Frigidaire EC300W-FA Portable Evaporative Air Fan and Humidifier, Personal Indoor Outdoor Space Cooler, 600 CFM
I got this for my house in Arizona. That should fully answer any questions why I would need any kind of air cooler – summer temps get up to 120 degrees and you need all the cooling you can get.
My place is air conditioned of course, with a unit that’s as big as a VW Beetle. It runs 24 hours a day and 7 days a week for about 6 months of the year. And if there is ever even the slightest problem sometimes it can take days to repair. I got this more as an emergency backup unit than something that would be used every day. Evaporative coolers are great for that purpose, you don’t have to run any hoses through the windows or worry about draining the condensation, they are quieter and cost less to run and they have the major advantage even over portable air conditioners that you can run them anywhere indoors or outdoors, which is an extra bonus for me that I can take it into my workshop or put it next to me on my porch – places where an air conditioner wouldn’t work.
IS IT AN AIR CONDITIONER
Without getting technical, and I’m not qualified to do that anyway, suffice it to say that evaporative coolers – or swamp coolers as we call them – are not the same thing as an air conditioner. They use a very simplistic process of blowing air over a pool of water or through a water soaked sponge like material, which lowers the air temperature a lot, but usually not as much as an air conditioner can. They do have the downside that you have to keep them very clean or mold can grow and that’s not a good thing.
Be very clear in understanding that evaporative coolers and air conditioners are two completely different appliances, to compare one against the other is like comparing a blender against a microwave. An evaporative cooler can be plugged in, turned on and it works anywhere. No air conditioning, not even portable ones, can do that, they MUST be vented to the outdoors. I see no purpose in choosing this thing and then complaining that it's not what it was never designed to be. There is a valid reason for owning both devices for their own individual merits and benefits.
COMPARED TO OTHER BRANDS
There really isn’t a lot of difference between different brands of evaporative coolers other than cosmetics, the control panel, water tank capacity and how powerful the fan is. To me it doesn’t make sense why some of them like this one cost as much as a portable air conditioner because there is so little to them – all there is to it is a water tank and an electric fan, and for that reason I can’t rate this one as a good value. You can get ones that do essentially the same thing for close to half what this goes for. I would like to think that I would be paying for the quality of the brand name but Frigidaire tells me they don’t have anything to do with this product, apparently it’s made in China for a company called NewAir and I don’t know anything about their service or support record.
QUALITY
But that doesn’t mean this thing is low quality because it’s not. In fact I am impressed by everything about the way it is made. Most of it is made of plastic but it is a strong plastic. The water is contained in a tank on the bottom that can’t possibly leak because there are no seams and the only opening is on top. You can fill it two ways, either through a trap door on the top of the unit or by lifting the upper part which contains all of the working motors, fans, and other electronics – that portion is clamped to the bottom tank with two very substantial locking mechanisms. The only thing I didn’t care for is that there is only one handle, which is large but on the back of the unit. It’s useful to assist in dragging the unit across the floor on the built in wheels but not for lifting it or for removing the motor assembly for refilling the tank – and that’s too bad because the smooth tapered sides don’t give you anything to grab on to. Other than the rear handle you are forced to stick your fingers into the delicate front grill louvers if you want to lift it. The first time I tried that it was evident that there was no way they were capable of supporting the weight of the whole unit.
OPERATION
Operation is easy to understand and to use, all of the controls are on the top panel and clearly marked and have status lights, or you can opt to use the included remote control which is also easy to use. Every moving part operates with precision and silky smoothness. There’s even a feature that lets you quickly dry the device out for storage if you don’t plan to use it for a while.
DOES IT WORK
The bottom line is that if you sit directly in front of it the air coming out is about 20 degrees lower than the room temperature. The spec about it being good for up to about 400 square feet is wrong, NewAir says it’s more like about 200 square feet – the size of a very small bedroom. You wouldn’t want something like this as the main air cooler for the whole house or even for the living room of most homes but as a portable chiller or as an emergency backup it’s not a bad deal.
First, let me tell you that I live in New Mexico, the perfect environment for swamp coolers. They are designed to work at their best in hot, dry climates, exactly what you will normally find in New Mexico and the Southwest. Swamp coolers (evaporative coolers) are everywhere where i live. Of course, some homes have air conditioning, but with how long and hot the summers here can be, the cost of running a/c for the season can be quite prohibitive for many, and turning to swamp coolers can be the answer to surviving a hot summer at a cost that is much more reasonable than running air conditioning units. Being from the Northeast, i was used to summers being spent indoors a lot, in a totally closed environment while the a/c was running. I had never even heard of a swamp cooler before retiring to New Mexico. After being here for 15 years now, i am much more knowledgeable in how to survive the heat of the Southwest. You have to be, especially since it's a known fact that almost every summer it's been recorded to be hotter than the previous year.
