AC or fan?

[SallySummers]

I want to spend as little as possible but still cool off cause the temperature has gone way off by this point, I can't take it anymore. I saw some interesting fans that throw water but I think those are only for outdoor use, I guess. Might be mistaken. Any of you ever used one? Is an AC still better though?

[Nightside]

5 hours ago, SallySummers said:

I want to spend as little as possible but still cool off cause the temperature has gone way off by this point, I can't take it anymore. I saw some interesting fans that throw water but I think those are only for outdoor use, I guess. Might be mistaken. Any of you ever used one? Is an AC still better though?

Depends on humidity.

if heat comes with high humidity where you live, AC will help more. If you are in a dryer climate, shade and fan should be good. 

 

Edited July 12, 2020 by Nightside

[StrandedonEarth]

Especially if the fan is blowing across a bowl of ice...

[Nuke]

i live in alaska so i normally just open the windows. we do have warm summers unless you live above the arctic circle. can get temperatures in the 80s and sometimes 90s especially in the interior. i live in the southeast which makes seattle look like a desert, but it can get warm if it ever stops raining. we usually have high humidity so temps in the 60s and 70s can get really uncomfortable. this summer has been mostly a bust because we cant ditch our cloud cover long enough for it to get nice out. fortunately our winters in this part of the state at least are also fairly mild. 

though they did recently install heatpumps, which i do believe can operate in reverse, but thats a waste of energy imho.

Edited July 12, 2020 by Nuke

[Superfluous J]

Why not both?

[Kerbart]

A fan makes hardly any noise and I prefer it where possible. My office is in a cool spot of the house and I rarely need an AC there. Other rooms in the house practically require an AC.

[tater]

Evaporative cooling works well if the humidity is low, but when it's really hot, even that fails during the daytime as it can only reduce the temp some amount below ambient. It's been ~100F (38C) here for the last few days, but fairly dry at 15% humidity. My AC units are running most of the day, my electric bill will be enough to buy a ticket to Europe this month I think, lol. On the plus side, it's cold in here.

 

[Shpaget]

4 hours ago, tater said:

Evaporative cooling works well if the humidity is low, but when it's really hot, even that fails during the daytime as it can only reduce the temp some amount below ambient. It's been ~100F (38C) here for the last few days, but fairly dry at 15% humidity. My AC units are running most of the day, my electric bill will be enough to buy a ticket to Europe this month I think, lol. On the plus side, it's cold in here.

 

With 15% humidity, why are you not running evaporative coolers? Over here, humidity rarely drops below 50-60% during summer, so it's pretty ineffective since humidity becomes unpleasant, but in your case dew point should be around 45°F (7°C) so pretty good and quite a margin. I imagine it would also feel more pleasant in a slightly elevated humidity (as a side note, there are talks that link elevated humidity to lower transmission rates of corona virus).

Anyway I'm at work, sitting in a basement at 23 °C and 64%, so it's fine, but not suitable for evaporative.

[tater]

2 hours ago, Shpaget said:

With 15% humidity, why are you not running evaporative coolers? Over here, humidity rarely drops below 50-60% during summer, so it's pretty ineffective since humidity becomes unpleasant, but in your case dew point should be around 45°F (7°C) so pretty good and quite a margin. I imagine it would also feel more pleasant in a slightly elevated humidity (as a side note, there are talks that link elevated humidity to lower transmission rates of corona virus).

Anyway I'm at work, sitting in a basement at 23 °C and 64%, so it's fine, but not suitable for evaporative.

I had a swamp cooler, but it's also the start of monsoon season here. So it will be single digit humidity then in the afternoon it will rain someplace close (maybe even on us). Enough that humidity skyrockets even if the temp doesn;t decrease much. That, plus the fact that if the cooler only knocks the temp down 15-20 degrees F, that's not enough for me, I want it 22C in the house.

[YNM]

On 7/12/2020 at 4:31 PM, SallySummers said:

Any of you ever used one? Is an AC still better though?

First of all, you don't want to have too much humidity around electronics. If it's where you use electronics, you might want something that doesn't throw water everywhere.

I've only ever seen them used for temporary stuff ie. a reception or similar.

Proper AC unit (read : those with a separate evaporator - also known as split unit, or a two-hosed portable unit, or a window unit) would always be better. Swamp cooler might be an option but it depends.

Edited July 15, 2020 by YNM

[tater]

Swamp coolers really only work in places where adding humidity to an interior is considered a plus. It is in fact what I miss most about having one. Except for humid days like. Overcast at the moment, and already warm, 30% humidity.

https://sandiapeak.com/weather-conditions/

"Tram Base" is effectively my house (I'm a few hundred meters from there, level with it).

Need to head to the crest more... so nice on top.

