How did I even miss the “Cool Surge”?

[The Man]

Just saw their ad in the Daily News today, though the product has been around for at least a year as far as I can tell.

http://www.coolsurge.com/default.cfm

They are not specific about how the unit operates (I wonder why) but it doesn’t seem too difficult to figure out.


It's as easy to use as a baby's vaporizer and even includes two sets of the reusable glacier ice blocks

So unless these “glacier ice blocks” are self freezing or you use a freezer outside of your house, you are not going to be removing any heat from your house and in fact generating more heat. As far as the electrical savings go that would only apply if you were taking the “glacier ice blocks” to say your neighbor’s house to freeze.

So if your neighbor knocks on your door and asks “Say can I put these in your freezer, there is no room left in mine” just reply “Sure, no problem, as soon as you run a heavy duty extension cord over so you can power both my freezer and my air conditioner”.

So have I been living on a desert island or cooling myself on some remote iceberg somewhere? How did I miss this product before? I don’t recall any TV ads and although I have read that there have been newspaper ads I don’t recall seeing any before.


…engineering genius from the China coast…

Undoubtedly the pinnacle of “China coast” “engineering genius”.

[Wowbagger]

Consumer Reports recently published a blurb about them. They summarize by saying: "Don't Buy: Performance Issues"

ETA: Oh, and their newspaper ads are often disguised as articles. (With the words "advertisement" written very small at the top.)

[Wowbagger]

Well, now I can be more specific. Located on page 9 of the August 2009* issue of Consumer Reports, you will find their snippet about it.
(* Don't ask me why they distribute their magazines so far in advance. It is early July 2009, as I write this.)

Actually, they use the word "problem", not "issues". So, overall CR warns "Don't Buy: Performance Problem". What I wrote earlier had slightly wrong wording. But, the message is the same.

The claim that is uses very little electricity is true. But, it also seems to offer very little cooling. Not much more than draping wet towels over a window, apparently.

Also, based on what they state, the mechanism behind it is hardly "genius engineering". It is basically an evaporative cooler, a concept which has been around since 1906, according to Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooler
(And, a rather expensive one to buy, at that.)

[BenBurch]

A swamp cooler? Goes back longer than 1906!

A block of ice in a pan and an electric fan blowing over it works OK, but block ice is hard to come by any more. Haven't ever tried it with bag ice, but think it would work too well and not last the hour or so an ice block did.

[Myriad]

The ice seems counterproductive. To cool via evaporation (at low humidity), you want to maximize the evaporation. To do that, the water you're evaporating should be near room temperature, cooling below that as it evaporates. (If the water supply is much colder, then run it through a radiator and blow air through that, to cool the air and warm the water. Then evaporate.)

Sure, you get a little cooling from convection just by blowing the air over ice or ice-chilled water, with little or no evaporation. But you won't get much, which is probably why the Cool Surge doesn't even cool as well as would be expected for a swamp cooler at low humidity. A better solution: evaporate closer to room temperature, and put the ice down your pants.

Respectfully,
Myriad

[Uncayimmy]

A swamp cooler? Goes back longer than 1906!

A block of ice in a pan and an electric fan blowing over it works OK, but block ice is hard to come by any more. Haven't ever tried it with bag ice, but think it would work too well and not last the hour or so an ice block did.

I tried it once in college when the A/C went out. I was desperate. I felt better putting ice on my wrists.

I live in Phoenix where swamp coolers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooler) are common. Hell, I was even in Phoenix rock band (http://www.SwampCoolerMusic.com) called Swampcooler for a couple of years. Anyway, they are great until the dew point hits 56F or so. Interestingly, the weather forecasts here tell us the dew point all summer long, which was new to this Maryland boy. They are very cheap to operate, but the pads get full of mineral deposits. Dealing with that issue cheaply would be a great invention.

[MG1962]

A swamp cooler? Goes back longer than 1906!

A block of ice in a pan and an electric fan blowing over it works OK, but block ice is hard to come by any more. Haven't ever tried it with bag ice, but think it would work too well and not last the hour or so an ice block did.

The Wiki article mentions patents dating to 1906 - but the concept to be much older. In Australia I know of examples that date back to the 1850's. But by sounds of it, everyone on the planet has used some form or other since the year dot

[ImaginalDisc]

Consumer Reports recently published a blurb about them. They summarize by saying: "Don't Buy: Performance Issues"

ETA: Oh, and their newspaper ads are often disguised as articles. (With the words "advertisement" written very small at the top.)

I always wondered how any self-respecting publication can run those.

[Wowbagger]

Okay, so it's even older than 1906. But, whatever year they've been around, it's still hardly something you'd call "genius engineering", today. Maybe it would be considered that in a far more ancient time.

[Wowbagger]

I always wondered how any self-respecting publication can run those.
Any self-respecting publication trying to sell ad space to keep itself afloat, in this day of Internet news.

[The Man]

I tried it once in college when the A/C went out. I was desperate. I felt better putting ice on my wrists.

I live in Phoenix where swamp coolers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooler) are common. Hell, I was even in Phoenix rock band (http://www.SwampCoolerMusic.com) called Swampcooler for a couple of years. Anyway, they are great until the dew point hits 56F or so. Interestingly, the weather forecasts here tell us the dew point all summer long, which was new to this Maryland boy. They are very cheap to operate, but the pads get full of mineral deposits. Dealing with that issue cheaply would be a great invention.


When I was out in Phoenix to visit my brother 15 years ago or so, I noticed all those evaporative cooling misters just about everywhere. As they always say out there “but it’s a dry heat”. One winter my brother was up here in the northeast and remarked as we were walking through the slush “it sure is cold” to which I of course replied “but it’s a wet cold”.

[CaveDave]

...
I live in Phoenix where swamp coolers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooler) are common. Hell, I was even in Phoenix rock band (http://www.SwampCoolerMusic.com) called Swampcooler for a couple of years. Anyway, they are great until the dew point hits 56F or so. Interestingly, the weather forecasts here tell us the dew point all summer long, which was new to this Maryland boy. They are very cheap to operate, but the pads get full of mineral deposits. Dealing with that issue cheaply would be a great invention.

People around here sometimes call them "hay shakers" because of the vibration and the cellulosic "excelsior" media pads we used before the more flameproof paper pads.:D

To help reduce the scaling tendency, you can try a technique we use on cooling towers and commercial air wash systems:

Blow (Bleed) Down!

Add a tee fitting in the pump line to the water distributor and run a small (1/4") line out through the overflow standpipe or any other opening and place a small valve in that line where you can adjust and monitor the flow.
set flow to about 1/3 to 1/2 GPM bleed rate at first. You might could use the tubing and flow control from a hospital IV tubing set, if you know someone who could get one. Or just use a small needle valve. Settability is the key.

When water evaporation is used for cooling, minerals concentrate in the water and crystallize out as scale. Doubling the concentration is two "cycles" of concentration, tripling is 3, etc. Industry often tries for 3 to 5 cycles to balance scaling with water and sewer charges.

A TDS (total dissolved solids) meter (http://www.octiva.net/projects/ppm/) is the simplest way to measure this, just read TDS of feed water, multiply by desired cycles, and adjust valve to maintain at or near that result of TDS in the bleed water.

The above article shows a circuit for the electronically inclined, or I have seen them online for 15-30 USD (aquarium people use them, too.)

Sure saves cleaning that crap and replacing pads every year.:)

Cheers,

Dave

[cisco]

(* Don't ask me why they distribute their magazines so far in advance. It is early July 2009, as I write this.)
Every periodical does that. It's so they can stay on the newsstand longer.