When we bought our house last year, we knew the old AC system was inefficient and would need to be replaced at some point, but frankly, there just hasn’t been room in the budget for such a major expense. As luck would have it, the AC condenser failed just when my mother-in-law arrived for a week-long visit, and just as the worst of the Tallahassee summer weather was coming on. The AC unit was running continuously, it just wasn’t cooling.
Not only were we afraid of the looming financial hit, while we waited a few days for the HVAC guy to squeeze us into his schedule, we were hot, sweaty, sleep deprived and cranky. Then my brilliant husband had a great idea; he went outside periodically and hosed off the laboring AC unit. Within minutes, the house would cool off and we all sang hosanna.
Three days later the HVAC serviceman discovered a minor problem, fixed it in less than 30 minutes, and we happily, thankfully, wrote him a $200 check.
As proud as I am of my husband’s ingenuity in employing the simple principle of evaporative cooling, I’ve since discovered his brainstorm had already struck some other entrepreneurs who now hold patents. A quick Google search on the terms “air conditioner mist” brings up more than 1 million results for the products some of these geniuses are marketing.
Most of the units we’ve researched sell for about $100, and claim a 30% reduction in cooling costs. One site has a calculator that estimated we’d save about $57 on our already-low average summertime bill of $280; that's only about a 20% savings, but still impressive. The device can be installed without tools in about 10 minutes.
Here’s how it works: When the AC fan comes on and starts blowing air upward, it lifts a flapper which opens a valve. Water then begins to flow to the misters, thereby lowering the ambient temperature. The AC unit doesn’t work as hard, doesn’t run as long, and doesn’t use as much energy.
When the fan turns off, the flapper drops back into place; the valve closes and no water is wasted. To save even more money and water, we plan to hook our mister up to our rain barrel. Including the expense of the rain barrel, the whole set up will cost about $200.
Don’t you love it when you discover a simple, inexpensive product--employing basic physical properties like evaporative cooling and gravity—that saves money and natural resources?