Braemar Paradigm Questions & Answers

Hi David, the energy consumption for your cooling depends on a few key considerations: your floor area, ceiling height, insulation, window orientation, and local climate. On average, however, you could expect to use between 80% and 90% less when running an evaporative system instead of reverse cycle. The best starting point is our Help Me Choose tool or a conversation with your nearest Seeley International dealer, who can assess your specific situation.

Hi there, For the best course of action, we first recommend contacting your installer to confirm that the system is operating as expected. The system's behavior will also depend on the set temperature - if the control registers and maintains the set temperature, the fan speed will adjust accordingly.

If you’d like to manually adjust the fan speed, you can do so by selecting Fan Speed Operation - on page 15 of the MagIQtouch manual and setting it to your preferred level.

Thanks, Seeley International

Unfortunately I can't help you with that as we've never had that issue. A call to Quality Air Conditioning & Heating on 08 93504700 may be the go as I found the guys super helpful

Hi Cheree, thank you for reaching out. I am sorry to hear this issue has been ongoing and Quality Air have not resolved it. Please email us at seeleysocial@seeleyinternational.com with the address for where the unit is located, and a contact phone number so we can reach you. Our Seeley Service Manager will look into this further. Kind regards, Diana at Seeley.

Alan from perth, exactly the same problem with the same model. Bought my Braemar LCQ1450-R in August/2020. Quality Air-Conditioing&Heating have replaced four drain valves and two solenoid valves. The last time was 2/02/2024. I submitted a report to consumer affairs and am waiting for a reply.

Hi Noel, thank you for reaching out. In auto mode (temperature control), the unit is performing as it is intended. When the cooler starts, it will initially start for the first 10 seconds at speed 5 (medium speed) in order to open the weather seals, and then drop its speed, and then will turn off once it has passed the set temperature. If your unit is turning on at maximum speed, and then turning off 30 seconds later, this is not normal operation. Your cooler, once on, will take several minutes to read the temperature, react to it by adjusting fan speed and turn off if or when it has reached .5 degrees below the set temperature.

One option is to use manual mode overnight, so the cooler will stay on at the set fan speed. If you would like to discuss further, or are due a service, please call our service team on 1300 650 644 for further support.

Kind regards, Diana at Seeley International.

It will trickle when in cooling mode over the pads but you shouldn't hear it. I suspect that the dump valve is not fully closing or the float valve is not closing off and the trickle you hear is overflow. call the installer.

Thanks Laurie, have called them

Hi David, sorry to hear you are not pleased with your new Braemar systems. I can give you some guidance on how to proceed but will need more details about your system? Could you please email your product serial numbers, full name, address and contact information to seeleysocial@seeleyinternational.com. Then I can pass you over to one of our service managers to assist with a resolution. Thank you, Rebecca

As a follow up, a service manager for Braemar travelled around 200km from Melbourne to regional Victoria. His attitude was, in my opinion, disgraceful. Eventually and reluctantly concluded that it was the retailers/installer’s fault for not informing me the units would not function on clean rain water. ‘Band-aid’ fixes such as somehow contaminating the water is the only way to resolve the problem. The rusty nuts/nails/bolts/metal and salt in the units water haven’t worked. I can manage this by entering the access code found on the internet and using the service screen as described earlier. In regards to the noise, luckily, he had a good representative for Braemar assisting him who worked with me as I let them know each controller listed a different size cooler that was actually being operated, and discovered my coolers had the wrong boxes/computers in them. They were exchanged between the 2 units (450 and 350) during the initial installation whilst attempting to resolve the not running problem along with probes etc. This has made the running noise of the fan motor more normal and acceptable, but still very audible at low speeds. I think however, the slight improvement is due to the fan not running at such a low speed as now the lowest setting of 1 appears to be equivalent to a setting of perhaps 3 previously. This is obvious by both sound and air flow. I miss the lower air flow it originally had. Whether its a result of the box’s being swapped or an adjustment made that I’m not aware of I’m not sure, it was all a bit of secret as to what was happening for the annoyingly long time that was spent walking around on my new roof pulling cooler pads off and on my new coolers! For people after an overall review, I think they are great cooler with quality components which will last. Only a minority of people using very clean rain water will have a problem, and surely a reputable company could sort this, pure water does not conduct electricity Braemar. My main disappointment is the low speed motor noise. 2023 Braemar paradigm lcq450 2023 Braemar paradigm lcq350

I have Braemar Paradigm evap air conditioners in all my rental and private properties and the only issue I have is with the 'new' Seeley controller which is overly complex compared to the 'old' controller. If I was in the market for another evap aircon I would not buy another Braemar but look for one with a simple to use controller.

