If air conditioner efficiency improves when it rains outside, why don't all air conditioners include water sprayers to help cool them?

submitted by magnora7 from self.science

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[–]magnora7[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Yeah I might get an attic fan, I was looking in to that today too. My temp gun read out 165F on the attic ceiling, and 145F on the floor. Pretty dang hot.

I tried a little experiment and put a gallon of water on the external unit. It cooled it from 140F to 95F, and it evaporated in about 90 seconds because of the heat. Then about 20 minutes later it was back up to 140F.

From a cost perspective, a gallon of water costs 1 cent. 1 cent of electricity is 100Wh. I think it'd be very hard to save 100Wh with one gallon going from 80F to 140F, not sure how many Joules (or watt-hours) that is.

[–]Tom_Bombadil 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Try the same experiment with a mister than can be directed at the cooling fins.

Dumping a gallon of water is a waste.

[–]magnora7[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I sprinkled the gallon around the entire thing, I didn't just dump it

[–]Tom_Bombadil 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'm not sure that I've ever heard anyone say they've sprinkled a gallon.

I'm sure you did, cause it was hot AF, and you were on a mission to fix it! ;-)