Evaporative Cooling vs Refrigerated Cooling

There are several ways to go about cooling your home. In Australia, our two major options will be evaporative cooling and refrigerated cooling. So, which air conditioner installation is right for you? Let’s look at some of the similarities, as well as a few of the differences.

Evaporative Cooling

Evaporative cooling units are rather simple. With evaporative cooling, you will have a unit sitting on the top of your home, or a convenient location, although the best installation will always be on the roof. There will be ducts throughout your home which are connected to this unit.

When the evaporative cooling unit is turned on, it will start to pull in warm air from outside. This will then be pumped through a series of water-laden filter pads. These filter pads will cool down the air via the process of evaporation. This cooled down air will then be pumped through your home.

Refrigerated Cooling

The process is slightly different when it comes to refrigerated cooling. With this option, your cooling unit won’t be taking in hot air from outside. Instead, it will be pulling hot air out of your home. This hot air will be pumped through the cooling unit. The air will be cooled down by gases known as refrigerants. When the air has been cooled down, it will be pumped back into the home.

So, basically, with refrigerated cooling, you will constantly be recycling the same air. With evaporative cooling, you will always have new air flowing into your property. Obviously, this is something that is going to have a major impact on air quality. Although, as long as you have a regular air conditioner service carried out, it should be a major problem.

Which option is better?

Honestly, both cooling options (providing you opt for the right installation) are great. However, one option may be better than another. It is dependent on several different factors.

For example; if your budget is limited, then you may find that evaporative cooling is going to be a cheaper option for you. While they will still need a bit of maintenance on occasion, it won’t be as costly as maintaining a refrigerated cooling method. Due to the way in which they work, they also tend to be a lot better if you suffer from asthma and other conditions which can be exasperated by dust and the like he air. That being said, they do not function all that well on the most humid days.

If you have a refrigerated unit, then it is going to work far better than evaporative cooling, even on a really hot day. They are a bit costlier to install, but the great thing about a refrigerated unit is that most of them can cool down your home and heat it up too. This means that you only need to have one unit installed if you want something to heat up your home during the cooler months of the year.

If you want to keep your energy bills to the minimum (and most people do), then you want evaporative cooling. It is nowhere near as energy-intensive as a refrigerated option. Although, of course, you will need to put up with the fact that your home won’t cool down anywhere near as much.

How you enjoy living in your home will also have a major impact on which option is for you. For example; if you tend to have your window and doors open during the warmer months, then go with evaporative cooling. If windows and doors are regularly opened when you have refrigerated air conditioning, there will be so much warm air flowing in that the unit will be working overtime (and consuming a lot of energy) to cool it down. This isn’t an issue with evaporative cooling.

Always opt for regular air conditioner maintenance service

As brilliant as each of these methods of cooling is, they are only going to be as good as you treat them. If you do not opt for a regular cooling system service, then neither of the options will work all that effectively. The same if you do not have a cooling system repair carried out as soon as you spot any issue. Without either of these, the cooling systems will struggle to cool down the air. They will struggle to pump it around your home. All the while, they will be consuming more energy. Since an air conditioner is an energy hog at the best of times, you really do not want to be burning off more energy than you need to.