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Evaporative Cooling Overview

What is evaporative cooling?

Evaporative coolers use water to cool naturally, they do not, however, produce any mist, fog or spray water. In a Portacool evaporative cooler, water is pumped over the Kuul Comfort™ evaporative media from a built-in-reservoir. When air is pulled through the media, the interaction between water and air causes the water to evaporate and heat to be removed from the air. The result is fresh, cool air from the front of the evaporative cooler. Evaporative coolers are an energy efficient and effective product that can easily be used in large, open environments.

Check out our awesome evaporative cooling video!

Evaporative coolers don’t work in humid environments

While we agree that evaporative coolers achieve significant temperature drops in more arid climates and drier spaces, they can provide relief from the heat in any climate due to the advancements in evaporative cooling technology. These aren’t the swamp coolers of years ago! Even in hot and humid areas, such as Houston, you can still expect to see 10°F-13°F cooling. (We know this for a fact – we are located in the small East Texas town of Center and know hot and humid. We use our own products to keep our manufacturing employees safe and comfortable for more than half the year! Really, we do – you can read our story here!)

One of our customers in Florida said it best, “I’ll take a 13°F degree [temp] drop within an hour any day. It raised up to 89°F in the middle of the day, but until you’ve had to work in a 100°F shop, you don’t realize how great 89°F feels!”

Protecting our environment

No chemicals are needed for Portacool evaporative coolers to create a comfortable, safe, cool environment! Using only the environmentally-friendly process of evaporation, our products can cool any outdoor or open-air space with only water and minimal electrical energy, which makes them perfect for almost any application.

Keeping employees safe in even the most challenging environments

Safety is more than a state of mind or philosophical approach – safety is a responsibility that businesses have to each of their employees. Heat is a condition that affects thousands of worksites – both indoors and out. The National Weather Service states that heat is the weather event that produces the greatest number of fatalities (ahead of flooding and tornadoes) each year. It is critical that employers consider how to protect employees from the heat. Portacool evaporative coolers help bring down the ambient working temperature. Plus, they work best where traditional air conditioning is impractical, ineffective or simply too expensive. Unlike oscillating or mounted stationary fans that simply circulate stagnate, hot air, an evaporative cooler actually cools the distributed air using the all-natural process of evaporation. While evaporative coolers do use water, it is important to note that they are not misters. We know you trust us to keep you and your employees safe. We don’t take that responsibility lightly.

Cooling with water – Misters vs evaporative coolers

The technology of Portacool evaporative coolers has evolved to become an energy efficient and effective product that can be used in any industrial environment – arid AND humid. While evaporative coolers use water to cool naturally, they do not produce any mist, fog or spray water.

Misters, atomizer fans, foggers and vaporizers spray a shower of water into the air that will collect on people, objects, equipment and floors. Don’t let them tell you otherwise. Portacool portable evaporative coolers evaporate water within the evaporative media to prevent any dispelled moisture. This creates a safer, more comfortable work environment. You can stand directly in front of a Portacool evaporative cooler and will not walk away damp, unlike a misting product. With Portacool evaporative coolers you can keep your floors dry, your equipment rust free and keep airborne contaminates from being breathed by employees while maintaining a safe, comfortable facility.

To cool with water, water must be evaporated. One gallon of evaporated water removes as much as 8,000 BTUs of heat from the air. To get more cooling, more water must be evaporated. Don’t be fooled by claims that less water is better. If they tell you that a 100-gallon tank will last five days, think about what that means. In evaporative cooling, efficiency means scrubbing heat molecules from the air by evaporating water. The more water that evaporates the more heat molecules that are removed from the air. Sure, they are using less water, but that means you are getting less cooling!