In-Depth Info & Products: twobitdavinci.com/4422/staying-cool

Don't use the interior applied tints on Low E argon filled windows. It will expand the inner gas and cause the seals to fail. Instead buy an Exterior Tint that gets applied to the OUTSIDE of the window. This will reflect the heat away before heating the gasses in the windows.

With evaporative cooling, you must vent the room. I live in Tucson and once lived in a home with evaporative cooling. We used vents into the attic so the moisture didn't fill the room and the attic stayed much cooler.

I installed exterior shades on my last home's south-facing side. My summer electric bill fell by 30%. My previous residence had exterior bamboo shades. I really liked the look of those. I could still see out through them but not in. Currently, here in Arkansas, I keep my central air set to 79. In addition, I run a small window unit set to 72 in my finished basement. It's naturally cooler there. And with the A/C, it's very comfortable. I don't mind 79 for short stretches when I need to go upstairs. This past month it was blistering with temperatures between 90 and 100 most days, and my electric bill was under $100. I think that's pretty good for an all-electric home with no solar.

The window film is nice, but what you really want is an awning. Keep the heat outside keep the view.

I took old bedsheets, cut them in half and shut them into the windowframes (with the cloth on the outside) on hot days to keep the sun from shining directly inside. The effect is enormous - my apartment heats up much slower. Combined with keeping windows open through the night to let things cool down and I barely ever need to run my AC unit.

With judicious use of an exhaust fan in a window, and another window open, I’ve managed to cut my air conditioner use to about 30 hours so far this season. . . at 45 degrees north latitude. . . My electricity bill works out to less than CDN $78/month. Evaporative coolers are great in extremely dry areas. Here in Ottawa, it gets very humid.

One Pro Tipp for the window heat film: If you install it on the ouside + not directly on the glass then it has the highest cooling effect. The heat film gets hot but does not heat up the glass behind because there is no direct contact so less heat gets into the house. It acts then as a transparent heat shadow for the window. Only disadvantage is the slight noise it makes when the wind blows around it but this might be avoided by spanning the heat film on a wooden frame. That way it could be easily mounted in the summer time and taken off in winter time too. Other than that, cool projects you have shown there that can save a lot of energy and money. Especially in an arid region an evaporation based cooling might also help to keep the humidity in a level that is good for humans (50-60%) and reduces costs on cooling. I would just use an indoor one so that water will not evaporate to the outside if the device is not on.

I also recommend Solar Screens. They are a big thing here in Texas. And you forgot trees. ;) Also, thermal drapes will help.

Tinted Window film is great. I used it on my home and it made the rooms much more comfortable. There are installers you can hire if you're not handy or want a professional installation. It is just like tinting windows on your car to keep it cooler.

nice video. and yes to ceiling fans. some words on swamp coolers. what you see in the back is not 'coils'. it's an absorbent pad medium. in your case it's a thick honeycomb paper medium. yes, you need to connect water to it so you don't have to fill it up every few hours. also, swamp coolers work by creating pressure in your house and airflow. with the size cooler you have you could probably crack open a window on the other side of the house (or wherever you want to direct the air) and it will cut down on the humidity. IF THE AIR IS HUMID OUTSIDE, turn off the pump and just run the fan. the high humid air being pulled through the swamp cooler should be enough to 'dampen' the absorbent pad and still cool. if you end up having the whole house fan then that could help move the air. but opening another windows somewhere in the house WILL still cool the house because the swamp cooler will be pushing cool air through the house and out the other window that is open just a crack. and yes you can also run a dehumidifier, but honestly if you need one then you're doing something wrong and need to open some part of your house so the air can flow. just a tip from a native arizonan. ps, i've never needed an ac unit even in 120degree weather. ;)

When I lived in SoCal, I installed a 'Whole House Fan'. By applying the "run at night" principle, and closing up the house before going to work, this kept the a/c from coming on until much later in the day. The window tinting stuff, requires you consider how much heat you want to come in during colder (freezing) winter days, so may be a location dependent consideration. Thanks for videos like this.

An evaporative cooler needs a really really dry environment because as you increase the humidity in the air you decrease the ability for your perspiration to cool you off. There is a rule of thumb for the maximum wet bulb temperature I believe and I don't remember the exact number.