I have a swamp cooling unit on my roof above the main living area that is there to cool the main body of my home. I have trying the past few years to avoid using it as the noise can be quite annoying (it's about 20 years old and definitely needs replaced with a new unit) and the air it blows down is strong enough to blow things off the coffee and end tables, which can be really annoying. Two years ago i decided to go with window a/c units. The cost by the end of the summer was enough that i had to find another way. Last year i bought a few used portable swamp coolers. They were older and a bit noisy, but were much cheaper to run over the summer. I decided this was the way, over replacing the roof unit and window a/c. This Frigidaire portable indoor swamp cooler is my first purchase of a new unit.
I love products that come out of the box basically plug in and ready to run. This unit is that. All you need to do is fill it with water and plug it in. And if you want to use the included remote, install the included battery and it's ready to go. The unit itself is a nice design. It's about 3' high and slim. Much nicer than the older units i purchased last year. The black and white color scheme will go with about any decor if you're worried about that. There's nothing to put together or set up. Just breeze through the included manual to see how to pour water in it, and to find out what the six buttons on top of the unit do to make it run.
Using it the first time, there was no odor as the manual said there may be. And learning the buttons and their functions was very simple. The water pours in two different ways. Either by flipping up the water fill cover on top of the unit or flipping the tabs near the bottom of the unit and taking off the top, which gives you complete access to the water reservoir. I tried both and using the top fill was much easier. All i can say about the unit at this point is try and put the unit where you are going to be using it. The tank holds 5 gallons of water, and that can get extremely heavy for some people to move after it's filled. And there was no way i could move it over a short shag type carpet after it was filled. The small caster wheels make that virtually impossible. Moving over hardwood floors was much easier after filled, but still a little work when the unit is totally filled with water. After it's filled and running it works like a charm. There are 4 fan speeds. The fans can be kept in the same position or there is a button to make them move from side to side for more coverage of cooler air. Even the fastest fan speed is still relatively quite compared to the others i was using, and sounds like a typical floor fan when it's running on it's highest speed. The night mode is especially quite for a swamp cooler, and the water dripping on to the filter was actually noisier than the fan itself, and i had no trouble falling to sleep with the unit running. There is also timer settings so it can shut itself off if you don't want it running all night while you are asleep. Perfect for where i live, even 100 degree days can drop to 40 degrees by the early morning hours before sunrise, and the unit definitely doesn't need to be running anymore, and i don't have to wake up to turn it off. I found that in the hottest room in my home, which at this time of year can easily reach 80, can be cooled by this unit to 70 degrees in a short amount of time. I haven't had the unit long enough to test it out on days when the temp is 90 or above, I'll update this review when we get to that time of year. I went with the Frigidaire make (portable indoor swamp coolers are made by many manufacturers) because they are known as having some of the best air conditioners on the market, and have been in the business for decades. I just figured they know their stuff when it comes to making products used for cooling homes. Last review points are the storage for the cord, which are two tabs that pull out from the rear and the cord can be wrapped around those to keep it from dragging across the floor or being in the way of the casters when moving it around. Also, the filter that is used to be soaked by the water is extremely easy to get to and remove for replacement. Replacement will be different for everyone depending on what is in your water you use. Where i live it's filled with deposits that can build up quickly, other areas don' have any deposits or not near as much, so putting in a new filter won't have to be done as often.
Overall i am completely satisfied with this Frigidaire portable swamp cooler. I never liked being totally closed in with the air conditioning running, unlike swamp coolers where you have to have windows or doors open to make them work correctly. Being able to stay cool and having windows or door opened at the same time works for me. It doesn't give me that shut off feeling. Although swamp coolers will never cool down to the temps air conditioning will, they will cool off your home to a more than comfortable temp if your unit is running correctly and window/doors are open slightly to let fresh air go through your swamp cooler. This unit cooled off a very large area, more than what is stated on the specifications for this unit. The area i'm running it in is about 700 sq ft, and it cooled that area nicely. We are not in the hottest part of the year yet, so i'm sure those numbers will change. The review for this was done on a 80 degree day, and to have the unit cool my home to where it's comfortable when it's 80 degrees outside, and cool about 700 sq ft, makes me feel this investment was well worth it. At $249.00 it is an investment, but when you figure in the savings over using air conditioners, and the low cost of running it, it won't take long at all to recover those costs. This Frigidaire swamp cooler was well worth the money.