Hi Laurie, I believe you are referring to the MagIQtouch touch screen controller. If you need any assistance with using the MagIQtouch controller, there are some very useful videos on our Youtube channel that may help external link  . If you have any further feedback you would like to provide, please let me know at seeleysocial@seeleyinternational.com Kind Regards Rebecca

Hi Manny, this may depend on what controller you have for your air conditioner. Do you have a MagIQtouch touch screen controller?

This probably won't help Darrell but I live in Perth too and I have Braemar Paradigm units fitted to 5 of my houses and also my neighbour's with little trouble. The last unit in my main residence has the MagiQ controller and I have had more trouble with this unit than all others combined. The controller is unnecessarily complex and not user friendly. The instruction book is next to useless. I run it in 'speed' mode rather than 'temp' as I can control the speed of the unit rather than have it blasting away achieving nothing.

Hi Darrell, since your unit is still under warranty, you will need to persist with Seeley's and the installers testing and diagnosis. Once they have determined the issue they will able to fix the problem. I can understand this is frustrating but I can assure you, the team will do their best to help you.

Hi there, if you would like me to chase this up for you, please email seeleysocial@seeleyinternational.com I will need your location, full name and serial number of your system. Thank you Rebecca

I did but got no response!

Apologies, as you see your email has been responded to. I will send on your details to the service team to find out where the parts are.

Thanks,

Hi Michael, thank you for asking this question. When you say it keeps going down, do you mean the temperature is going down much lower that the set temperature? The cooler will remain running after the set temperate is reached and may run 1-2 degrees colder to ensure the home does not immediately heat up once air flow ceases. Touching the screen should not change how it operates. Also, do you have a wireless or wired controller? Wireless controllers update less often to conserve battery power so it can take longer to update the temperature and it may go a little further below the set point. If the cooler drops well below the set point and is still running it is not normal and we suggest calling a technician to have a look at it for you.

Thank you for your prompt reply.This unit was only installed on 10th jan and is a wired controler for three nights the unit has been set at 25deg on each night ,when i have been forced to check it has been 21,23and 22 deg when i just touch screen it shuts down.During the day with 25deg and fan speed on 5 at times speed will increase to a speed to nearly blow you out of house.I have spoken to supplier installer with little result,except they will put in a warranty claim for some one to come and check it. Not very good for a brand new unit 4 days old! They did suggest placing on auto but this wall controller has no auto? Please help!

Hi Michael, it does seem like the controller is not operating correctly. Quite often, issues with our products are caused by incorrect installation, however, please continue with the warranty claim as there may be a problem with the controller itself. I recommend watching this video, this explains how to operate in auto and manual external link  The auto mode is when cool is selected and you adjust the temp on the slider. Please advise if and when you have the warranty repair done and if there any further issues that the installer cannot resolve. All the best, Rebecca.

Finally fixed one problem youtube video not much help but found one that did help, training online magiqtouch connected to seeley cooler explained my controller perfectly,still not real happy with fan taking off speed control.Is this unit supposed to bleed water like my old one to have cool water flowing all the time? this one does not have water from overflow.

Hi Michael, good to hear you found some more assistance online. When you say bleed, do you mean it runs out of the unit through the drain pump whilst it's running? Your Braemar Paradigm system uses technologies called Auto Cleanse and Water Manager. Auto Cleanse auto drains the water to keep your system clean and helps reduce seasonal maintenance. The Water Manager saves water by monitoring the water quality and using the minimum amount of water to achieve high efficiency cooling. If the water quality is not great in your area, you will find the system will drain more frequently.

At no time when unit is running does any water come out of over flow pipe .My old unit had a small amount all the time , i thought this was normal !

Ok, this depends on if the system is fitted with a drain system. If it is, when operating, it will only drain when the water salinity hits the preset level. How often this happens depends on outside temp, water quality, condition of the unit and condition of the pads (older will tend to drain more often). When switched off and not used for 72 hrs in cool mode, the unit will drain the tank (if the drain does not occur, FC4 will be displayed). There may only be a small amount of water discharged when the unit is turned off, this is because when the unit is operating the tank is full and the pads are fully laden with water, once turned off all the water in the pads stops circulating (as the pump stops) and runs back into the tank, which may discharge a small amount out the overflow. Since your system is new, it's perhaps running very efficiently and does not need to drain the water very often at all.

Has not drained any water since installation 10th jan! Fan speed still goes from medium to super high in one jump and needs temp increased to slow it down. We run this unit on 25deg most of the time.

Previously you mentioned that you contacted the installer and they said they will put in a warranty service call. Has this been done? If not I would suggest following up to ensure you have someone to come and look at your system.