I don't have a "Whole House Fan" but, I'll use a box fan in my attic access doorway to get a breeze through the house. Just open the windows where you want the breeze to come from. Pulls through the house up in the attic and out of the roof vents.

im a NETA electrical technician. my boss just sent me to IR school last week. I passed my exam and now I am a level one thermographer. doing a load bank scan on a generator right now, just killing time to let the conductors warm up from the load bank. Cool video!!

I have been using an ordinary fan for cooling bedrooms at night. Ones that have a square container so that the window can be drawn up and lock them in place. A particle board piece closes off the rest of the window gap. Most heat at night is excess heat stored in the house during the day, and once the cool night air outside is pumped into the room it quickly cools the room down to such an extend that you have to turn the fan off in an hour or so. This fit out costs $30.00 per room.

try and find away to stop the sunlight getting directly into the rooms. a lot of places in Europe where its stinking hot they have shutters that you can close when the sun is direct

I use the same evaporative cooler for my home in San Jose. I crack the windows in the kitchen and upstairs bedroom to allow the hot hair blow out and act like a whole house fan. I use in the morning to cool the house then once the house gets to 68 degrees I turn it off and close the windows. In the evening when it cools down outside around sunset, I again open the window upstairs and run the evaporative cooler to blow fresh cool air into the house, the hot air rises and goes out the upstairs windows. It really works great and saves a lot of electricity. One other thing, my house is painted white - this helps reflect the sunlight and keep the house cool. I also added gable vents to my attic.

A friend in Boston had his roof painted white. It worked rather well. But yes, the solar panels can have a similar effect. Where you are, you might see if solar PV / thermal panels make sense to boost your hot water and make the PV part more efficient.

Brilliant, your kid doing "I am a robot" what a star.

What you want is "Ceramic window tint" They use it for cars, but make it clear as well for windshields, cuts about 90% of the heat, it's incredible stuff, it can actually crack glass it rejects so much heat. They also make ceramic paint that dose the same 👌

I use one of the portable versions for the garage and back patio, but even in the garage and with a starting humidity of about 5% it quickly becomes a sweltering jungle. Partly because the reduced temperature is still about 85 degrees (from 110) and now it is about 50% humidity. As a temporary solution or for outdoor patios evaporative cooling is useful, but with modern AC units (with some shade over the windows) is overall more efficient (ie considering the energy cost of clean water to evaporate) and it doesn't fill the house with humidity which may cause mold. And mold is a big problem in San Diego within about 3-5 miles of the ocean.

True! The best way is to get solar!

Two criticisms of your application of window films. 1) On double-paned windows, the film should be on the outside. This is because, as you showed, the window becomes much hotter, leading to premature failure of the seals. 2) In the northern hemisphere, application on the south-facing windows prevents passive heating during the winter months, requiring you to run the heater more than you otherwise would. Application should have been on the west facing windows to block the sun at peak summer heat.

Evaporative coolers are fine for the most part, but since you have a pool, here's an idea. A twist on the whole house fan idea, if you would. Take a large automotive radiator, plumb it into your pool's filtration and heating system and have sizable fan blowing air through it. It can be placed either in the living space or in the attic to cool it down. As long as the water doesn't go over 90 to104 degrees Fahrenheit, you'll be getting low cost heating for the pool and low cost cooling for wherever you place the radiator.

@Two Bit da Vinci - *2-stage evaporative coolers exist which put only a little humidity indoors,* because they pre-cool the water with a 1st evaporation loop strictly on the outside. The cool water is then pumped inside where it goes over another set of fiber pads, with air flow produced by a 2nd fan. The cool water has low vapor pressure, so only a little of it evaporates indoors. This allows the evaporative cooling unit to be effective whenever the outside *relative humidity* is below about 90%. In the hottest part of the day, relative humidity drops, so you get the cooling effect just when you need it most. If a humid climate, they can stop working at night, but then with less of a heat load to handle, a small air conditioner can provide cooling and dehumidification. *As for going extra cool at night, another good trick is to use water-filled bottles for thermal storage.* Used bottles from most kinds of water-based fluids can be re-used for this. It is best to put them on wire shelves so air can move around the bottles. If desired to hide the bottle shelves from view, you can put a piece of fabric over all but the bottom few inches of the shelves, leaving the top open. This gives a path for passive convective airflow. The shelf full of bottles also gives you emergency water, and might even help extinguish a fire if you have one. I just avoid using polyethylene bottles with city water, because the chlorine/chloramine can make that type of plastic brittle, causing a handful of those bottles to eventually develop leaks. *This simple thermal storage hack works whether or not you are using off-peak power, and reduces the cooling load during hottest hours when air conditioner efficiency falls off.*

You gotta crack a window elsewhere to allow the air from the evaporative air to escape your home… this also is how you control the flow of cool air through your home.

