How to improve the air cooler

air-conditioningcoolinghvac

I recently grabbed a cheap (as in 70€) air cooler to chill a room (45m³).

Expectedly the inner workings of the cooler are quite basic, a pump circulates water from a reservoir through some kind of paper honeycomb structure in a waterfall-like manner. A ventilator sucks the hot air from the room through the honeycomb structure, where the air transfers its heat to the cold water.

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The cooler neither has a connection to a water pipe, nor is there an outlet for outgoing air.

Right now I am using cold tab water (around 10°C), but the cooler is not very effective. Leaving it on for three hours in the closed room yielded no change in room temperature, the water only got slightly warmer.

My ideas to improve efficiency:

  • Add salt to water and cool it down to around 0°C
  • Replace paper honeycombs with aluminum structure
  • Replace current pump (Hmax = 0.75m, Qmax = 260l/h) with better one to enhance flow through honeycombs

What else could I try to boost the cooling power of my air cooler?

Best Answer

This type of evaporative cooler is incapable of reducing the temperature of an entire room. None of the interventions you list would improve the performance. Adding salt would corrode the device.

This device might provide some benefit if the air output is directed onto a single person.