A comment on my blog by Darla M Sands sent me googling. In my Christmas Day detail post, I mentioned Tradie Brother's home air cooling system with a brief description.
So this is to educate you foreign types about how we stay cool in Australia.
There are two types of cooling, refrigerated and water cooling. Refrigerated is the most effective as it cools and dries the air of humidity. It is what you will have in your motor car. It does cost a good bit to run though and while we have one adequate unit to cool our place, any larger we would need a second unit. Our friend in Kula Lumpur has three units to cool his smaller apartment and admits one is a bit of spare in case one breaks down. That says something about the climate in KL.
In larger more outer suburban houses there might be six units, small ones for each bedroom and a couple of large ones for the living areas and the kitchen. It is expensive enough for us to run one unit. Who knows what six units running would cost.
A much cheaper alternative to cool large homes is evaporative cooling and that is what my Tradie Brother has, ducted to each bedroom, kitchen and living rooms. Darla M Sands sent me off searching to see if swamp coolers are the same thing, and they are. I continue to learn stuffs.
Early Australian settlers noticed indigenous people using porous kangaroo skin bags to carry water. The passing breeze with the slightly porous skin kept the water cool. The settlers adapted this to similar but using porous canvas. I remember my grandfather's canvas water bag and motorists used to hang them in front of their car radiators to keep water cool.
From that knowledge we move on to Coolgardie safes, where the life of perishable food (and maybe bottles of beer) was extended by having hessian hanging on the sides of a cabinet and extending to the top where it sat in a water tray and the wick effect drew the water down the hessian. The safe would be hung outside in a breeze and keep perishables for much longer than usual.
Moving on to the 1970s, my father and step mother bought a water cooler on wheels. It had straw filled panels on three sides and a fan. We had to feed it water using a bucket, maybe ten litres at a time, well a bucket full of water. The water was pumped to the top and dripped down through the straw panes. It worked well enough and was somewhat cooling.
Now on to the 80s and the early 21st century, whole homes were cooled by water evaporative coolers. I remember visiting the home of a distant relative of Step Mother's in Griffith, NSW. The water cooling was lovely and cool and I guess Griffith only has dry heat. The local club had proper refrigerated air conditioning.
In the 80s or early 90s in Melbourne water cooling began appearing in Melbourne, with roof top units appearing atop so many outer suburban houses. This version had a plumbed water supply and a drain and of course a powerful fan but still it was the same principal. That is blowing air through a wet material, just like the Aborigines kangaroo skin water bags worked.
Contrary to refrigerated air con, it is suggested you open a window or two in your home if you have evaporative cooling.
So look, evaporative cooling is not bad unless the weather is humid whereby it totally fails, and that happens rarely in Melbourne. If you are in humid climate and try to use evaporative cooling, your wallpaper will peel off, your wardrobe contents will grow mould, fungus will grow between your toes and you will come down with pneumonia and end up in hospital, where there will be refrigerated air conditioning. .
However, with the price of gas, in the usual middle to outer suburban areas where ducted gas heating is falling from favour because of the cost, hence the swing to reverse cycle air conditioning which heat and cool with dry air, too dry at times. What some of the McMansions must cost to heat and cool is barely imaginable. This great article describes McMansions so well if you don't know what they are. There are smaller versions of McMansions too.
A typical evaporative home air cooling unit that can be seen in middle to outer newer suburban housing.
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Canberra's heat is mostly dry heat. We have an evaporative cooler (love the term swamp cooler) and love it. It is surprisingly effective too - until it isn't.
ReplyDeleteEC, I think you have a good climate for evaporative cooling and even in the 70's in Griffith, evaporative cooling was great.
DeleteEvaporative cooling does not work when temperature is above 30-degree celcius. There is also so much moisture involved that the house turns into a mouldy state. It is really 90s sort of stuff.
ReplyDeleteIt does work over 30 - so long as it is a dry heat.
DeleteI can't agree Roentare. If is hot dry heat, evaporative cooling works very well. But I do prefer refrigerated.
DeleteWe've always called the swampies. I don't know why. We had one in our previous house but ended up getting a split system for the days that swampy struggled.
ReplyDeleteIn this house we have accumulated an odd selection of heating and cooling but with solar panels we don't suffer the huge energy bills. Until the power supply fails and the grid won't let us use our solar.
Your history lesson was fascinating, as always. I do love the research you do.
Caro, why didn't I know about swampies? Thanks but little research was done. I am old and I know about some stuffs, just not about the name swampies.
DeleteHad no idea.