I had a boss a few years ago that thought those evaporative coolers were the ticket to cool the shop. I told him that it was going to be a mistake to use them here in Florida. Most of the time he would listen to advice but if he made his mind up... He went ahead and bought 4 of them at about $2400 each. These were large industrial units. The fans were either 48 or 52 inches in diameter (can't remember for sure). The evaporative cores started growing mold. The odor was bad and the employees complained about the added humidity. You could stand in front of them and you definitely felt cooler but it was also clammy and uncomfortable. We ended up removing the pads and disconnecting the water and just using them as large, expensive fans. Definitely not recommended for South Florida.

I have some other tips concerning colour. Dark colors attract more heat, light colors reflect more. Widely applicable for outside materials like window frames, wall paintings and roof tiles, even terras floors. Inside flooring becomes hotter when dark and sun shining on it. Another good idea is to use the roof like a sunscreen so it creates shadow on wall and windows when the sun is high in summer. In winter sun is coming in much lower.

If you can afford it, upgrading your house to the passive house standard is probably the best option. When you prevent air from passively entering or escaping your house with proper insulation, you need very little cooling to keep the house cool. Now, the elimination of passive air transfer means you would eventually use up all of the oxygen in your house, so you have to actively control the transfer of outside air into the house and inside air out of the house. Because this is controlled, you can perform a heat transfer at the same time, reducing the amount of heat being brought into the house from the outside world. As I suggested on a previous video, I think looking into what it would cost to upgrade your little abode into a passive house would make for an interesting video.

Here’s an idea: build a pergola around the south and west faces of your house and roof it with solar panels. Consider overlapping it a foot or so over your flat roof. Benefits: solar energy, outdoor shade, indoor shade, no rain on your windows, and some protection for the edge seams on your roof. Also, you may find that because this is considered ground mount solar you do not need module level rapid shutdown, saving thousands on a large solar installation.

Window shades and awnings are more effective then tint. Not to mention the ancient way of staying cool, some call them trees. Tree location is important!

Hot air rises, and so small ceiling vents can be used to exhaust hot air that accumulates close to the ceiling out of a room. Also, humid air (water vapor) is lighter than dry air and so a lot of humid air can also be exhausted out of a room via a ceiling vent (which may not work in very humid locations). I live in a location that has very hot and dry summers and small ceiling vents in each room take a significant amount of heat out of each room. During winter you can easily block the vents to prevent losing any heat that you ideally want to retain.

3:44 I think thermal cameras can't measure a window temperature directly. They tend to act like mirrors so you're measuring a reflection. The floor measurement you took right after should be useful though. You'll have to play with it to verify, mine is cheap and is maybe missing a filter or something.

A $80 roll up sun shade from Costco outside would out perform tint, blinds or anything mounted inside.

I never understood why manufacturers let all the condensate run onto the ground. You'd think they'd take advantage of evaporative cooling and pump the condensate over the hot coils on the outside. There are also some good old school methods of cooling your house such as tree placement, adding shade is a great way to reduce the sun hitting your home, deciduous up here so that when foliage drops in the fall, sun gets full solar. Also a thing my friend showed me years ago. A coil of black water pipe buried underground with one end coming from outside and the other in. When they opened the roof hatch it drawed the cool air in. You could probably throw a long coil under your house and not even bury it but it actually worked very well.

Evaporative coolers don’t work well in east texas with high humidity we have. But do recommend window tint.

Please take a look at Mini-split units for cooling and heating (the inverter type). The normal SEER is 20 but I have seen as high as 38.

Thank you for all the wonderful information I’ve learned from you over the years. A variable that many don’t understand about air movement like a ceiling fan is that it helps evaporate your sweat through convection (evaporative cooling) it’s not that you sweat more when the fan is off.

