Goldair Evaporative Cooler GCEV100

Crap unit – How are you supposed to see the water level? Even a torch doesn't help. Water same colour as plastic level gauge and too much water goes everywhere.

Doesn't worse this price – Super noisy and consume a lot of electricity. I couldn't recommend this device. I think better to use usual Ac or fans, or some portable small device. Noise interferes with sleep.

Beware The Evaporated Fooler! – A FABRICATED COOLER Sunair, Mistral, GVA, ETC - all the same unit - doesn't use a pump but thin fabric with small holes on a roller whose bottom is in the water, and takes one and half minutes for one side to get from bottom to top. Every two times, I think, the Power is turned on, it reverses direction. Though the water ensures an even coating, by the time the fabric moves up, much of the water has evaporated, or run down, so at best the cloth has a slight dampness.

NO PUMP

It's all back-to-front.

Any hope for this design to work needs a pump that continuously wets the fabric at the top, so it runs down and stays fully wet 100% of the time.

In about 26 C inside, I tested this unit for 10 hours straight, with filtered tap water of normal temp.

In a double bedroom, it did not move my thermometer 0.1 of a degree. It did raise humidity about 3%.

Putting the thermo about half a metre from it, it did go down 0.5 of a degree.

THE COLD FACTS

This makes the ice compartment with little holes on top almost useless, as it lands on mostly dry fabric.

Putting refrigerated water is the best you can do. I didn't bother.

My 150 watt DACE with 3 thick cardboard honeycomb cooling pads and pump cooled 26 down to 24 in half an hour before I turned it off being too cold. But it is loud.

Even on low speed, the Goldair fan is louder than a 15 inch fan on high. There is too much air resistance in the box by necessity.

Plus, if there was any cold air, this rotary fan does not cover the whole wet area.

GOOD BITS

The plus is almost everything else.

The NATURAL setting with pre-programmed speed changes like wind can be varied by the 3 SPEEDs.

LOW doesn't have any HIGH or maybe once each cycle.

MIDDLE has all 3 speeds evenly.

HIGH has more HIGH.

The unit looks great. It's cute, with pretty coloured lights.

I'm afraid all this amounts to fool's goldair. I don't expect too much, just fair conditioning.

HELLER 80W

I replaced this with a HELLER ECH7 with a 2 inch thick honeycomb cooling pad.

Sadly, the water distribution system fails to wet all the pad, until tilting it, then it cools about 1 degree or a bit more.

Maybe Goldair should change their name to Hell.

DACE 150W

Later, I tested this at different times ranging from 27 - 31 C. While dripping with needed wetness, it cools down 2 degrees, or maybe 3 with refrigerated water.

The humidity increases much more, up to 20%, from about 45% to 65%. DACE Ace.

All measured on my digital thermometer that has a humidity reading, on other side of room.

So, with a portable, it seems the humidity can only go so far before cooling stops dropping the temp.

CONVAIR (Australian, and you pay for quality)

http://www.convair.net.au/products/cooling/how-does-evaporative-cooling-work

→ Look for a design that provides a consistently thick pad for the air to pass through.

→ Some units use a very ineffective “towel” instead of a purpose-built pad.

→ Uses a patented water distribution system that ensures the filter media stays totally saturated.

I haven't had one, but these look the best for a single pad.

Global Warming – I bought 2 Goldair Coolers because Masters was having a closing down sale. A cooler will never be a air conditioner that will drop the whole temperature of a room to a refrigerated bliss. Pretty much it is good if you are stationed to one spot reading a book or sleeping. I like it. Will they last more than one summer? - I am yet to find out!!!

Chest/ Bed Zone Breeze Cocoon – I had to experiment to find the "zone breeze cocoon" in a hot room such as the lounge, next to an open kitchen with the refrigerator and freezer giving off heat, adding to summer's 30'C hot days. What that means is that the cool air flow directed at where you are sitting on the chair has to create a cocoon of continuous cool air while the hot air outside this cocoon remains at plus 30'C. Because the cooler has 4 wheels and is built to sit on the floor, I found that the air flow leaves a warm spot about chest high if you are sitting in the lounge in front of the TV. Instead of the floor, I lifted it and placed it on a chair so that the air flow grill is facing towards your head to chest section. Then I moved the flaps crossways so that the air flow creates a strong breeze even on low speed, and left it on low for quiet operation. Excellent if you want to sleep in bed with the cooler on the chair a meter from you. I decided to use filtered tap water, instead of tap water, because the cool air is cleaner and odourless, plus I believe that the cooler will remain stainless since we got an expensive Amway water filter that's already

more than 2 years old.

The cooler's fan noise is low and with my noise-cancelling Sennheiser wired heaphones connected to Yamaha stereo receiver via HDMI-enabled Panasonic 3D blu ray 500GB HDD player, via 60 inch 3D LG plasma Smart TV - the fan noise has gone with the wind.