[Dallas59]

Great grandmother had one of these in the window...looks about the same too...



Never was real hot inside when we went to her house.

[GeronL]

water coolers were great when I was a kid but they’d be destroying electronics these days with all that moisture in the air

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Swamp coolers are great in the low humidity west! We used them many times in the 1960s. In the humid South they cause mold and mildew problems. Hard candy does not stay hard long with one of them.

[mylife]

That’s all I used in the Sonoran desert.
I don’t think it would work for a flip in Tx at 46% humidity.

[Dick Vomer]

OH MY GAWD.... my grandmother's house in South San had one of those in a room. It was amazing because we had never had AC. We used to close the drapes, turn out the lights except for the radio or one lamp and nap/sleep/goof off . We only got to turn it on for a couple of hours after 3pm.

We used to beg for it. The old water cooler. Lots of humidity but the temp was so much cooler than summer in old San Antonio. hahhahahaha

[Cvengr]

I like evap cooling, however, the building codes today promote heat pumps and mechanical ventilation using AC.

AC only requires about 1/3 the air flow of evap cooling. This means most construction today build in duct work capacity at 1/3 that of evap cooling requirements.

It’s easy to move from evap cooling to AC, but it frequently is less expensive to demo the house and rebuild it, than to remodel and install larger ductwork in modern designs.

The same applies to natural ventilation. IBC mandates far less fenestration than the older UBC. IBC also mandates a lower ventilation rate. (Newer homes might be better insulated, but they also tend to stink more due to less outside air or ventilation.)