You could add shade roofs over your windows and that cuts ALL your windows from getting hot and radiating heat. Costs more initially but cuts down on heat.

We love our swamp cooler and we use dehumidifiers to get rid of it, my wife usually gets our house down in the 60s with that thing. It’s amazing

Building a house in the Caribbean soon. Glad I watched this video, thanks!

Connect the water outlet of the A/C to the water inlet of this evaporator. This is a complement to A/C because when sleeping a too dry air from A/C can be a problem (dry mouth etc.) A/C can output a gallon and hour depending on power. However this water is not good for plants because it lacks the minerals. In the room I run a small evaporator for babies, to add some humidity for better sleep (with A/C in the living room). Modern inverter tech is using way less power when used continuously and with a temperature difference with outside that is reasonable and the insulation is good. Hogh power use is when you start it, but when the walls and furniture are at temp, then the power used drops.

That swamp cooler needs a humidistat that turns the water cooler off at a certain high humidity and back on at a low humidity.

I live near Phoenix, and have energy & cost efficiency OCD, so thanks for this info !

Years ago, I rented a house that had a attic( or whole house ) fan. Unless it was truly miserable hot out, it did really well. I turned it on in May and off in October. The house was designed with the fan in mind, it wasn't just tacked on later.

Evaporative coolers are amazing if you live in a dry place! But to get the full effectyou want an intake and outtake fan. This will keep the room cool, and keep the humidity under control. I use to run a warehouse and it is amazing how well 1 large evaporative cooler can work. I also installed some reflective window film on the south facing windows in the office area and wow! We rarely needed to run the AC after that!

Good vid 2Bit and a lot of great comments of other things we can do too. White outside and in is a Biggy for cooling and lighting, Solar Panels are also great for cooling with an added passive cooling effect u get from the roof shading & breezeway under, roof venting helps and insulation is always worth it. Evaporative must have airflow throughout, so you must open a window or door at least slightly to allow airflow when using Evaporative A/C’s. Solar PV for Hotwater also makes better sense than other method nowadays and Inverter A/Cons are more efficient for running with Solar now too. Solar Skylights & vents all help and shutters over patios to let light and heat in for winter and shade in summer. We face houses North here in Australia if possible for better Solar gain. Cheers

Windex is best to clean & apply window film, also you should use an exterior window film so you don't super heat the exterior pain of glass as that is not a good idea with insulated windows, And for that fan unit they are great but pointless in a residential neighborhood do to the fact that you would need to canulate the cost of your water & sewer bill, you will save on electric but pay way more in your water bill every month, Now if you have a well & septic tank your good.

I was very surprised to see a window AC cut into the wall these days. Instead, buy a split duct system to have a small little hole instead, and added bonus: it can be used as a heater in the winter time.

Reflective film does reduce energy entering the house. However, when it is a dual pain window, the reflective film almost double the glass temperature of the outside pane. The increased thermal stress has broken panes. If the outer pane inside surface can be coated with film, the heat stress can be reduced. I like trellis with vines in front thhe window shades the window. The vine also absorbs CO2. "Swamp coolers" work well except when the wet bulb gets too high (check the US Navy stress chart).

To keep your attic cooler try Radiant barrier. If you use PVT solar panels you can use the thermal energy with an absorption cycle AC unit to cool your house. Otherwise, you can install solar thermal panels for the thermal input to the absorption cycle AC. You may also want to put in some thermal energy storage. I would suggest a phase change system.

I had a large 4 pad swamp cooler on the roof for 25 years until I built a house with HVAC. When I was home, I would open windows where I needed to cool. When away, I wanted the windows closed for security. I installed 2 flapper vents in the cover of the hole for attic access. With the cooler on and the windows all closed, the flappers would rise up and vent air through the attic, cooling it off as well. You could feel the cool air coming out of the gable vents on each end of the house. It was totally automatic and kept the humidity from building up in the house. I ran the swamp cooler on a timer, so when I came home to a cool house and a cheap electric bill it made me smile. I also had a by-pass on the pump that dumped a small amount of water down the sewer vent and brought in more fresh water which kept the salt buildup in check. I also painted the pan with the tar stuff made for that to keep it from rusting out. I have never seen a swamp cooler last 25 years. The guy that bought the house ripped that all out and put in refrigerated air. I guess he liked high electrical bills.

