g'day all,

i've been doing some research on what kind of aircon to get for our place now that our renovations are basically done.

i was initially thinking about a swampy as we don't often have humid days (Melbourne SE suburbs) and would like to aircon the entire house (~220sqm house single storey weatherboard).

on this forum and a couple of others, i saw some posts (AIR-MAN was one, i think) where folks started talking about "new technology" indirect evap coolers that provide cooling that is similar in nature to refrigerative cooling - BUT with significantly less power use because they aren't running a large compressor.

there seem to be many companies working on this and are due to release products soon.
for example:
- Air Change are looking to commercialize this (see Air Change > News)
- Climate Wizard -- parent company Seeley whose cooling brands include Breezair, Braemar, Coolair, Cenvair & Tudor -- are seemingly coming out with something "real soon". web site is at Once-in-a-hundred-years breakthrough - doesn't yet seem to be on the market but isn't far off based on anecdotal search evidence.

this now leads me onto something that a company called Coolerado has - which is a little different as it doesn't actually use a heat exchanger but something they are calling the Maisotsenko Cycle or M-Cycle for short. its essentially doing the same thing as a heat exchanger but without a pump as its self-wicking the water. its also effectively doing a multi-cycle approach to taking increasingly-cooler air and feeding it in for multiple cycles of cooling. net effect is they claim being able to take temperatures below the wet bulb, something a swampy could never achieve.

see http://www.coolerado.com or http://www.coolerado.http://www.coolerado.com.au/index.php?air_conditioners_australia=84
(including youtube videos)

i'd guess there is a price premium associated with something like this - and there isn't any mention of lifespan of parts (e.g. does one need to replace said parts every X months / years, does it efficiency decrease significantly with dirty filters etc.)

this IS on the market in australia it seems - and i can only find good reviews of the technology on the internet.



this gets to the point of starting this thread ....

anyone here who is in the HVAC industry have any thoughts good/bad/otherwise on any of these approaches?


Read the full thread at RenovateForum.com...