In short, it works exactly as advertised...and note that this is not a small/subtle unit!
If you live in a humid area, pass...this will add significant humidity.
If you are looking for a humidifier alone, pass...there are cheaper, smaller units that will add more humidity faster/better.
If you need this to cool a larger area, pass...you can get that much better (and cheaper?) with a wall a/c (or maybe a vented mobile a/c)).
If you need this to be maintenance free, pass...keeping this types of machines is tricky, because bacteria is just dying to grow.
So, if you live in a dry place, and want a combo machine that cools a little/humidifies a little, and you're willing to do the cleaning regularly, highly recommend this very high quality machine!
First of all, if where you live is humid all the time this is not for you.
I live in New Mexico, where evaporative (we call them swamp) coolers are the standard form of cooling for houses. Dry hot deserts are ideal for these sorts of coolers because they work on the physics of removing heat from the air by using it to evaporate water, as water changes from a liquid to a gas it requires energy, which it takes from the surrounding air, thus cooling it. If the air is already full of humidity then no more water will evaporate and the cooler will not cool the air.
Generally they only work reasonably when the relative humidity is below 60 percent.
The CFM stands for cubic feet per minute which is how much fresh air is cycle through each minute. To get a back of the envelope idea of how many CFM you need take the square feet of your room, multiply by the ceiling height (in other words, find the volume) and divide by two. So a 12 foot square room with 8 foot ceilings would need (12 X 12 X 8)/2 CFM or 576 CFM . This cooler claims to work in up to 640 square feet but that is a huge overestimate, you would need a ceiling height of less than two feet for this, and I doubt you would hang out in a room like that, in fact the cooler would not even fit. So in summary, this works well in a bedroom with normal height ceilings in theory, and I found it to work well in practice as well.
You can google a chart that shows the optimum humidity/temp for evaporative coolers to work well. It is basic physics, you need low humidity and warm temps for this to work.
This is actually perfect for us, as we live in the mountains at 7000 plus feet altitude and have no form of cooling in our house. There are usually two weeks a year where we regret this and bake. With this cooler we can make one bedroom in our house cool enough to make sleeping possible. It lowers the temp by about 20 degrees when the ambient temp is 90 with less than 5 percent humidity.
Some versions come with ice packs . If you use these realize you are heating up the rest of your house assuming that the frig is in your house. The energy required to freeze the ice packs is being put back into your house as the warm air that comes out of your frig system.
Low cost to operate, it is 110 watts (like a bright incandescent bulb) .
You will need to be meticulous about cleaning it out.
Specs:
About 36 inches high, by 14 inches deep by 15 inches wide. Weight just under 18 pounds wiithout water in it. Uses 110 watts.
4 speed settings. Has a timer
This Frigidaire Portable Evaporative Indoor Outdoor Space Cooler is a large, but handy device. And it certainly works.
Set up is a breeze (pardon the pun). Open the box, remove the unit, remove a stopper to allow the pump to be lowered into the water reservoir, and then install a battery into the remote. That's about it. Then just add some water and you're ready to go. It's really that simple.
Essentially, it's a clean-looking, consumer-version of a swamp cooler. The bottom portion holds more than 4 gallons of water, and when you lower the pump into the water (by means of a tab on the side of the unit), it pumps water over a pad through which the air flows, pulled through by a fan, thus cooling the air.
If you've ever been driving on a hot, dry day and drove into a solid rain storm, you know that the temp drops a lot because of how the water cools off the air. That's essentially what's happening here.
I live in Boise, Idaho, and it's a high desert - only 13" of rain a year, with very low humidity. On the day I set this up, the temp was pushing 80, and we were doing spring clean up in the back yard. My daughter made a flippant remark about wanting to sit in some air conditioning, and I remembered that this unit is advertised as indoor/outdoor. I brought it out to the patio, put a couple of gallons of water in it, and turned it on. In no time at all, anyone sitting in the path of the fan was significantly cooler. From then on, we would work up a sweat doing yard work, then take a few minutes to sit in front of this unit and cool off.
Likes:
The unit is VERY easy to set up and operate. No problems at at.
The unit does exactly what it was designed to do: Provide cooling! It also serves as a fan if you don't want the cooling effect. Just push the tab up so the pump comes out of the water. That way water isn't being pumped over the pad.
The "whisper" (silent) mode for the fan is VERY quiet. The fan is substantially louder on the other three speeds, but not so loud that you have to yell. I say this only to complement the designers the 'silent' setting on the fan is truly very quiet.
