The contents of this picture, are about to give us a HUGE quality of life improvement... Much as the new AC did for our indoor life, the $60 or so worth of tubing and fittings, is going to improve our outdoor life.
Two of our household members prefer to spend a lot of their time on the back porch... But when it gets above 100 degrees out there, which it is during daylight hours for something like 7-8 months out of the year, that gets very difficult.
For me, I'd absolutely prefer to spend a lot more time out on the porch as well... For one thing, that's my main hobby and project workspace, and most of my tools and workbenches live out there... But my endocrine issues mean I have very poor body temperature regulation... Or often, basically none... And I just can't spend much time out there when it's much over 80-85 or so, and basically none at all when it's over 90 or so.
That means I basically can't go out on the porch at all, 20-24 hours a day, from May or June through September or even October, and daylight hours most days from late March or April through late October... even some days in November.
... Rather a big limitation for me... It's basically half of our socialization and recreation space, and I basically can't use it at all for more than half the year, or barely use it for another quarter of the year... I don't think I've been out onto the porch at all except momentarily, since... March? Maybe April?
It's only mid June, and we have already seen over 113 official temps in our neighborhood, and observed as high as 117... We're probably going to hit over 120 observed, and at least 117 official, in July and August.
And of course, we'd ALL like to enjoy our outdoor time more, which means getting the temperature out on the porch below 100, and preferably below 90, or even 85.
Now, outdoor evaporative mist cooling has been around forever... hell, it was invented before modern air conditioning... but full EVAP mist cooling systems used to be rather expensive. Hundreds, or even thousands of dollars for large outdoor areas. And with the older big hole mister nozzles, you didn't get all that fine a mist, which was less efficient at evaporation, and the nozzles would crust up with minerals very quickly and be hard to maintain etc...
In the last 15 years, prices for misting systems have PLUMMETED to almost nothing. The complete setup for two different misting circuits as pictured there cost less than $60. The hookup hose, hose manifold and hose fittings together cost more than that; and gross, the whole system end to end cost maybe $100. And mister nozzles are now EDM machined, to optimize their spray pattern so they evaporate more efficiently, while using less water, and crudding up less. In fact, I can replace every mister nozzle in both loops for about $30, and about an hours worth of work.
Our back porch is about 32x16... Which should be completely covered on the outer two sides by the bigger coil of tubing and bag of mister nozzles, spaced about 2 feet apart (the manufacturer says ideal spacing varies from 20-40" depending on encironment.
The smaller coil of tubing and bag of nozzles, is to convert our large harbor freight outdoor fan, into a directed "swamp cooler" style, fan driven evaporative cooler, on a 30-8sh foot tether (we also got a high flow 4 way hose manifold and heavy duty high flow hookup hose, to use as a water "switch", so we don't have to shut it off at the outdoor standpipe, or shut it off to use our garden hose in the yard etc...)... and one thing we definitely have at this house is GREAT water pressure, so I'm not worried about feeding that many nozzles off a single garden standpipe.
Even without the fan driven evap cooler, we should get a minimum of 20 degrees felt cooling effect on all but the humid monsoon days... And on very dry, very hot days (we've seen as low as 2% relative humidity this year so far)... The days we need it the most ... we may be able to get anywhere from 25-30f degrees of felt cooling effect, just from the ambient mist... Meaning we may be able to get 110-115f ambient to feel like 85f or even 80f...
Maybe, with the ambient mist system, AND with the big industrial fan cooler going together, under ideal conditions, on the hottest and driest days, we may even see as much as 35-40f degrees of felt cooling... The charts say it's well within possibility, but I'm certainly not expecting quite that much.... But it would be very nice to get an ambient observed of say, 115-120f, to feel like 85f or 90f...And 30-35f (about 20c maximum) should be practically feasible within the limits of the system, given our uniquely suited climate for that system.
Hell... According to the charts, on a 120 degree day, with under 4% relative humidity, with enough airflow and enough misting, in theory we could see a maximum of 60f felt temperature reduction... But that's theoretical chart performance... And that wouldn't actually be pleasant for that matter. It would get uncomfortably muggy somewhere around 45f of felt cooling.