Hi Paul the unit can be accessed on the roof. If you need repairs or servicing, we recommend getting in touch with a licensed air conditioning repairer/installer. We also have Seeley Service agents in South Australia and Victoria if you live in either of those states. Visit external link  to find a service agent or book in a service.

Hi Jacqui, Yes, you will be able to have the Braemar fitted running 7 vents. Ours runs 5 and still is able to power more. I would recommend buying the larger model for your house if it’s running 7 vents.

Brian, your concerns about humidity are real. Evaporative air conditioners, like the Braemar and others that use a stream of air passed through a curtain of water, all increase the humidity in the air and do not work very efficiently when the ambient air is humid. So, in particular: 1. With this humidity, you are most likely better off with a refrigerated air conditioner. Any using an inverter system will be cheaper to run than the older compressor style. 2. Yes, to work efficiently you need a window/door/vent to allow the air to flow through the house. The increase in humidity is only a factor if the ambient air is humid, which in your case it is. See the point above. 3. The security vents in question sound like they are the type that vents the air back into the roof space. Again, this is not normally an issue in dry climates but in your climate this may well be a problem. You could overcome this by installing "whirly birds" in the roof to draw air out of the roof space though. Finally, I had a Braemar LCQ450 installed as a replacement for an old Breezair some 12 months ago after the old 21 year old Breezair died. The Breezair was a drum fan and the new Braemar is an axial fan and when this thing was first installed, I found it very, very noisy in comparison. The installer firstly balanced the fan after I put up with it for 2 weeks (one week out of commission), replaced the fan two months later because the noise was unbearable (another two weeks out of commission) and finally, after I threatened to remove the unit from my roof and dump it in the showroom of Seeley International, the installer was told by a Seeley Rep that the motors on these POS are not up to scratch and to replace it with the next sized motor up! That took another 3 weeks to happen and I could note use the unit in between as I could not sleep over the horrible noise! With the bigger motor there are two things to note - 1. The crap noise has gone, thank goodness and 2. Running the fan speed at more than 3 out of the possible 10 speeds will almost blow my windows out :) In short, I would avoid a Braemar evaporative air conditioner altogether and buy a refrigerated, reverse cycle air conditioner of sufficient size to service the area you want to cool and/or heat. My summers are very dry and hot (up to 48C) and any evaporative air conditioner works well with these comditions. I cannot use it in winter, even on a "warm" day of just 25C as the humidity is far too high to be comfortable.

We had a few issues with our unit. The wall mounted control unit has its own chip. Ditto the control panel in the unit on the roof. In our case the two kept failing to communicate with each other. We had either no air-conditioning or just intermittent (randomly dropped out). 1st the wall control unit was reset. When problem remained they reset the roof unit. Didn’t fix it. Then they replaced the wall control unit. Problem persisted. So then they switched out the roof control panel. Finally they removed and replaced all the cables. (basically reinstalled the whole system). Switching out the cabling seemed to fix it. But by the time all that was done summer was over! We’ll know this season if it’s actually fixed. During that process the technician did say that they have had some issues with the chip set in the wall mounted control unit. Which is why they switched it out (twice) pretty early in our process. But otherwise technician seemed genuinely bemused. I got the sense these systems don’t cause the service reps too much trouble. Our system is 4-5 years old. So the whole drama was covered under warranty. Still we essentially didn’t have air-conditioning that worked for the whole of the 2019/20 summer which was pretty annoying. Anyhow hope this helps.

Thank you very much for your time to answer my question very much appreciated! Will ordered a new control until inside and see if it fixes it to start with,I’m in Forbes and it already 40 degrees lol so like you said could be a uncomfortable summer. Thanks again

Hello Nicole - I am sorry I can't answer that. We live on a property and use dam water which we don't measure the usage of.

Hello Leonie. If you have a problem with the unit, our service department can be contacted on 1300 650 644. Thank you ~ Craig

Hello Craig - thank you Craig. I did ring the number, but have not been able to resolve the problem. There is plenty of water in the unit etc, but still blowing hot air. As I said - a conundrum.

Thanks Leonie. We have sent you a request can you please follow up on that. Thank you.

I am sorry - I don't understand - where is the request? Thank you.

I have found with any brand of evaporative cooler that if it is not getting water to all of the pads evenly, it will not cool properly ie : it will have dry sections of pads and the air will go through that instead of the watered pads. The air flowing into the pads will take the least path of resistance which is the same as electricity. Check to see if any of the pads have a dry section. This can happen from brand new as I did find that the installer did not "level" the unit up and it was slightly down to one corner which means the opposite corner on the "slightly" higher side, was dry. Hope that helps. RegardSS .................. Barry Cootamundra NSW

Yes i have a LC Q550, fan speed 1 not much different to 10.Speed1 is blowing too hard.