[Nuke]

On 7/12/2020 at 9:24 PM, tater said:

Evaporative cooling works well if the humidity is low, but when it's really hot, even that fails during the daytime as it can only reduce the temp some amount below ambient. It's been ~100F (38C) here for the last few days, but fairly dry at 15% humidity. My AC units are running most of the day, my electric bill will be enough to buy a ticket to Europe this month I think, lol. On the plus side, it's cold in here.

 

having lived in both very hot and very cold locations ive noticed that people way overshoot comfortable temperatures in their thermostat setting. like people were constantly setting the thermostat to 78 last winter, which i found unbearably hot, i prefer around 73, but i put it down to 70 to save power most of the time. i find our floor is poorly insulated and the house is rather drafty when its windy, and i might put it up to 74 in those situations. likewise when i lived in phoenix i found it wasn't unusual to be freezing while inside in the middle of summer. like when i had my system builder gig, it wasn't unusual for me to warm my hands on the back of the server racks. idk what they had the thermostat set to but it was pretty frigid, mostly because of all the servers. but it wasn't unusual for me to find various shopping malls and other businesses too damn cold, and i grew up (and currently live) in alaska. 

 

On 7/13/2020 at 5:58 AM, tater said:

Swamp coolers really only work in places where adding humidity to an interior is considered a plus. It is in fact what I miss most about having one. Except for humid days like. Overcast at the moment, and already warm, 30% humidity.

https://sandiapeak.com/weather-conditions/

"Tram Base" is effectively my house (I'm a few hundred meters from there, level with it).

Need to head to the crest more... so nice on top.

my grandma's house in phoenix has a swamp cooler and its horrible. i mean it can work sometimes when the humidity is low and it gets the temps inside to the 70s, but when its humidity (like it is in the monsoon season) can be rather miserable. 

[tater]

4 minutes ago, Nuke said:

having lived in both very hot and very cold locations ive noticed that people way overshoot comfortable temperatures in their thermostat setting. like people were constantly setting the thermostat to 78 last winter, which i found unbearably hot, i prefer around 73, but i put it down to 70 to save power most of the time. i find our floor is poorly insulated and the house is rather drafty when its windy, and i might put it up to 74 in those situations. likewise when i lived in phoenix i found it wasn't unusual to be freezing while inside in the middle of summer. like when i had my system builder gig, it wasn't unusual for me to warm my hands on the back of the server racks. idk what they had the thermostat set to but it was pretty frigid, mostly because of all the servers. but it wasn't unusual for me to find various shopping malls and other businesses too damn cold, and i grew up (and currently live) in alaska. 

Temperature perception is odd.

78? Heck, 73? Wow. If I'm home by myself I keep the house at 67 in the winter and the sun is out. If it gets cloudy, then maybe we bump it to 69. When my wife is home, maybe rarely 70. Usually 60 overnight (house is adobe, so it tends to radiate some heat into the house til late, so it almost never gets as cold as 60, I just don't want the heat to come on).

In the summer? 74-76 in the daytime if people are home, if it gets cloudy on the warmer end. At night I drop it to 73 in the bedrooms zones, turn the AC effectively off in the rest of the house.

[Nuke]

4 minutes ago, tater said:

Temperature perception is odd.

78? Heck, 73? Wow. If I'm home by myself I keep the house at 67 in the winter and the sun is out. If it gets cloudy, then maybe we bump it to 69. When my wife is home, maybe rarely 70. Usually 60 overnight (house is adobe, so it tends to radiate some heat into the house til late, so it almost never gets as cold as 60, I just don't want the heat to come on).

In the summer? 74-76 in the daytime if people are home, if it gets cloudy on the warmer end. At night I drop it to 73 in the bedrooms zones, turn the AC effectively off in the rest of the house.

the only reason i set it so high is because the apartment building is old and of poor design. thus we get drafts. building is also on piles due to the soft soil in these parts with a huge crawlspace under it. and the maintenance people are kind of stupid and are always leaving the hatch open. not to mention all the holes where local animals have burrowed under it to stay warm. if this place was well sealed 68 would probably be fine. 

[tater]

Our house if fairly drafty, but the climate here is pretty mild (although it does go below freezing most nights in winter).

[Cydonian Monk]

And here I thought fan threads were prohibited.....

 

The answer to the question, as just about anyone who lives in Houston will agree, is BOTH. I really need both and use both. My A/C has hardly stopped since some time in May, and my ceiling fans are on during the day. I also use little accent fans when needed. It gets really bloody hot now that I'm working from home during the days.

[Jeb1969]

 I usually use the AC to cool my room and the ceiling fan provides cooling when the AC isn't active, Also I try to keep my ceiling fan on most of the time to get of any residual stuffiness, which usually in North Carolina/Southeast in General there's a day in late April to early May where the temperature is Nearly 80℉ (26℃) outside but the humidity makes it more like 86℉ (30℃) where just having the ceiling fan on is not enough to cool you down completely.