ReplyDeleteMe either Sandra.
DeleteAs you probably already know, hardly anybody in England has air conditioning units to cool their homes but we all have heating systems. Once I was on a tour of a plantation house in Georgia USA and our guide said at one point that without air conditioning much of Florida would be uninhabitable. I guess it's the same in relation to several regions of Australia. You seem as knowledgeable about air conditioning as you are about transport!
ReplyDeleteYP, before widespread home and car air con, we just put up with the heat. R recounts how he would sleep on a banana lounge in his backyard after dousing himself in mosquito repellent, or at times sleep overnight at the beach. A cool shower every couple of hours helped. We were tougher back then and not the weakies who are only happy at 22 degrees. I know a little about many things but not a lot about anything. I admire people who have a one subject focus.
DeleteI remember the ice box that my parents used until the early-mid 1950s. A large block of ice lay on a tray at the top of the icebox so that food could be kept cold for a decent time.
ReplyDeleteBut was the ice delivered to the front door? I can't remember.
Sorry
DeleteHels
Yes it was. My brother used to deliver it before going to school to make money when he was a teenager.
DeleteThere you go Diane. Thanks for the confimation.
DeleteI have reverse cycle heating and cooling, but only in one room and it doesn't filter through to the other room unless I run it on "high" all day and night, so of course I don't do that, it's expensive enough already and the bedroom door is ajar at night so Lola can come and go, there's no point trying cool that room. I just run a pedestal fan to stir the air so I can sleep.
ReplyDeleteRiver, I am a little surprised as I know you don't live in a huge two storey house. As long as you have one nicely cooled room, that is the important thing.
Deleteinteresting post. Bill was an air conditioning engineer.he would never use 'swampies' in Queensland far too humid. He said they were only good in the outback where it was dry. We have ducted air conditioning for every room but you can select which rooms you want on. So you can cool/heat living areas in the day and bedrooms at night. We have solar power so it doesn't cost anything.
ReplyDeleteDiane, your system sounds very good and with solar power, cheap to run.
DeleteWe have both…..there’s the ‘tiny’ one room refrigerated one we bought back in the ‘70s (still going strong after all these years - but then it only gets turned on occasionally) plus the whole of house evaporative one put in about 2003.
ReplyDeleteI like the sharp coolness of the refridge one, but it’s become really noisy and I have to talk nicely to it when it’s turned on - then there are times when I want to be cool wherever I am so turn the swampie on. It’s a pain having to open vents or none of the air will come through…..a bigger one to have to go round closing them when winter is approaching!
Cathy as well as a split system, my mother's old house had two in wall air con units both about forty years old and they still worked when the house was sold. I didn't know about opening and closing vents, but that makes sense of course.
DeleteFascinating reading. Evaporative cooling is our own personal way to cool ourselves. It is why we sweat!
ReplyDeleteDebby, I thought your heat would be too humid for swamp cooling.
DeleteWe don't really have 'swamp coolers' that I'm aware of, but perspiration is the body's way of cooling itself. The first sign of dangerous sun stroke is when you cease to sweat.
DeleteIt will be quite interesting to investigate this more. We live in an area where there are plenty of springs around. It leads me to believe that something could be done with these. The difference in temperature is what would create the condensation, I think. That's what would ultimately cool you, although a lower humidity would allow for faster evaporation and more cooling. It's a cool idea. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Evaporative cooling was common in the desert southwest of the USA, hot with low humidity. The never worked in the south east (Florida) where it is hot and HUMID. Here in Washington DC it is humid, unless it is below freezing. We use mostly reverse cycle heat pumps.
ReplyDeleteTP, I thought your city would get too cold for heat pumps to work effectively. I really need to brush up my knowledge about that.
DeleteIt's interesting that there's such a spectrum of cooling options. I think I'm only familiar with what you would call the refrigeration style. (Since, as a Floridian, I come from a very humid part of the world!)
ReplyDeleteSteve, indeed swamp cooling would be totally ineffective in Florida.
DeleteMost older houses in Perth use evaporative but I notice newer houses have split system.
ReplyDeleteSami, yes for your climate evaporative cooling is probably quite ok. You may occasionally have some humidity but that would be rare.
DeleteI had a swampie for a long time long ago. It worked ok until the material got moldy inside, during times not in use and then it blew out awful smelling air.
ReplyDeleteWe didn't really need AC for most of my life. It just never got that hot, unless for a handful of days per year, but weather has sure changed.
DeleteStrayer, yes that was a problem too with them.
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