September 17, 2021

For those of you looking to beat the heat in the summer, it’s important to know that you have several options. While a standard central or portable air conditioner unit is a usual choice, there are other ways to keep cool. One of those ways that you might have heard about before is a swamp cooler.

What Is a Swamp Cooler?

A swamp cooler is a type of low-maintenance, lower-energy air conditioning that relies on the evaporation of water vapor to cool an area. These units blow hot, dry air over moisture-laden pads. These pads allow the air to pick up moisture and bring it into the room, where it then acts to cool down the space.

This is actually a method that has been used for thousands of years in more basic formats (such as hanging wet sheets outside of an open window and letting the wind take over) but it doesn’t work in all situations.

What’s the Science Here?

So now that we have the basics out of the way, let’s get into the more nitty-gritty science to learn just how swamp coolers work.

Humanity has long known that things that are wet tend to feel cooler. If you’ve ever licked your finger then held it up to the wind, you’ve noticed this. That coolness comes from the moisture on your finger evaporating in the wind. As moisture evaporates, it draws heat into the air and away from the body, cooling you down. Our own sweat works on much the same principle: as the sweat evaporates from your skin, it cools you down.

Swamp coolers use that same effect, pumping air full of evaporated water droplets into a space. These droplets actually draw the heat from the room as they enter, cooling it down. The result is a cooler, more humid space than you initially started with.

Can Swamp Coolers Work for Everyone?

Unfortunately, the answer to this question is no. You might have noticed in that last paragraph that a room cooled with a swamp cooler ends up being more humid than before. Because of this, and because of the way these units work, swamp coolers are really only effective in dryer conditions. If you live in more arid climates, such as the southwest, then a swamp cooler might just do the trick, However, if you live in the southeast, or any other part of the country known to be more humid, than a swamp cooler can actually end up making things worse by making the air even more humid than it was to start with.

In addition to that, swamp coolers don’t really work in huge spaces. This is because the air they pump into a room needs to be able to exit the room somehow. This is a basic rule of physics: you can’t put material into a space without there being room for it. Just like you can’t put more water into a glass if it’s already full, without some water leaving, you can’t put more air into a room without a way for the air that’s already in there to escape. In a normal air conditioning unit, air is drawn out of the room and back into the unit through a series of intake ducts.

With a swamp cooler, this same problem is usually solved by opening a window or two (this is because swamp units aren’t typically centrally located, so they don’t have intake ducts to rely on.) The result is a less efficient system of air escaping, which means that they can’t cool as large a space as a typical a/c unit.

Swamp Cooler Maintenance

So, you might be wondering why these units are called swamp coolers. It’s a bit of a misnomer, really, when you think about the fact that swamps are the sort of places these coolers are the least likely to work. While the origin of this name isn’t exactly clear, one theory is that these units, if not properly maintained, can get quite smelly. This is because swamp coolers draw air across a series of moisturized pads. If not cleaned or changed regularly, these pads can get quite smelly. The resulting odor is a thick, humid, musty smell – just like you might find in a swamp.

This brings basic maintenance to mind. While swamp coolers don’t have all the parts and complicated machinery of an air conditioner, parts do need to be monitored, cleaned and changed regularly in order to ensure your swamp cooler is functioning properly.

Swamp Coolers vs. Air Conditioning: What To Do

Now that you know a little about swamp coolers, you might be wondering which sort of cooling system is best for you. It all boils down to where you live and what you’re trying to cool. Here are some things to keep in mind:

• Like we said above, swamp coolers only work well in dryer areas. If you live in a humid climate, then you’re going to want to use a regular air conditioner (which, ironically, still uses evaporation technology but works by getting rid of moisture in the air, not adding it!). The more humid the air, the less you’ll feel the effects of a swamp cooler until, at some point, it stops helping all together.
• Another factor to consider is room size. If you’re looking to cool a small space, then a swamp cooler can work for you. All you have to remember is to open a window or two, or leave some other way for inside air to escape. For larger rooms, the cooler becomes less effective as it can only blow so much air into a space at one time. Once you start looking at really large rooms, or multi-roomed buildings, the swamp cooler becomes more and more useless.
• A third item is maintenance and upkeep. In this category, swamp coolers win hands-down. They have fewer parts which cost less to buy, and they are much easier to maintain. Even better: swamp coolers use much less energy than air conditioners!

