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There are so many things wrong with this unit that I'm surprised I've managed to remember them all. Some other reviewers have touched base on them already, but here are the details:
* You put water and/or ice in the top of the unit; you cannot put water where the ice is and vice-versa. The area where you pour water into is about 3x2 inches in size (yes, really!), while the area for ice is about 7x3 inches. You literally need a funnel or a small plastic tube to fill the unit up with water (see below). But it gets worse...
* Easily the biggest flaw: the water/melted ice goes down a tube and literally into the casing of the unit! There is no water tank, or centralized hold for liquids. The entire bottom of the unit is the "tank", if you can even call it that.
* The two cooling packs provided contain some sort of cheap coolant liquid inside of them -they do cool quite well, but here's the problem: they're physically too large. The cooling packs are dropped into the bottom of the casing (where the water is), right into the water. They don't mount inside anywhere.
* The "door" for the cooling packs is too small for my hand (and I have small hands), which makes removing the cooling packs impossible. It took me a good 5 minutes using a pair of plastic pliers to grab a pack and remove it. The door is held shut with magnets, which is admittedly nice. But the door empties right into the water "tank", which means you might as well fill it up from the side and not the top! What were they thinking when they engineered this thing?!
* Water pump is a pump intended for aquariums. If you open up the back of the unit (which you have to do for water filter cleaning; see below), you can peek inside and see quite clearly printed on the pump "AQUARIUM PUMP". Most aquarium pumps I know are loud, not soft/quiet nor do they hum; and because the pump is screw-mounted to the bottom of the unit (which is plastic), I'm left thinking the entire unit must vibrate heavily when powered on. This makes you question the production quality of this item.
* Water refill line is recessed deep inside the unit due to how the plastic casing is molded; it's impossible to read, and it's incredibly important (see above) to not go above a certain fill line. If you go above the line, water will start to come out of the front of the unit, and the rear of the unit (bottom of where the air filter starts).
* The air/lint filter on the back is easily removable. However, to clean the water filter, you must remove 6 screws and proceed to wiggle/wobble plastic pieces until you pull the back of the unit out. Why screws? Why not some retention plastic, or a clip? Better yet, why not magnets like the ones used on the coolant door? You cannot remove it entirely, because attached to it (permanently) is a bright orange hose connected somewhere within the unit; it has no slack. You need 3-4 hands to do this job.
* The water filter itself is what looks to be nylon webbing, identical to what some people use in a clothes hamper. It's just some cheap mesh with some Velcro on it so you can remove it semi-easily.
* Manual states you must clean the water filter every 2 weeks. Yup, you get to disassemble the unit that often. Fun for the whole family?
* Much to my amusement, the drainage spout (if you need to drain the unit) is directly behind where the AC power cord is. Am I the only one who thinks this is a bad idea?
Should you avoid this product? Absolutely. I'm left wishing I could give this thing negative stars; seriously, SPT should be ashamed for engineering something like this. I realize it's somewhat inexpensive, but what you get for under a hundred US dollars isn't even worth it.
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It has everything you want of a fan timer, 3 speed, variable direction, remote control, but don't think this will in any way reduce the temperature in the room at best you get a fan with built-in humidifier.It comes with ice packs, but using these doesn't make any difference either, and good luck getting them back out after using them the hole you have to drop them in is the same size as the ice pack, so once you get your hand in there and get a grip on them, you can't get your hand back out.
Update: Died after less that two years.
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Even living somewhere where it is very low humidity (usually less than 10%) it does not cool enough to make it worth the noise. The noise actually kept me up at night. Get a normal fan instead it will work better in the long run.Honest reviews on SPT SF-610 Portable Evaporative Air Cooler with Ionizer
This lilttle fan/cooler is good. First it kinda takes you back because it resembles and old home furnace but in a modern twist. This cooler works just fine for us in our living room. Which is on the small size. Now this thing isnt gonna make you cold or do the work of a real cooler but its better than a fan and it has many settings to help you adjust it just rite. The ionizer is a great feature. Im not sure how well or how much it ionizes but there are times you can tell its working. Overall I do recommend this product to anyone who needs a little help cooling down and doesnt want to spend Air Conditioner prices. Remember this little guy is great but if youre looking for a major cooling effect this isnt the item for you.Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for SPT SF-610 Portable Evaporative Air Cooler with Ionizer
As I type this, it's 103 outside with 29% humidity. Inside, without the central air conditioner running, it's 102 and 30% humidity. I filled up this gizmo, turned it on, and the air coming out the front of the unit is 91 with 45% humidity.Since this cooler works by the phase-change of water into gas, you'll need to open your windows and let the air circulate so the humidity doesn't build up to the point where you're in a sauna and start to sweat like--um--someone who's in a sauna.
It won't cool down an entire room, but if you'll be typing away on your computer like I am, you'll be sitting in one place. So sit next to the cooling breeze with an iced tea, and you'll be happy as a clam.
Here's some numbers for how it works, and what's reasonable to expect from this cooler . . .
Everyone knows that to generate steam, you apply lots of heat to water. You'll be happy to learn that if you dip a towel in water and hang it to dry, the liquid water changes to vapor, and in the process absorbs heat. How much heat, you ask?
Water weighs about 8.3 lbs per gallon. To turn one lb of water to vapor, you need to apply about 910 BTU of heat. Multiply 910 times 8.3 and you get 7553 BTU. So, if you can entice a swamp cooler to vaporize one gallon of water in one hour, it will (about) cool as much as a regular window unit rated at 7500 BTU.
However, this particular machine professes to vaporize about half a liter of water (about one pint) in an hour. One pint is 1/8 of a gallon, which is about one lb of water, so you can assume this machine will cool at the rate of 900 BTU per hour, which is about 20% of what a small window air conditioner will provide.
Nevertheless, this evaporative cooler is much more energy-efficient than a plug-in AC unit.
This cooler draws 60 watts of power. Compare to a window AC unit, which draws about 20 times as much power (1200 watts and up).
If electricity costs you 10 cents per KWH:
This cooler will operate for 160 hours (a whole week) for $1.00
A window AC unit pulling 1000 watts will operate for 10 hours for $1.00
Consider what you need to cool before you choose a cooler.
If it's just you, and you're not too fussy about sitting next to what's essentially a fan with a bit of cooling power, this will do the trick. But if you need to cool an entire room from 100 degrees F to 85 or below, you'll absolutely need a regular air conditioning unit.
One other note . . . using ice will help a bit, but not by a whole lot, because
to melt one lb of ice, it only takes about 140 BTU of energy vs. the 910 BTU it takes to vaporize water. So you get 6 times the benefit of vaporizing water compared to just melting it. No doubt it helps, but don't worry too much about it, unless you happen to work for an ice-making company and have lots of free ice available.
Bottom line -I'm happy; it does what it needs to do, because it's just me sitting next to my PC. And it's way more affordable to me, and much easier on the environment.
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