evaporative cooler work in an attic?
popawheelie
| Posted in Energy, Heating & Insulation on
My wife has wanted a whole house fan. We are trying to keep the air conditioning to a minimum and evaporative coolers work around these parts. Northern Colorado.
I’d rather not put it on the roof for obvious reasons and exterior walls aren’t central.
So why not put it in the attic? Not a good idea? All the moist air is going into the house.
Replies
The attic is hot, anywhere from twenty to fifty degrees hotter than the air outside. i don't believe you will cool it enough to enjoy so you will be sucking warmer moister air into the house to make it a nice muggy mess.
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I guess you're right. It's funny the way they work. If it's to cold they don't work either. You want them out in the sun from what I've heard. You don't put them in the shade.
If I installed one outside how far could I duct it to get it central in the house?
I'm trying to figure where I could put it besides the roof.
I think the reason for placing in the sun instead of shade is to reduce growth of ugly green slime and stuff. Not sure on that.The only ones I have ever seen were on roofs or right at windows. I imagine two problems with running longer ducting
One is that the further it runs the more the moisture wil condesnse back out of it. That means rusted ducts sooner.The other is simply insulating the duct making for inefficient cost/payback
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IIRC there is a company in Denver that specializes in putting Evap coolers in attics, but they use a gable intake for the air. Also, the cooler has to have a single intake, not one of the four-sided units typically mounted on roofs.
Here is a link that shows an attic installation.
http://www.swenergy.org/pubs/Evaporative_Cooling_Systems.pdf
This is called the Coolerado Cooler, I believe and I've heard good things about it. Originated in Colorado and touted by such groups as FEMP and DOE. The long term maintenance is expensive, but it is better than an evaporative cooler in that it doesn't raise the humidity of the space while being more efficient than DX cooling. They put it in the attic as well.
"This is called the Coolerado Cooler, I believe and I've heard good things about it"The Coolerado cooler is a different story. The company in Denver takes a regular evaporative cooler and literally hangs it in the attic space. This makes the installation more attractive on high-end homes where the HOA often doesn't allow rooftop equipment.I'm not sure what is going on with the guys supposedly selling the Coolerado units. The rights to manufacture their patented heat/mass exchanger modules were licensed to Delphi electronics two years ago and I have yet to see any products using that technology come to market. I contacted the Coolerado company several times last Spring to try and get a quote for installation of one of their coolers. No one ever answers the phone, and none of my messages or emails were ever returned. Either they are too busy to look at any new jobs (doubtful) or they went bust.The technology looks very promising though.
hook on to the shadiest gable and duct it down thru the attic ann vent where it will do the most good...
insulate the duct externally...
it will work well.., do it that way all the time...
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