For places that have no issues with water supply, you could feed swam-cooled air in the AC's condenser to boost efficiency without dumping humidity indoors. Some commercial ACs do it, though this requires periodic cleaning, inspection and refills so the evaporator doesn't become a breeding ground for nasty stuff like legionnaire's disease.

We replaced our shingle roof with a metal roof. I went to the manufacturer of the metal sheets and asked which color is the least transmissive for heat and what extra did they do with their roof. Astoundingly, the least transmissive was a cream color. The extra thing they did was to put a radiant barrier under the metal. Astoundingly, they did not sell it! We installed it and immediately we observed that the top horizontal surfaces were cooler and the rooms more comfortable in general. Previously when you touched the top surface and the bottom surface, the top was obviously hotter. If you stapled the radiant barrier across the roof rafters it would do two things; reflect back the long infrared (like your window film) and heat the air above. The heated air would rise between the roof rafters, pulling in cooler air from the eave vents. To head off the, "That can't work it's not insulation!" crowd, you're correct, not insulation, radiant barrier... If you have a ridge vent you would have a structured air flow venting the attic.

This is a great video and it should have a lot more of these but 163,000 is not too shabby! It’s so awesome how your channel has grown. I hope this is your full-time job now.

As an acoustic guitarist and my wife being a cellist, we need humidity to be between 45% and 55% to prevent the instruments from drying out and damaging the instruments so the evaporator cooler is a good option for us in San Diego where humidity in the summer is quite low. I would think those who have a lot of wood in their house would also want to consider an evaporative cooler to prevent wood from drying out and cracking. A standard AC unit will remove moisture from the air and dry out the house thus keeping the humidity much lower than is good for wood.

A powered attic vent also helps and is different from a whole house attic fan. My powered attic vent runs most of the day while I keep windows closed. At night I turn on my whole house attic fan.

In Albuquerque, running a swamp cooler will get your in house temperature into the 50's REAL quick! + I'm a Meteorologist and I personally did the Obs (Observations) at the ABQ Office for a while. It was amazing to do the readings of relative humidity in that City. Here is more: Wow... the wet bulb was required just to Measure the relative Humidity in ABQ! This means that you have to take a small hand held "sling psychrometer" which you WET one (with a small bag, over it) of the themomters. Then you use the handle to spin around the 2 the themomters for a bit; and check the temperature of depression. This gives a cooler temperature for the wet-bulb & you can use this calculate the humidity. Albuquerque is a rare place for weather. Not only is it at a high elevation a mile high; but prevaling winds don't provide much moisture to the air. When I said calculate the humidity this can be done easily in most places. But in ABQ we used a book and measured RH well down into the single digits. So, living there is wonderful for your cooling - it is virtually free.

Two other things you should consider. Ridge vents and awnings. The ridge vents will passively remove heat from the attic while the awnings will keep the windows cooler.

Yeah in Goa in the old Portuguese houses they have sloped window shades outside so the sunlight does not fall directly on the windows but on the shades also tiled roofs very high so hot air escapes thru the gaps in the tiles.

Instead of what sounds like a quite expensive "House Fan", look into roof turbines that would likely work as well for less cost - they come as wind powered(not wired) or electric powered, and by now they very likely have electric ones that are solar powered etc. Just remember to cut a hole RIGHT THROUGH the roof when installing any type of roof vent - I worked in the renovation industry and most I saw were installed wrong with only the flashing removed which drastically reduces the efficiency of roof vents so people did not think they were very good/cost effective at helping reduce heat in the home. Just opening up an attic hatch to let hot air up into an attic can make a huge difference in inside temperature - running your furnace's fan will also draw cooler basement air up into the main area of the home, paired with ceiling fans drawing air upwards - NOT DOWNWARDS ON TO YOU - will further pull the cool air upwards and since heat rises and cold falls you get more of a cooling effect if the fans are in up-draft mode. Installing something like a solid baby gate at the top of the stairs will keep the cold air from upstairs A/C units Upstairs, even just a cardboard barrier to prevent the cold air from flowing down the stairs will make a big difference.

If you have windows on the southern face of your home, putting a shade over the outside can help. You can even check the angle of the dune during winter to ensure you get light during cooler months.

