Click Here For Wholesale Prices on Air Conditioner Efficiency Products!

In an earlier article, we discussed how air conditioning works. The important fact from that article is that some sort of water cooling function, such as a cooling tower, increases the efficiency of the condenser to allow for more effective cooling. This is due to the fact that, as water evaporates, it absorbs a great deal of energy (heat) from the surrounding air, making the job of your air conditioner’s cooling coil that much easier.

Why Businesses Save More Energy on Major Appliances

(Image courtesy of: Bryant, Charles W., and Marshall Brain. “How Air Conditioners Work.” 01 April 2000. HowStuffWorks.com. <http://home.howstuffworks.com/ac.htm> 21 May 2008. Please visit their site for a terrific explanation of air conditioning and other systems.)

Even if you could afford a cooling tower, the neighbors would not be too happy about you installing one unless you had a few hundred acres of land in a remote area.

The trick is in scaling down the high efficiency cooling systems, or at least the underlying technology, so that it is accessible for you and me.

Scaling Industrial HVAC Technology for the Small Consumer

Luckily, I have been researching, and installed at my own house an extremely affordable solution which utilizes that same principle, which is that the evaporation of water mist draws a large amount of energy from the air in the form of heat, allowing your air conditioner’s condensing coils to cool faster and pump that coolness into your house or small office.

I was immediately impressed with the simplicity, and the fact the I installed the device in 15 minutes without using any tools whatsoever. Notice here that it is installed on a residential heat pump, and will work on almost any similar split system air conditioner or heat pump. The important factor is that the condenser (the outside portion of your air conditioning system) is upright and has a fan which blows air upwards through a grate.

The top portion of the Cool-n-Save is glued onto the condenser and connected to your home’s outdoor water nozzle with the included plastic tubing. The included filter provides water without small particles which would clog the misters.

The top of the Cool-n-Save base contains a paddle (flap) which moves upwards when air is blown from the condenser’s fan as shown above, opening a water valve which sends water down through three plastic tubes. Three misters send a cool, moist mist towards the condenser intake, cooling the ambient air by as much as 30 degrees Fahrenheit.

Here we see the Cool-n-Save mister in action, spraying a super fine mist and using a tiny amount of water.

Proving Cool-n-Save Energy Savings

Although it is too early to give definitive figures on energy savings, and it will be difficult to compare month-to-month energy bills due to fluctuations in temperature and other variables, I can attest to its ability to reduce the load on my air conditioner and thus cool my home quicker than before.

If nothing else, this product increases our comfort level on hot days.

Instead of accepting my subjective opinions on the Cool-n-Save, you can download the Cool-n-Save Study by Tulane University for a comprehensive engineering analysis of the device.

When in doubt, the Energy Star Partner seal should give you confidence:

Calculate Your Savings

According to Con Edison, the amount of energy used by your air conditioner is a function of outside temperature and thermostat settings, and will range from 50% - 80% of your total energy costs in the summer.

How much did you calculate? We conservatively estimated $ 170 per month savings at our home.

Would you think it would be fair if Cool-n-Save paid for itself in less than one summer? Before answering, consider other upgrade projects you have completed in your house. Have you installed new windows to improve insulation? The payback period for new windows can run over 10 years!

For the Cool-n-Save, let’s use: 3 months x $ 170 savings per month = $ 510 savings in one summer!

In our situation, Cool-n-Save is paying for itself in 2-3 weeks! Plus, we noticed our house reached a comfortably cool temperature much quicker, even on the hottest, most humid days!

If the Cool-n-Save cost only $ 100.00, then it will be EARNING you money for 2-1/2 months of the summer, or even longer in hot, southern-US States.

$ 170 savings per month x 2.5 months = $ 425 PROFIT you made this summer by using an energy efficiency device!

Buy Cool-n-Save Below Retail Price!

So, consider the $ 425 or more profit you are earning when installing the $ 99.00 Cool-n-Save, and then take an addition 5% discount Maryland Green Power Co. gives you against the manufacturer’s suggested retail price, and you have a real money saver!

Special Offer: Get 5% off the suggested retail price of $ 99.99 by clicking on the secure Google Checkout button below:

(Purchase link temporarily removed on August 20, 2008)

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August 29, 2008 - Note: MGPC will not be replenishing its stock of Cool-n-Save, instead favoring the custom-designed air conditioning and heating solutions at:

Green HVAC Solutions for Home and Office

Click on the HVAC link at that site to view the many options available for business and residential customers.

Chilled-water and Cooling-tower AC Units

Click Here to Request Information on High Efficiency HVAC Systems and Retrofits

In a chilled-water system, the entire air conditioner lives on the roof or behind the building. It cools water to between 40 and 45 F (4.4 and 7.2 C). This chilled water is then piped throughout the building and connected to air handlers as needed. There is no practical limit to the length of a chilled-water pipe if it is well-insulated.

You can see in this diagram that the air conditioner (on the left) is completely standard. The heat exchanger lets the cold Freon chill the water that runs throughout the building.

Cooling tower

Cooling Towers
In all of the systems described earlier, air is used to dissipate the heat from the outside coil. In large systems, the efficiency can be improved significantly by using a cooling tower. The cooling tower creates a stream of lower-temperature water. This water runs through a heat exchanger and cools the hot coils of the air conditioner unit. It costs more to buy the system initially, but the energy savings can be significant over time (especially in areas with low humidity), so the system pays for itself fairly quickly.

Cooling towers come in all shapes and sizes. They all work on the same principle:

1. A cooling tower blows air through a stream of water so that some of the water evaporates.
2. Generally, the water trickles through a thick sheet of open plastic mesh.
3. Air blows through the mesh at right angles to the water flow.
4. The evaporation cools the stream of water.
5. Because some of the water is lost to evaporation, the cooling tower constantly adds water to the system to make up the difference.

Cooling towers

The amount of cooling that you get from a cooling tower depends on the relative humidity of the air and the barometric pressure.

For example, assuming a 95 F (35 C) day, barometric pressure of 29.92 inches (sea-level normal pressure) and 80-percent humidity, the temperature of the water in the cooling tower will drop about 6 degrees to 89 F (3.36 degrees to 31.7 C).

If the humidity is 50 percent, then the water temperature will drop perhaps 15 degrees to 80 F (8.4 degrees to 26.7 C).

If the humidity is 20 percent, then the water temperature will drop about 28 degrees to 67 F (15.7 degrees to 19.4 C). Even small temperature drops can have a significant effect on energy consumption.

To understand how the relative humidity and atmospheric pressure control the temperature drop in a cooling tower on any given day, check out USA Today: How a sling psychrometer works.

Whenever you walk behind a building and find a unit that has large quantities of water running through a plastic mesh, you will know you have found a cooling tower.

In many office complexes and college campuses, cooling towers and air conditioning equipment are centralized, and chilled water is routed to all of the buildings through miles of underground pipes

Bryant, Charles W., and Marshall Brain. “How Air Conditioners Work.” 01 April 2000. HowStuffWorks.com. <http://home.howstuffworks.com/ac.htm> 21 May 2008.