Cool Surge update
Posted by Dan on May 8th, 2009
2009
May 8
Last year’s post on the Cool Surge scam has had a lot of comments this week. Apparently the Cool Surge people are running the same misleading ads again with the new warm season. It’s good to see that so many people are googling the product after reading the ads, and I’m happy to play my small part in debunking the thing.
June 28th update: this post originally claimed that the Cool Surge was not technically a swamp cooler. Wrong! It turns out that there is a water reservoir not mentioned in the full-page ad. I apologize for my error.
Green Homes America has a good analysis. Also see the writeup at Consumer Reports. Finally, a video of the test Consumer Reports ran:
May 31st, 2009 at 10:29 am
Dan, you are absolutely correct. The swamp cooler works in very dry environments where the evaporation of water removes heat from the ambient air. The air has to have very low relative humidity (or moisture content) otherwise it is impossible to add additional vapor into the air.
This cool surge removes heat by warming the glacier pack until it is almost as warm as the ambient air, then a freezer must remove the heat just added to the pack.
This may be an acceptable solution where there is no other cooling available in a room and one doesn’t want to add an air conditioning unit, but ultimately the heat has to be removed by the freezer, and the freezer works the same way as a conventional vapor cycle air conditioner. That means the cooling cost will be same whether you use the cool surge or the room AC - actually, the cool surge will cost more as you are going through additional heat conversions: room air to glacier pack to freezer to kitchen to house AC.
Pete
May 31st, 2009 at 11:48 am
Thanks so much for everyone’s input! This is a great website and your input saves so many people so much money.
June 8th, 2009 at 9:21 am
Thanks for the excellent info. I saw the add and was suspicious because nowhere does it clearly indicate the mechanics of the unit. The website is blocked beyond the promotion materials, where you click “learn more” and see more of the same!!
June 9th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
all the above is true. The only way cool surge can be of absolute value is if there are no other ways of cooling. Also, if your freezer is running anyway, the ice packs are frozen in the same time. This is the copy of the redneck idea…. use a cooler box filled with ice and water and lower a window flat fan over it.
June 10th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
As soon as I get my refund (it should be by the end of the week) I intend to copy the Attorney General in Arizona - Consumer Frauds Division - and ask for a complete investigation followed, hopefully, by a cease and desist order, along with a substantial fine.
Upon receiving the two coolors I purchased some very sophisticated temperature measuring devices. I conducted a series of experiments, including one where the air temperaure was measured, 2″ in front of the cooler. There was no change in temperature there and, on average ( a dozen different locations/distances) the temperature went up by two degrees. This means that, when compared to not using air conditioning, my bill would go up (the cost of running the two coolers) and the temperature would go in the same direction.
I notice that, in their ads in April, the claim was that using the coolers would drop room temperatures by up to 20 degrees but that now the ads say “up to 10 degrees.” I guess if they said one degree it might hurt their sales.
They are also very careful to say that the units produce “ice cooled air,” not “ice cold air.”
This product ( along with their “Amish Fireplaces” ) is a complete and total ripoff (i.e. they can provide no documentation to support their claims) and I’m going to work very hard to put them out of business.
June 15th, 2009 at 8:40 am
Amazing that so many of these ads for junk are located in Canton, Ohio.
June 28th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Dan, I’m not defending this piece of garbage. However, according to it’s sketchy literature and the Consumer Reports piece, it does behave as a swamp cooler. There is a water resevoir in addtion to the (LOL!) glacial ice packs. Water from the resevoir is wicked up into the air stream where it evaporates. I do fully agree that it is an overpriced P.O.S. that would only remotely make sense in a very dry climate, the ads on misleading, and anyone in a humid climate would be better off folding up the ad and using it to fan themselves. My rant is at: http://greenhomesamerica.wordpress.com/2009/06/20/another-scam%e2%80%94the-cool-surge-portable-air-cooler/
Thanks,
Mike
June 28th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Mike, thank you! I stand corrected. Cool Surge really is a swamp cooler. I based my rant on the full-page ad and the company’s web site… I saw no mention of a water reservoir.
July 6th, 2009 at 6:41 am
I’ve sent a letter to the AG of NY State asking for an investigation of the Cool Surge Portable Air Cooler fraud. It’s not just money or the false claim it helps the environment. An elderly person could be killed by it in a heat wave.
July 23rd, 2009 at 6:45 am
[...] Portable Air Cooler. As explained in my previous post, the Consumer Reports review, and elsewhere (like this Regruntled post), this doesn’t make sense for most people. SAVE YOUR MONEY—DON’T BUY ONE! There are [...]
August 25th, 2009 at 4:55 am
Is there a class action lawsuit going on for this p.o.s cool surge portable air cooler sign me up. F that I am outrage right now because our Government need to send MF to prison for Fin with my credit card just so they can steal millions in the interest from the bank, driving up our interest rate as the bank try to recover from their loss.
September 21st, 2009 at 3:03 am
The Cool Surge Cooler is not a swamp cooler, it is a humidifier. The last thing one should do during a heat wave is to add water vapor to the air in a room. Evaporative coolers take large amounts of dry hot air from the outside, evaporate water into the air, which cools down the air, but increases the humidity. The ventilation rate must be between 20 to 40 volume changes per hour. Windows are cracked open to allow the air to escape. The average energy efficient home has a ventilation rate less than one volume change per hour. In other words for evaporative cooling the inside air in a room or a house is “swamped” or overwhelmed by the outside air blowen in.