Using oscillation mode, the vanes move inside the unit. The unit itself does not rotate - only the directional vanes. And you can stop the oscillation with the vanes in any position (full right, full left, straight ahead -- whatever you want).
There are additional vanes in the grille that let you direct airflow up or down (or straight out). This is also nice.
Instructions are very well written. It's a nice change from some of the sparse instructions I often see that are written by people who doesn't understand English.
Dislikes / Things I wish were different:
There's no easy way to move this unit around. There's a small molded-into-the-unit handle at the top, but that's only good if you're on tile, cement, or hardwood. If you're using this on carpet, you'll need to move it with both hands rather awkwardly.
There are no handles on the water reservoir. (The bottom part that holds the water). After putting the base in the sink to fill it with water, I had to reach underneath it to pick it up. It might have been useful to have some handles molded into the base of the unit so it could be picked up easier.
There are no instructions provided for how to access and clean (or replace) the cooling pad. In actuality, it's not hard to figure out, but I was surprised the instructions did not cover this.
Despite those 'negatives,' I'm still quite tickled with this unit. It was acquired to keep a few upstairs rooms cool in the summer. Usually my wife's office (which is upstairs) gets to broiling in the late afternoon (hottest part of the day in Boise is around 4 pm). Quite often, she cranks up the AC in the late afternoon. The problem? Cold air sinks to the lowest part of the house, which is downstairs in our tri-level home. MY office is downstairs. So, while my wife is broiling and cranking up the AC, I'm freezing and actually having to run a small space heater to keep my feet warm - even when it's 100 degrees outside.
This unit should work nicely to keep my wife's office much cooler, thus making the temp throughout the house a lot more balanced. Based on how the unit performed outside to cool off the patio, I suspect that when we're dealing with hot days this July and August, we're all going to be a lot happier around here.
Feature Product
- Four fans speeds provide up to 600 CFMs of power
- Removable extra large, 5-gallon water tank needs less refilling
- Oscillating fan covers up to 640 square feet with cool air
- 2-in-1 evaporative cooler and tower fan offers cooling options for all climates
- Whisper-quiet design is perfect for sleeping
Description
The EC300W is the portable evaporative cooler that does it all. It’s a powerful, oscillating tower fan that comes with a silent setting that is perfect for sleeping. It also is fully equipped with an extra-large water tank and cooling pad that allow you to use evaporative cooling to chill your room when relative humidity is low. This flexible cooling system provides outstanding energy efficiency, especially when compared with a standard air conditioning system.
So, my very first experience with one of these swamp coolers was during a trip to Epcot - behind the scenes in the plant/hydroponic area where they have mega sized evaporative coolers running. As a couple, we are heavy on the geek side so always thought those were terrific - all these years later we couldn't pass up the opportunity to try out one in person. Now, it should be mentioned, we live in Florida - land of immense humidity. We routinely have 99 degree temps with 99 percent humidity during summer. However, spring and fall still have plenty of heat with less humidity and ultimately we just wanted to give this a try even for use in our greenhouse. Right out of the box this thing is rather huge. I should have read the description more carefully - you won't be able to hide this thing...it's big. It's on wheels and not heavy so is fairly easy to move around. It's not made for any type of outdoor use and probably limited for the greenhouse so had to switch intended use to garage or porch - there is absolutely no way I'd put this in my house simply due to the change of mold growth if not properly cleaned just about constantly. To me that is a big deal - I'm nearly paranoid about the possibility of mold growth. That brings me to the main complaint, the maintenance is high on this...constant cleaning and dealing with water is simply not practical. I like the energy savings, the sound is indeed nice and quiet - not silent but absolutely more quiet than a similar sized portable air conditioner. I wish this was a bit more weatherized for use in other areas. Far better suited for dry conditions than humid climates but does work and works pretty well if you don't mind the constant maintenance and cleaning.
I live in Texas where the weather can be hot at times, to say the least. I recently converted my garage to be a more friendly place to consume beer, watch sports and just plain hide from the wife while pretending to do yard work. As winter is now over, I realized a need for keeping myself cool while working hard in the garage. Now you know why I decided to pick up a portable evaporative air fan and what kind of environment my review is based on.
The fan was easy to remove from the box and super fast to set up. After unboxing and throwing away some styrofoam, I simply rolled the air fan (yes, it has wheels) over to the wall and plugged it in - viola! Then it was ready for me to fill with the sweet fuel that would keep me cool during my next yard project, water. It can be filled from an opening located under a top latch or you can remove the entire top unit and fill the base directly (Pro tip: take off the top unit and fill using a hose). The top latch is really only for 'topping' up the unit as it would take way too long to reach the minimum water line using this method.
