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evaporation coolers in garage in hot/humid places (houston)
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I work out in my garage, and I was thinking about getting an evaporation cooler for it. I think it should drop the air temperatures 10-15 degrees, but worried about the humidity increasing. Wondering if anyone else had some experience with this.
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Re: evaporation coolers in garage in hot/humid places (houston) [sosayusall] [ In reply to ]
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I have a massive one in my shop. Moves more than 20K CFM. Never use the water anymore, as it will rust everything and has. Also think your 10-15º is overly optimistic.

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Re: evaporation coolers in garage in hot/humid places (houston) [sosayusall] [ In reply to ]
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sosayusall wrote:
I work out in my garage, and I was thinking about getting an evaporation cooler for it. I think it should drop the air temperatures 10-15 degrees, but worried about the humidity increasing. Wondering if anyone else had some experience with this.

Swamp coolers work great in arid regions like the desert south west but are not the bee's knees in humid ones.

Hugh

Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.
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Re: evaporation coolers in garage in hot/humid places (houston) [sciguy] [ In reply to ]
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sciguy wrote:
Swamp coolers work great in arid regions like the desert south west but are not the bee's knees in humid ones.

Hugh

Yeah, I guess I should add I am in Northern VA.....not too dry here.😉

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Re: evaporation coolers in garage in hot/humid places (houston) [sosayusall] [ In reply to ]
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I don't have any experience with evaporative coolers, but I installed a MrCool DIY mini split in my garage for woodworking. I wish I had done it long ago, it is amazing. Cooling, heating, and humidity control makes the garage super comfortable year round now. It cools down my 2 stall garage in no time at all. So maybe something worth looking into if you are the handy type. I did everything myself except the electrical work because I'm not that brave.
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Re: evaporation coolers in garage in hot/humid places (houston) [sosayusall] [ In reply to ]
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sosayusall wrote:
I work out in my garage, and I was thinking about getting an evaporation cooler for it. I think it should drop the air temperatures 10-15 degrees, but worried about the humidity increasing. Wondering if anyone else had some experience with this.

How would the humidity increase? Its Houston for goodness' sake!

I'm in Dallas...not quite as humid as Hell. They seem to work ok for normal activity. But, my experience is the increased humidity just trades cooler-air/more-humid for less evaporative cooling---which is NOT an even trade.

I'd rather just have a larger fan.
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Re: evaporation coolers in garage in hot/humid places (houston) [LAI] [ In reply to ]
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Houston now is around 97 degrees with 45 percent humidity. Charts like the ones below say that would drop things around 12 degrees.

I think it would decrease the heat around 10-15 degrees BUT add like 25% humidity.




Last edited by: sosayusall: Jul 8, 20 13:39
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Re: evaporation coolers in garage in hot/humid places (houston) [sosayusall] [ In reply to ]
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sosayusall wrote:
Houston now is around 97 degrees with 45 percent humidity. Charts like the ones below say that would drop things around 12 degrees.


My experience does not bear that out, but keep in mind I am in VA and 97º and 45% humidity is about as common as a unicorn. Like a previous poster said the humidity increase is pretty bad. I would take a larger fan over a water cooler any day. Especially in my garage where I have my bikes, tools, and other equipment that would all take a bad hit. YMMV.


ETA: I guess we have unicorns today!!! lol. Just checked and 91º and 46%

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Last edited by: LAI: Jul 8, 20 13:42
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Re: evaporation coolers in garage in hot/humid places (houston) [sosayusall] [ In reply to ]
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sosayusall wrote:
Houston now is around 97 degrees with 45 percent humidity. Charts like the ones below say that would drop things around 12 degrees.

I think it would decrease the heat around 10-15 degrees BUT add like 25% humidity.


I guess I have to retract my previous statement regarding the humidity difference between houston and dallas. Today it is 65% RH here, and a lovely 95F. No wonder my lunch run sucked---we've had a lot of rain in the last few days.
Last edited by: Tom_hampton: Jul 8, 20 13:56
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Re: evaporation coolers in garage in hot/humid places (houston) [sosayusall] [ In reply to ]
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i live an hour east of houston. if you think an evap cooler will work well in our climate i have some beachfront vacation land in oklahoma id like to sell you for cheap.

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Re: evaporation coolers in garage in hot/humid places (houston) [sosayusall] [ In reply to ]
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i have 5 permanently installed swamp coolers on my buildings on the compound, and then a huge portable one on wheels (bigger than any of the permanent installs). every year we spend half a day servicing them for the summer (new pads, probably a couple of new water pumps, fixing broken water lines). they are way cheaper to operate than air conditioners (electrical usage). but... i live in the desert.

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
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Re: evaporation coolers in garage in hot/humid places (houston) [sosayusall] [ In reply to ]
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I have one in my garage in Houston and will tell you it is 100% effective. I’ve done 4 hour rides in my trainer when it is 100 out.
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Re: evaporation coolers in garage in hot/humid places (houston) [ajthomas] [ In reply to ]
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how in the hell does that work well for you in 90% humidity? theres close to nowhere for the water to go, so there's no evap cooling effect. you're just going to be soaked with water while you douche your entire garage in moisture.

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Last edited by: damon.lebeouf: Jul 8, 20 18:37
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Re: evaporation coolers in garage in hot/humid places (houston) [sosayusall] [ In reply to ]
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sosayusall wrote:
I work out in my garage, and I was thinking about getting an evaporation cooler for it. I think it should drop the air temperatures 10-15 degrees, but worried about the humidity increasing. Wondering if anyone else had some experience with this.

