Did your AC struggle during the record heat yesterday?

[Joe33]

Originally Posted by IDtheftV

First, I made a bit of an error when I posted my water consumption. I was basing that on living at an elevation of 6,000 ft in Albuquerque. I didn't run my system 24x7, so that's a bit of an unfair comparison. The most I ever ran it was 8-10 hours during a day. Living in ABQ is similar to Payson or even cooler Show Low.I suppose if you have an enormous cooler the size of a truck, then those rates of consumption are realistic. You can scale anything up. Bigger pads, fatter water lines, larger and more powerful fans are all going to increase consumption and cost.

However, in places where evaporative coolers are used 24x7, average household use is from 75-125 gallons per day - per household. For the purpose of this thread, we are only addressing the requirements for cooling a regular house.

Another factor in use is how hard your water is. My water in ABQ was soft enough that I didn't need to bleed out used water at all - all year. That was because I was using non-city water from an independent system in the foothills. If you have really hard water, you might have to bleed out as much water as you are evaporating.

In any case, running an evaporative cooler is going to be much cheaper than refrigerated air. All you are running is a low-powered motor to push air. Refrigerated air requires compressing refrigerant gas which requires a lot more force which costs a lot more money. This applies to an efficiency apartment or an industrial site.

No mater how you look at it, a BTU is a BTU. If the water dosetnt evaporate, you dont get any cooling.
Water will absorb about 970 BTU per lb. Basically 6 gallons per hour equals about 3 tons of air conditioning.
However you are not just trying to remove the heat that permeates the building as you are doing with an airconditioner.
You are trying to remove the heat from 4500cfm of hot 100+ degree air and cool it to somewhere between 70 and 80f.
It requires evaporating lots of water.