The efficiency does drop if the humidity outside goes up. However, the efficiency does not change if your indoor humidity goes up. This is down stream of the unit and the unit could care less what’s going on in your room. You may feel warmer do to the higher humidity but the efficiency does not change.

Should have talked about geothermal and also radiative-space cooling. Re: the latter, you can put insulated coolers on your roof, paint them as white/light reflecting as possible. Put plastic bottles of water in them, run copper tubing through the coolers, and run water through the copper tubing into the house into a heat exchanger (can be as simple as a car radiator with a fan blowing over it). The most important part: Under each cooler, put some kind of IR reflecting material. That EVA foam with a radiant layer on one side is pretty good, because it is fairly weather proof. And make sure there is a little air space between the cooler and the radiant side and that the radiant side is up and facing towards the sky (btw, this will only work if you have a clear shot to the open sky, it will not work well under trees canopies etc). This will help to reflect the IR/heat energy within the cooler, up into space, thus cooling the matter inside. Plastics, wood, and a lot of solid materials are pretty transparent to IR. The whiter you can get the coolers, the better, because the less solar energy they will absorb. This will work best at night, but it can work some during the day as well, depending on how well insulated the coolers are, how white/light reflecting they are, and how much surface area of radiant--IR reflecting material underneath them (and geometry matters some as well, parabolic shaped reflectors will work better than long U shaped, and long U shaped will work better than completely flat). This is kind of the ultimate passive cooling besides geothermal.

Best way is to put a white awning up to shade house. I bought big sail shades. They shade house. This keeps house surface from getting hot. Cheap and really works. Looks cool

Window film is brilliant, since it's completely passive and uses no energy. It's really affordable also so *everyone* should use it, even people with AC, because you will save that money back fast.

All good tips. I also love my whole house fan (Colorado). Have you looked at a “solar shade” or “shade cloth sail”? Especially for the south facing wall. It will allow you to shade the windows and the wall in the summer and just take it down in cool weather (San Diego have cool weather?). Oh and thank you for the fantastic content. Please check out a product called aluminet. It’s a reflective shade net that lets breezes through but comes in various weaves to allow different percentages of sunlight through.

A white roof is also effective. I worked in a place in Oakland, where we used a sprinkler system on the roof. It cooled the place off a good 10° F. We ran it for about 30 seconds every 1-2 hours. The idea was just to keep the roof wet. If the water made it to the storm gutter, that's too much. Oakland is fairly humid.

Awnings work great for large windows. Soffit vents + Ridge vents will cool your attic via convective drafts. Rooftop solar will also keep your attic cool.

Aluminum foil does the same thing if you don't mind the appearance. A damp wash cloth under your hat works fine. A damp towel over your shoulders works better. Cost? A few bucks plus a couple fans.

I have used plywood to close up an area which will condensate, like you did with your evap cooler. Conclusion: causes warping and mold-ing and loss of int vers. ext envelope cooling result. Easy fix : use "2" thick JM AP Foil Polyiso Continuous Insulation" instead of the plywood. This material is water resistant, very sturdy & has an R-29 value, which is much higher than any wood (will not mold and will create the interior vers. exterior envelope) which is why purchased this cooling unit, right? I don't know where you are, humid or dry. Unit will work best if it is on the more shade side of house.

was enjoying the video and the like came because of the jump in the pool, i need to like more of the videos keep up the good work Ricky and team!

Put the film on the outside rather than inside. Better reflection and cooling as the window air gap insulates the heat outside. Swamp cooler -put it outside supplying air to the AC outside unit. Check AC power change to see what works best. My home in AL benefited from this change (30% savings overall)

A mini split, instead of a window unit, would be far more efficient.

Great video. Very helpful.

Run your swamp cooler, and set your home AC to de-humidify. It will still pull about 1.5 kw, but it will remove the humidity the swamp cooler introduces. Or you can do what I did, install a high efficiency AC, and solar panels. I can produce 3 kw more electricity than my whole home uses, that can be used to charge a LithiumIronPhosphate battery pack, that can power the whole home overnight.

We had a swamp cooler and a whole house fan in N. Calif when I was kid, but in the south, where I live now, both would introduce too much humidity into the house which can warp wood floors as well as create an environment for mold.

Insulation, Insulation, Insulation. Root cause analysis shows that if you stop the heat from entering in the first place you don't have to cool as much. Also, any cooling you do stays in the house more.