I would really just suggest an AC solution for this, mainly for humidity reasons and removing humidity from the air as well as being more versatile.


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Re: evaporation coolers in garage in hot/humid places (houston) [esseff3d] [ In reply to ]
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esseff3d wrote:
I don't have any experience with evaporative coolers, but I installed a MrCool DIY mini split in my garage for woodworking. I wish I had done it long ago, it is amazing. Cooling, heating, and humidity control makes the garage super comfortable year round now. It cools down my 2 stall garage in no time at all. So maybe something worth looking into if you are the handy type. I did everything myself except the electrical work because I'm not that brave.

How much did that cost?
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Re: evaporation coolers in garage in hot/humid places (houston) [sosayusall] [ In reply to ]
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In theory, if your body was fully sweaty and you were only losing heat by diffusion of heat and moisture (sweating), then an evaporative cooler would make no difference to your ability to cool off as it would just trade more sensible heat loss (heat diffusion) for less evaporative heat loss (moisture diffusion). Why? The turbulent heat loss of a wet surface into air is proportional to the difference in moist enthalpy between the surface and the air (among other things, including wind speed and surface roughness), and swamp coolers conserve the moist enthalpy of air, decreasing the air temperature but increasing its humidity.

In reality, since your body is not likely to be 100% sweat-covered (insert pink comments here about cycling in Houston weather!), decreasing the temperature in exchange for an energy-equivalent increase in humidity will increase your heat loss a bit. Furthermore, since we also lose some heat by radiation and this is primarily dependent on the temperature of our surroundings, cooling the air and surfaces around you will help you to lose a bit more heat / stay cooler.

But if you're mostly covered in sweat for most of the ride and you've got fans blowing air past you like mad, don't expect much of an effect on making you more comfortable.
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Re: evaporation coolers in garage in hot/humid places (houston) [ajthomas] [ In reply to ]
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Another Houstonian here. I don’t doubt your experience, but I wonder how much of your benefit is coming just from the moving air, rather than moving air + mist, particularly when you’re already sweating from exercise. But I’ve been in front of swamp coolers in Houston, and they do feel cooler but strange because you’re experiencing more humidity in an already humid environment.

As for A/C, that is the way to go if you can insulate your garage (walls, door, ceiling) and have the budget for it. Even if the A/C doesn’t drop the temperature much, it’ll pull the humidity out of the air, which is a huge improvement. If you have the typical aluminum garage door, you can insulate it with Reflectix (foil insulation) or other ready made garage door insulation products.

This is basically what I did. My garage is fully insulated and has its own central air system. It makes the garage an extension of the house and is incredibly nice to have in Houston, summer or winter. This work was done while my house was built. If I had an existing garage, I would either do window units because they’re cheap and easy to install or a mini-split system mentioned above.
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Re: evaporation coolers in garage in hot/humid places (houston) [dktxracer] [ In reply to ]
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Just a note. I borrowed my neighbors evaporation cooler yesterday. As expected, it dropped the temp in the garage around 10 degrees -- but added a LOT of humidity.

It could be worthwhile to open the garage (reducing humidity) and just positioning the cooler at me. Working similar to a fan - but pushing cooler air.
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Re: evaporation coolers in garage in hot/humid places (houston) [ajthomas] [ In reply to ]
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ajthomas wrote:
I have one in my garage in Houston and will tell you it is 100% effective. I’ve done 4 hour rides in my trainer when it is 100 out.

What exactly do you have that's working so well? I'm in The Woodlands so looking at any good ideas.
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Re: evaporation coolers in garage in hot/humid places (houston) [logella] [ In reply to ]
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It is a hessaire unit, maybe 4 feet tall about $700 from Home Depot.
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Re: evaporation coolers in garage in hot/humid places (houston) [ajthomas] [ In reply to ]
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Do you keep your garage open during the workouts?
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Re: evaporation coolers in garage in hot/humid places (houston) [Thomas Gerlach] [ In reply to ]
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Anyone used just a straight up dehumidifier? I’m in Florida and my garage gets up to 90 and 80%RH. Even with a massive fan I’m drenched in no time and my wife isn’t exactly pleased when she walks into the garage and it’s foggy lol
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Re: evaporation coolers in garage in hot/humid places (houston) [sosayusall] [ In reply to ]
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Yes, keep garage open.

I have a pretty big nook that I use for my rides, so walls on 3 sides. I don’t know if that makes a huge difference?
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Re: evaporation coolers in garage in hot/humid places (houston) [sosayusall] [ In reply to ]
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I used them in a factory (we had glass melting furnaces) in the summer and people really liked them. We started noticing mold growing so make sure you add some sort of disinfectant or treatment to the water.
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Re: evaporation coolers in garage in hot/humid places (houston) [ajthomas] [ In reply to ]
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ajthomas wrote:
Yes, keep garage open.

I have a pretty big nook that I use for my rides, so walls on 3 sides. I don’t know if that makes a huge difference?

Lots of people don’t realize that when the temp in Houston reaches 100, a lot of the humidity clears out. So the morning 80 deg, 90% humidity situation actually can become better for exercising in mid afternoon if you can handle 30-40% humidity with that ~100 deg temp. Thus, if you are using the swamp cooler at 5pm, it may well be highly effective, whereas it may be relatively useless at 6am.
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