Once filled with water, simply power on the unit by pressing the power button on the control panel or on the remote. Yes, it comes with a remote (battery included) but I'm not sure I'll ever bother using it. This thing is pretty straightforward. Do keep in mind the lock on the side that slides up and down and remember to slide to the right position when filling (up) and using (down).
Now for the good stuff. How does it perform? It's okay. I am not going to start putting these things all over my house or even in a room other than the garage, ever. It's not a replacement for an air conditioner. The unit provides a cooling effect but it also creates a lot of humidity. It works great for me when I'm sitting about 5-8' away in a hot garage. Keep in mind you will want to empty the unit after every use or every other use, depending on usage. Without consistent emptying and cleaning, you will be cultivating bacteria and mold which will then be blasted into your face at your choice of either a high flow, low flow, directly or intermittently (it has an oscillating feature). So far it works as expected and looks/feels like a solid build!
We have used this a little over a week now and find it so easy to move around the house. It has wheels and is pretty lightweight despite it being so tall. Adding the water to the unit is very easy and the functions are easy to learn. We had them figured out the first night. You can choose the evaporative option or the fan only option. There is also a timer you can set and different modes. There is a sleep mode that will decrease the intensity with time as well. The remote is easy to use as well. What we've figured is that if you are sitting right in front of the unit, even in fan mode, this is very cooling. It feels cooler than a regular fan. However, we don't really notice much change in the feeling of a whole room. There isn't much cooling of the entire room, just of you when you are in front of it. It definitely makes us more comfortable without the a/c and I absolutely love that it doesn't have any pipes or tubes that have to stick out an external window. That means you can put this wherever you want in your home, near or far from a window. This is pretty pricey but still better than a portable a/c with regard to price. I agree that the cooling difference will be noticed much more in a drier climate. I like having this unit and will use it frequently but I'm not sure it outweighs the benefits of a portable a/c unit unless you don't have an area in which you can drain the air.
Great product, got these to run in bedrooms so I wouldn’t have to run the AC all day. One of these units will work in a larger room so long as you don’t expect it to go immediately from 90 to 70. The fan is loud and most of the settings and it's acceptable when it's on the lowest settings for sleep.
It takes a good bit to fill up the water tank and you could mix the ice with water to make it cooler. Running on high the tank will only last about 4 hours. On low closer to 10. Depending a lot on your temps and humidity. Really easy to cart around, easy to fill (with a big pitcher or bucket).
I doubt this would do much in a humid climate like Houston, but it almost has a cold as an air conditioner when the humidity is low and the temperatures are high. It does use a lot of water though.
So far we like this Frigidaire Portable Evaporative Air Fan and Humidifier. This comes fully assembled. All you need to do is fill with water, plug in & start cooling. This also comes with a full function remote that stores in the top back of the cooler.
It move easily from area to area on the casters. To fill you can either undue the 2 side clips (raise the pump 1st with the side lever) and take the cooler off the bottom water tank. You can then fill the tank to the top of the MAX water level indicator & place the cooler back on the water reservoir (there are indicators inside to which is the front side).
You can also open the back top lid and fill the cooler with water this way. Advantages to this is you get the back filter loaded with water so cooling starts right away and you don't need to take this apart. Either way seems to work just fine (filling from the top is easier if you are not adding ice packs).
When assembled you can see the water level by the clear window on the side of the water tank. There is also lots of room if you wanted to add ice or reusable ice packs to help with cooling and would not interfere with the water pump. I believe you can also add ice into to top compartment where when running water is pumped up so it can then trickle down the back filter to aid in making the water cooler that the air is then pulled through.
It has several features where you can use strictly as a fan or a cooler. There are 4 fan speed settings. You can have this blow in 1 direction or oscillating back and forth. There are also 2 sets of manually directed vents on the front for up / down.
There are 3 options for the blower, constant, slightly variable (outdoors mode) or more pulsing (night mode) where is slowly slows down until the timer runs out.
You can have this run constant or on a timer of 1, 2, 4 or 8 hours.
The only "issue" we are having with this so far is when this is plugged into the same circuit as our dining area dimmer switch. When the light is on & we are using any level of dimming between none & max, the cooler hums & vibrates a little when turned off. Even when running you can still hear the hum. I have not had this with any other appliances in our house. That fixture is using standard bulbs. I am guessing something is off with the switch introducing something into the wiring that the cooler is picking up.
Except for this we are really liking this portable cooler.