Excellence with that plywood honestly

Very good information. As noted, evaporative coolers are only safe and effective in arid climates. DO NOT use permanent or portable evaporative cooling if you live in a humid climate as they will *not* provide a cooling effect and *will* grow mold, both inside the unit and potentially on or inside your home's walls. Evaporative cooling is far more energy-efficient than refrigerant-based air conditioning, *but* is only useful in dry climates where outdoor humidity stays below ~50%, just as air conditioning is only useful in humid climates where outdoor humidity stays above ~50%. Just as evaporative cooling become less effective as humidity increases, air conditioning becomes less effective as humidity decreases. Indoor relatively humidity (RH) is optimal between 30-50%. Do not buy or operate an evaporative cooler if your indoor humidity exceeds 70% and if it reaches or exceeds 80% then mold is definitely growing somewhere in your home and you'll need either an air conditioner or dehumidifier to reduce indoor moisture. Energy consumption will be high, but you may have no choice unless you find another method to reduce indoor humidity to safe levels. Run the air conditioner in summer to benefit from the cooling and run the dehumidifier in winter to benefit from the waste heat. One of the most energy-efficient approaches in dry climates is to use a whole-house fan during the night to bring in cool air and then shut and shade windows during the day to keep the heat outside. An evaporative cooler may still be beneficial late in the day if indoor temps have risen to uncomfortable levels, but if you can tolerate indoor temps of 60F or lower at night and you have a well-insulated home then you may be able to avoid daytime cooling on many days. I use a poor man's whole house fan at night in my humid, Kentucky climate, but only during the shoulder Spring and Fall seasons as outdoor temperatures must drop below 60-65F at night to allow substantial cooling. If nighttime temps stay above 70F, then nighttime ventilation will not be effective and air conditioning may be required. I use a simple box fan strapped into an open window with a tie-down strap attached to some screws inside the window frame. The fan blows through the window screen to keep out bugs, but the screen will need to be cleaned perhaps once or twice per year as it will collect dust. The fan can be flipped either way, but I face the exhaust outward and open other windows throughout the house to let the cooler nighttime air into bedrooms, etc. I add a second exhaust fan in a different room on warmer nights. This strategy saves me 6-8 weeks per year of installing and running a window air conditioner. A true whole-house fan facing exhausting into an attic is better than my solution as it also cools the attic, allowing any attic fans to remain off during the night. Even when I do resort to the window A/C, I still use the nighttime cooling strategy. I turn the setpoint down to 66F at night and then turn off the A/C during the day, allowing the house temperature to float upward. The reduced humidity provides reasonable comfort up to 80F or more. This allows the A/C to mainly run at night when it is most efficient. Be reasonable here, as air conditioners are not designed to operate much below 68F and could be damaged if run too low. If your unit is programmable or someone is home, you can turn the A/C up to 70-75F after daybreak and allow it to run until around noon if your home's insulation is lacking; it's better to run the A/C in the morning or in the shade and less efficient to run it in the hot afternoon/evening or in direct sunlight. My window A/C is on the West side of my home, so it remains shaded during the morning hours. I do my best to avoid running the air conditioner from noon until 6-8PM if at all possible and I only cool to 75F during the day as that temperature is comfortable so long as humidity levels are kept low. Relatively dry air is comfortable with just a ceiling or floor fan. Desert dwellers should not run refrigerant-based air conditioners and should stick to fans and evaporative coolers. Likewise, jungle dwellers should not run evaporative coolers and should tick to fans and air conditioners. Unfortunately, we've installed millions of A/C units in desert subdivisions throughout the American West for reasons that I can't quite understand :(. Running an air conditioner in a 30%RH environment is just plain stupid, in my opinion. Disclosure: I worked in residential and commercial HVAC for 11 years where I designed and installed gas furnace, air-source heat pump, and air conditioner systems.

I used evaporated cooling since over 50 years and know what a great idea it is. Now I also live in San Diego and know just how high the mineral content of the water is. I hope you have a whole house water softener otherwise there will be a lot of scale build up on that swamp cooler.

I bet that swamp cooler would be great for a greenhouse!

So you take the evaporative cooler, put a dehumidifier into the room, and feed the water from the dehumidifier back into the evaporative cooler. Less humidity in the house, plus you don't need to refill the evaporative cooler as much. You can control the humidity in the room and still less energy use as airconditioning.

