- Home
- Swamp or AC
Swamp cooler or refrigerated air?
Both work on the high plains and both are the wrong answer for some houses. Five questions about yours, and an honest lean rather than a recommendation. No price, no email field.
Nothing is sent anywhere and nothing is stored. There is no email field on this page.
Which way it leans
Answer the five questions and the marker moves. Every outcome is written out below, so nothing is hidden behind the tool.
On these answers a swamp cooler is doing what it is good at: a house that can be opened up, a summer where the dry heat is the problem, and running cost near the top of the list.
- Expect it to struggle for a couple of weeks in late summer when the moisture comes in. That is not a fault, and no amount of servicing changes it.
- It needs a real seasonal routine: start-up and pad change in spring, winterisation in autumn. Skipping the winterisation is how they get destroyed.
- A window or a relief vent has to be open while it runs, or it simply pressurises the house and stops cooling.
- It adds moisture indoors, which in this climate is often welcome rather than a problem.
More of your answers point that way than not, but not decisively. It is worth having somebody look at the house before you commit either way.
- The question that usually settles it is whether you mind the house being open while it runs.
- If a couple of uncomfortable weeks in late August would genuinely bother you, that alone can be enough to go the other way.
- There is a middle answer: an evaporative cooler for most of the season and a single refrigerated unit for the bedroom that has to be comfortable regardless.
Your answers pull both ways, which is a real result rather than a failure of the tool. Houses like this one are where the decision actually depends on things a five-question form cannot see.
- What the ductwork can carry, measured rather than assumed.
- Where the equipment can physically go, and what it would sit on.
- Whether the house is being kept for two years or twenty.
- Whether a hybrid — evaporative for the house, refrigerated for one or two rooms — suits you better than either on its own.
More of your answers point to refrigerated air than to evaporative, though not overwhelmingly. The balance is worth checking against what the house can actually take.
- If there is already ductwork in reasonable condition, the practical gap between the two narrows a long way.
- Static pressure is worth measuring first. Adding refrigerated capacity to ducts that cannot carry it produces an expensive disappointment.
- Sizing matters more here than most people expect: oversized equipment short-cycles and leaves a house cold and clammy even at this elevation.
On these answers a swamp cooler would spend the summer being asked to do things it cannot do. Refrigerated air is the straightforward answer.
- It works with the house shut, which is the whole point if windows have to stay closed.
- It works regardless of what the humidity does in August.
- It costs more to run, and we will not pretend otherwise or put a percentage on the difference before measuring your system.
- A load calculation comes before any equipment is chosen. Getting the size right decides whether you are happy in two summers.
This is a lean, not a recommendation and not a quotation. It cannot see your ductwork, your roof, your electrical supply or your budget, and it produces no price. What it does is stop the conversation starting with whichever machine the last salesman had in the van.
What each one actually does
No verdict in this section. Both machines are described the same way, including the parts their own salespeople tend not to mention.
What it does well
- Cools by evaporating water into the air stream, so the drier the air the better it works — which is most of a Weld County summer
- Uses a fraction of the electricity refrigerated air does
- Brings in a continuous stream of outside air rather than recirculating
- Adds moisture, which at this elevation is usually welcome
- Fewer components, and the components are cheap and serviceable
What it cannot do
- Work in a sealed house — a window or relief vent must be open or it stops cooling
- Keep up when late-summer moisture arrives, typically for a couple of weeks
- Dehumidify. It does the opposite, by design
- Be ignored for a season. It needs spring start-up and autumn winterisation, and uses water all summer
- Filter the outside air the way a closed system can
What it does well
- Works with the house shut, regardless of outdoor humidity
- Removes moisture as a side effect of running
- Holds a set temperature rather than a temperature difference
- Uses the ductwork you already have for heating, where that ductwork is up to it
- Filters the air it recirculates
What it cannot do
- Match evaporative running cost. It will not, and anybody saying otherwise is selling
- Work well through ductwork that cannot carry the airflow — which is why we measure static pressure first
- Dehumidify if it is oversized, because it never runs long enough
- Be fitted without a load calculation and still be the right size except by luck
Nobody has to choose one machine for the whole house
An evaporative cooler serving the house, plus a single refrigerated unit in the bedroom or the room that has to be comfortable regardless of what August does, is a common and sensible arrangement here. It gets you low running cost for most of the season and a guaranteed answer for the fortnight when evaporative cooling gives up.
It is also the arrangement least likely to be offered to you, because it involves two different pieces of equipment and neither specialist sells both.