nature’s way of cooling.

The way in which an air conditioner or swamp cooler affects the indoor environment of your home is determined by the way it circulates the air. Although an air conditioner re-circulates the same air, this is helpful in controlling allergens such as dust and pollen.

Since an open window is necessary when running a swamp cooler, you’ll be letting in what the air conditioner keeps out.

Swamp cooler vs air conditioner: Which one wins?
I think swamp coolers are a good option since they’re relatively less expensive and much cheaper to operate than air conditioning as long as you live in Phoenix, Arizona. But if you call Little Rock, Arkansas your home, nobody’s going to talk you out of your air conditioner.

Alternative-Heating-Info.com is a concise guide to radiant heating systems, geothermal heating and cooling, and pellet stoves.

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If like everyone else these days, you’re looking to reduce your fuel costs, check your charge air coolers. Also called an intercooler, this component of your engine is essential to keeping your engine fuel efficient. As part of the turbocharger mechanism, if your charge air cooler is leaking or not working properly, your engine’s combustion, horsepower and emissions are all affected. If your engine isn’t working at its best, you’ll be burning fuel unnecessarily.

To understand how charge air coolers work, it’s important to first understand something about how air acts around heat. The more that air gets compressed, the hotter it gets. And as the air temperature increases, it expands as well. This increase in temperature and pressure is part of the turbo charging process. But what you want to get the best performance from your turbo charging technology is to get more air into the mechanism, not just more air pressure. So as the hot, compressed air comes out of the compressor, you want to cool the air before it passes into the engine. This is where charge air coolers come in. A charge air cooler looks sort of like a radiator, only it works a bit differently. Air passes both inside the cooler and along the outside, so that the air is cooled and made more dense before it gets passed into the engine. That way more air molecules are available in the engine for combustion. The more air molecules there are available for combustion, the more efficient combustion will be and the more turbo charge that your engine will get for the fuel that is used.

There are some symptoms in your vehicle’s performance that can suggest that the problem is with the charge air cooler. If you see a great deal of black exhaust or smoke coming from the exhaust, that could be a sign. So could a sluggish feeling in the engine or a situation where you suddenly lose horsepower. If the engine is consistently operating at a hotter temperature than normal or you notice that you seem to be using more fuel than normal, your charge air cooler could be a problem.

But not always will charge air coolers need to be replaced. They can often be rebuilt to a point that they will work just efficiently as ever. But make sure that the repair shop that you choose has experience in working with charge air coolers so that you get the job done right the first time.

Anderson adds regularly reviews on air coolers to http://www.evaporative-air-coolers.com An online information magazine about the basics of how evaporative air coolers work and some of the advantages of the technology for a good home air conditioning, find helpful articles on personal coolers; http://www.evaporative-air-coolers.com/personal.html

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