As you can see, swamp coolers can be a helpful unit in the right conditions. If you’re looking to cool off, one of these units might be just right for you.

In these days of heightened concern over viruses, bacteria and other air-borne toxins, knowing how to clean the air around you is important. Gone are the days when we could just open a window and declare it “good enough.” Now, it’s more important than ever to make sure that the air you breathe is safe and as free from contaminants as possible.

To do this, there are a number of products on the market. When it comes to air quality, most of these products fall into one of two categories: portable air purifiers and portable air scrubbers. You might not realize it, but these two types of machines work very differently in trying to clean the air around you. Knowing your needs can help you go a long way towards choosing the right product for your situation.

Air Purifiers

When most people think of improving their air quality, they think of portable air purifiers. This is because these purifiers use a filtration system which is similar in some respects to the air filters you might find in your home HVAC system. With an air purifier, air is dragged through one or more filters, which literally block particles that are too big to pass through the mesh screen of the filter.

Different filters are available to screen out particles and contaminants of different sizes, so it’s easy to upgrade your filters if you feel like the one you have in place isn’t doing a good enough job. Of course, you also have to know that the higher-quality filters, which filter out smaller and smaller particles, also create more drag in the purifier itself. This drag comes because it takes longer for the air to squeeze through the smaller and smaller holes in the mesh screen. Some purifiers struggle when there is too much drag, so it’s important to know what your purifier is rated for.

Air purifiers can range in size from very small, personal machines to much larger ones capable of working on larger rooms. However, portable air purifiers have a limit due to the amount of air that can pass through the filters at any given time. Obviously, larger spaces take longer to clean.

Pros and Cons of Purifiers

Because purifiers can catch the tiniest of particles (down to .3 microns in size) they are extremely effective at cleaning the air, provided the space is not too big. Air filters not only remove particles, the right types of carbon filters can also be very effective at removing odors such as cigarette smoke and pet smells. However, one thing air purifiers do not handle well is contaminants in the form of gas. When you are dealing with gases in the air, it’s better to look at a portable air scrubber.

Air Scrubbers

At first glance, it might seem like there’s not much difference between portable air purifiers and scrubbers. Yes, it’s true that they both typically use filtration technology to help clean the air. However, that’s where the similarities end. While purifiers rely on the mechanical action of stopping particles and contaminants over a certain size, air scrubbers use chemistry.

If you took high school chemistry, you may remember that atoms, the smallest basic unit of matter, are made up of particles called protons, neutrons and electrons. These particles carry charges of either positive or negative energy. While an atom is, typically, neutral, atoms called ions exist that carry either a positive or negative charge.

One of the basic principles of this is that charged ions are always looking for equal, opposite charges to balance themselves out. So, positively charged ions are looking for negative ions, and vice versa. This action causes many natural phenomena, such as lightning, but in this case it can also help us clean the air.

How? It turns out that most air contaminants are positively charged. Knowing this, air scrubbers work by using negative ions. As air passes through the scrubber, the negative ions bond with the positively charged particles, causing them to fall out of the air, basically, into a collecting surface.

However, not all air scrubbers use filters. Some actually send out sprays of these negatively charged ions (in the form of a hydrating mist, for example) which can actually just bond with participles in the air, or on surfaces such as walls. Either way, the result is the same: the now-neutral particles are much heavier and fall to the floor, where they can easily be cleaned later.

The Pros and Cons of Air Scrubbers

Just like purifiers, there are good and bad points to this technology:

• One good thing about scrubbers is that they work on gas-related contamination, which is something that air purifiers just don’t do. So, if you need gases scrubbed out of the air (like CO2, for example) air scrubbers are the way to go. They can also work in larger areas.
• On the downside, air scrubbers are not effective when it comes to removing odors. So, while they may be able to remove cigarette smoke from an area, the stench of the cigarette will remain long afterwards, and the scrubber is unable to remove it.

As you can see, purifiers and scrubbers are both great ways to help clean up the air you’re breathing. Which one you might want, however, will depend on what you’re looking to clean. If you’re in a smaller space and mostly worried about dust and other physical contaminants, or if you have smells you need to clean, then air purifiers might be the better option. On the other hand, if you’re dealing with gas-related contamination, or if you’re hoping to clean a larger space, then an air scrubber might be what you’re looking for.