Yeah, the Evap cooler is best where there is 10% or less humidity. Way back inthe 60's and 70's as a kid, my ather had a large window unit in their bedroom, then we blocked off the top of the stairs, it kept the upstair quite cold for sleeping during the summer. For Central air units, you can get a misting device that comes on when the compressor starts, this helps cool the coils outside reducing the heat load, and time the compressor runs. I do know the window units back then had a tray that collected the condensation, and then a fan on the outside splashed through the water causing it to hit the cooling coils.

I recommend foil lined 1” foam above the window unit instead of untreated wood. Mine lasted for years without any issues, plus you can place a narrow piece of wood or broom handle in the window track so the window cannot be easily opened from the outside.

Also don't forget to look into heat pumps as a replacement for AC. They are about 3-5 times more efficient in all but the coldest climates.

Installing window film is the nastiest thing I've ever tried to do. Hire it out! // Swamp coolers worked quite well for me in Phoenix when I schooled there. // When I lived down near you (Vista) I had a 30" whole house fan which took my house from 97F down to 70F in about 45 minutes. What a relief when I got home from work! Back then, it cost $88 at HD. Now they cost many hundreds! The added benefit of solar is that you are energy independent. When everyone else is grid-down, you're running your A/C in leisure. Just Do It! // Oh, my new house in the PNW only cost $2400 to buy all LowE dual pane windows and sliders, including installation in 2002. The very first window installed warmed my bedroom over ten degrees, even with the door open. Amazing. Dual pane windows also peel away all the dog barking and screaming pool kid noise from the inside of the house. They're well worth it.

I have lived in Southern California most of life. The worst days are the hot humid days. Evaporative coolers are completely useless on those days, even making things worse. Also, there are window films that go on the outside that block most of the heat and don't heat up the window pane. Your windows have a film between the panes that allow uv to pass through and reflect heat back into the house. When I first put film on the inside, my window panes became large heating panels. I also put queen palms along the south side of my house to shade my house. Also, my whole house fan is running right now before the sun comes up cooling my home to the outsides 65F. By 4pm it will be 80F in here instead of 90F if I didn't use it.

Get a Mini-Split. Mine only uses 288W for 1500 SQF house! And it takes humidity out of the house!

I've built a cooling system in my sailboat that cools the air in the boat using the sea water. I made spirals of cupper pipe that a little water pump pumps the seawater through and a fan blows air over the spirals and around the boat. The electricity to the system comes from the solar panels when they have charged the battery bank to full. It gives me a little condensation water when the temperatures are right and that goes into my freshwater system through a filter. You could do the same with the water in your pool.

I bought some of that window film like a year ago and kept putting off installing it. Now that I see how well it works, I guess I know what I'm doing this evening! Lol

You'll probably want a tight fit or some gasket sealing to prevent bugs from entering around a window unit, whether AC or EC.

Here in Missouri we get all four seasons so I am wondering if it would be practical to remove the film in the fall, stow it away and then put it back up in late spring?

Why not put the film on the outside? Reflect the heat BEFORE it gets in, rather than after. I've had my film outside for a while now, still holding up nice

I use a tub of ice and a circulating fan with the stove fan on high. That helps a lot. Also blocking windows completely with something white on the outside (blinds), black on the inside (dollar store shower curtains) keeps the heat and light out. The process is probably about as difficult as adding the reflective tinting. Great video!

Run more fans to reduce humidity Get some box fans or ceiling fans, the more air movement the more water moisture will be diffused in the air, swamp coolers run with an outlet of air, the escaping air will take much of the humidity away, running fans will help ensure that the air takes the humidity instead of accumulating in carpets papers etc, also the fans continue to break up and diffuse the water adding a bit to the cooling effect, but only to a point as each fan adds heat If you're worried about water consumption set up grey water, run it on your shower 🚿 water, Though you could probably save 10 times the water that the swamp cooler uses by not watering the lawn

We used some plexi glass and silicone caulking. It looks awesome.

Interesting , Thank You.

20 or 30 years ago, there was an AC company using a water bath to cool the condenser (outdoor) unit this increasing the AC's efficiency and avoiding the humidity load inside the house. (60 to 80% of total AC load)