When you’re outside in the heat, it can be hard to work and even harder to enjoy yourself. If you’ve tried using a fan, you know there’s a point where fans just don’t do any good. You are sweating profusely, and the fan doesn’t make much of an impact on your comfort level. Is there any way to effectively keep yourself cool outside?
Yes! A swamp cooler will work outside, letting you feel cool and comfortable in even the hottest summer weather. Understanding how a swamp cooler works will help you see why it can keep you cool outside when other solutions – a fan or air conditioner – can’t.
A swamp cooler is more precisely an evaporative cooler. Evaporative cooling works because it takes a lot of energy to evaporate water. In a swamp cooler, that energy comes from the heat in the air, making the air much cooler. How much cooler? As much as 30° F cooler. The amount of cooling depends on the starting temperature and starting humidity of the air. Hot, dry air cools down the most.
This cooling is essentially instant. Swamp coolers draw in hot air, then pass it through an evaporative medium. The evaporative medium is similar to a giant sponge, which soaks up water and lets air pass through. As the air passes through the medium, it evaporates water, which cools it down.
Swamp coolers are very effective outside because a swamp cooler needs just three things to work:
Power drives the fans. Water evaporates to provide cooling. But it’s the hot air that does the main work of cooling. As long as a swamp cooler has access to hot air, it can cool a large amount of air very quickly.
How much air? A Portacool evaporative cooler can cool more than 22,000 cubic feet per minute (CFM). That’s a volume of air 100 feet long, 22 feet wide, and 10 feet high. Every minute. That’s enough cool air to ensure you feel continuously cool even on the hottest days outside.
For comparison, a “large” portable air conditioner you buy at Home Depot might produce only 240 CFM of cooled air. Air conditioners don’t work well outside because they count on being able to cool a small amount of air intensely. When trapped in a confined space, the intensely cooled air can cool the other air in the space. Repeated passes of small amounts of air through the AC cools the room off.
Outdoor fans have the opposite problem from AC. They can move as much air as an evaporative cooler, but they can’t cool the air at all. At high temperatures, the only benefit you get from a fan is that moving air can evaporate sweat more effectively. Why not choose an evaporative cooler, which evaporates water, so you don’t have to sweat?
Portacool is a powerful evaporative cooler designed for use outdoors. Depending on the size, one or two people can easily lift a Portacool into or out of a pickup. Heavy-duty casters let you roll your Portacool where you need it. Portacool plugs into any standard outlet, or you can use a portable generator with several of our models. You can manually fill the water reservoir or hook it up to a hose. With power and water combined, it costs about one dollar a day to run a Portacool evaporative cooler.
Portacool is your quality evaporative cooler choice, too. Since 1990, Portacool has been made in the USA, including the only evaporative medium made in the USA from all US-sourced materials. We have become a leader in the industry, with our coolers available in all 50 states and 56 countries around the world. We offer best-in-class customer service and warranties, so you can enjoy your Portacool for years to come.
Want to get effective outdoor cooling? Please contact an online or local retailer to get your Portacool, or contact us directly with questions or bulk orders.
