Things to Know Before Buying an Air Cooler

We often urge to air conditioners to beat the heat of this season but our budget usually shoots up trying to buy a perfect one. In such situations, air cooler can be your next best option. You might not have the perfect air-conditioned room with them, but they make your space cool in the one-fourth price of the ACs and will go easy on your electricity bills too. To make sure you buy the perfect air cooler for your space, here are a few things you need to take into consideration.

1. How they work

Air coolers involve a unit, water-soaked fans, a motor pump, and a fan. To get the air cooler to work, appropriate amount of water needs to be filled and when the motor is switched on the hot air from the surrounding is taken in and circulated inside the cooler and as the water soaked pads cools down, the temperature of the air inside decreases by a few degrees and the cool air is freshly blown out into the room. Thus, it’s very important to have space with good ventilation for the air to circulate.

2. Types of air coolers

There are two kinds of air coolers that come in the market, one of them is desert cooler and the other one being a room cooler, the basic working of both the types are more or less the same but there are a few characteristics of each of them that sets them apart.

The desert cooler is usually the more powerful one as its fitted outside the window and takes the surrounding air and helps combat the extreme heat as well, whereas the room cooler, on the other hand, is smaller in size and less powerful as compared to the desert cooler but it takes up less space, power, and water. So, if you are looking for a cooler in a small room and the temperature outside is not too extreme then a room cooler will be just fine. Secondly, depending on the function there are directive evaporative coolers, indirect evaporative coolers, and two-stage evaporative cooler. The directive ones are the most widely used option as they decrease the temperature using latent heat of evaporation that transforms the water into vapour whereas the indirect ones operate on the function of a heat exchanger. Finally, the two-stage cooler undergoes two stages of cooling where the air is precooled using a heat exchanger first and then goes through the water soaked pads to blow out fresh cool air.

3. Size matters

Always consider the size of your room before buying an air cooler. To get the accurate requirement of the air cooler depending upon the size of the room, multiply the total area of your room in square feet along with the ceiling height and divide the same by two. The result will be the CFM (cubic feet per minute of air) of the airflow needed in the room. Once you attain the same, go ahead with the air cooler that gives the same range of air flow as required by your room.

4. Features to keep in mind

Air coolers are equipped with multiple varieties of features, but there are some important ones to consider:

- Cooling pads

Check the thickness and the shape of the cooling pads before buying a cooler. Presently, most air cooler is the honeycomb ones that are designed to provide utmost cooling, longevity and low-pressure drop. The ideal thickness of 90 mm should be 90 mm to give adequate cooling.

- Electronic Thermostats

Electric thermostats in the cooler vary the speed of the fan and automatically switch on and off the pump, thus making it easy to operate.

-  Water level controller

If you want to maintain water inside the cooler with a pre-set level, choose an automatic water level controller. This also allows and prevents the water to flow inside the tank and avoids flooding as well.

-  Water level indicator

Go for the water tank with an indicator that keeps a check on the water level.

-  Automatic shutoff dampers

Whenever the fan starts and shuts, the shutoff dampers are the flaps that automatically opens and closes. Keep this feature in mind to maintain the cooling capacity of the cooler.

-  Adjustable speed

You don’t always require a high speed for the cooling, thus pick the cooler with adjustable speed to regulate the temperature according to your liking.

-  Remote control

Like the ACs, air coolers also come with a remote control which makes the customizing very convenient and easy with multiple modes.

-   Sleep mode

Just like your regular AC, air coolers come with a timer set option where the cooler will automatically fall into the sleep mode after a point of time.

Apart from the points mentioned above, you will only have to consider the pricing according to your budget. However, with the ongoing Amazon offers and Flipkart offers you need not compromise on the quality of the air cooler that will be a perfect match for your house. Go ahead and pick the best of your choice and stay indoors and relaxed this summer.