Hello
if this is int he wrong forum please forgive me and do move me to a more appropriate forum.

I want to ask if any studio owners on here have used Evaporative coolers in there control rooms? and what results you have had.

our control rooms get uncomfortable in the summer, and i am investigating A/c options and came across the cost savings with evaporative cooling, and wondered if anybody else has tried this

your input would be most welcome, as I'm keen to run my desks at a safe temperature and provide a comfortable work environment for my customers , but without the massive cost of refrigeration
steve

Sure you want your equipments exposed to constant water vapor?

Is there an arid part of England I don't know about? It only works in very low humidity, like here in Arizona. When the monsoons come, the "swamp coolers" stop evaporating and we sweat through August in the house. Of course, I just head out to the studio which has AC. It's not practical for a few reasons there; one: your gear will rust, two: you have to leave the room ventilated so the cool damp air exits outside (it's not recycled as in closed AC systems), and three: it pushes a large volume of air so it's noisy.
The plus side is it's cheap so we grin and bear it for the humid months in the house, but it's a non-starter for a sound isolated room even in the right climate.

+1 for subspace. The only upside that I could imagine is cost. If you have ,like as was just discussed, an already humid environment, it drastically cuts the efficiency of an evaporative system. I certainly would not want to introduce that type of high moisture content to any expensive electronics. Steve, you've got nice stuff; just go for a high efficiency ac unit...something like the Mitsubishi mini-splits- they are very affordable, economic and effective to use(also about the easiest to install). Good luck

thanks everybody for your valuable input,

do you ave a exact model number for those Mitsubishis?
cheers
teve

so i think i sourced the mitsubishis here in the uk, i think they are being sold as Zen model units
steve

I've been doing a lot of air conditioner research as well.

The Mitsubishi mini split is efficient in that you can get one and dedicate it to a single area, that can cut cost if it allows you to not cool some other area where you're not working. Think of it like a two-piece window air conditioner, you don't lose any air leaking around the window with a mini split.

Efficiency comes down to the BTU you need for the space you're in and there's no free lunch. Definitely check out how much current the air conditioner uses. With that information and the knowledge of how much you're paying per kilowatt hour of electricity you can make an intelligent estimate of cost to operate. There are lots of places on the web that can help you calculate how many BTU you need according to your square footage.

In the states we have 110-120 vac and that is not a great voltage to get the best efficiency from an air conditioner.

Evaporative coolers (known over here as "Swamp Coolers") are only good options in very dry climate conditions like the desert. My studio has both HVAC and Swamp Cooler. My swamp cooler vents through specially designed vents in the ceiling of each room so we can direct the cooling effect by opening these ceiling vents. By sending the cooled air into the attic plenum it cools that space too so there is not a heat buildup there.

Humidity and rust are only a problem if you don't have the system balanced properly, it's not a problem for me but I pay a local handyman specialist to set my system up and be sure I'm not overwatering the pads.

Swamp coolers are no good in humid areas. In those areas setting up solar panels to reduce your total power use might be a better investment. I'll have more data on this next year after I finish my solar install.

Good luck and let us know what you end up with.

You should be careful about humidity control. My studio was in the north (dry in winter, wet in summer), and I had air humidification and air cleaning installed with the new high efficiency HVAC I had put in. You don't want to pull all the moisture out of the air. It is bad for you, it is horrible for any acoustic instruments and not very good for other instruments made of wood, and static electricity is no friend of electronics.

Eureka! Stand aside Chaps!
Steven! as always Springvale Studios Laboratories have come up with the perfect green solution to your problem.

We have discovered in careful testing that air conditioning is noisy and wasteful.
In order to maintain a reasonably comfortable working environment and sense of well-being, while making sure of minimal impact to a firms operating costs and of course minimizing that all important carbon footprint, the trick is to control the temperature of the clients most sensitive body parts directly, thus relying on the clients natural circulation to cool all the other parts, Ergo my latest invention!
Thermoelectric USB powered underwear!.

The underlying principles behind my groundbreaking new invention can be seen in operation here.
Can a Cool USB Beverage Chiller Keep Your Drinks Cold? - YouTube
heh

I used to work in air conditioning when I had a proper job many years ago.... Don't get evaporative coolers. They make people feel cooler...kind of... but they don't do anything about temperature. Also, make sure you get enough BTUs to do the job, because if you underspec the temperature will slowly go up and up and you will have wasted a lot of money and hassle for nothing. We used to use a formula sheet for working it out, taking into account size of room, number of people, wattage of equipment, windows, which way the room faces etc. You can probably find things like that on the web.

i would like to place an order for 12 of these underpants units,
please advise of your earliest delivery date

SIr Montague toasty knackers

if you need an aircon job for 2 control rooms, please do get in touch, i am going with mini splits
steve

Hi Steve-just saw your message. It's a long time since I've been in the aircon business so I can't help you directly. I used to work for a small company which you can find here along with a rough air con needs calculator.

CoolCulator

This is a very basic version of what they would use to work out what you need. I can't particularly vouch for them now as it was nearly 20 years ago that I left so I have no idea who works there still. However the boss, Jeff, still runs it and he is a decent if eccentric guy who paid me to go to a recording studio for a week to record their radio jingle when I should have been in the office on the phone, so I give him credit for that!

Good luck!

Dear Sir Montague
Sadly we cannot fulfill your order at the moment due to exciting further developments vastly expanding the range of attachments and fitments in our ground breaking USB underwear.
Take for instance our homage to the ill fated work of Count Von Zeppelin.
with the addition of a hollow plug, a short length of gas
rated flexible hose, a simple trigger adaption of a turbo dump valve assembly, + standard meteorological balloon.
Thusly a whole new era of convenience in handling heavy items of equipment in and around the studio has dawned.
The Mark 1 Flatulifter is unveiled here on gearsluts:

NB) for best performance a small change in diet might be of assistance.
Regards Fairfax

An evaporative cooler should have at least two speeds and a vent-only option. During vent-only operation, the water pump does not operate and the outdoor air is not humidified. This lets you use the evaporative cooler as a whole-house fan during mild weather, for that you have to contact your nearby air cooler dealers or you can visit pickeronline.com