15 January 2009 hits water use out of the park

PS – we tried to get something to replace halogen downlights, but couldn’t find the replace ments anywhere in Canberra.

We did external blinds and internal blockout blinds, insulation and new internal doors (previously open plan style). Our place still got almost as hot as outside. (Before that it got as hot or hotter than outside). We then installed evaporative cooling.

We’ve since moved to a better house. Some houses are just not going to be good no matter what you do.

Al,

We spent 3 months looking for a house with a long east-west axis and decent northern sun. It took that long to find. As it is we’ve ended up with bedrooms on the northern side rather than living areas. We always intended to renovate and move the living areas to the north side (this is in the planning stage) but this is an expensive option.

We have no significant westerly glazing to shade, and the afore-mentioned orientation means the eaves do all the shading we need on the northern glazing.

We’ve already spent $4k on blow-in cavity wall insulation and topped up the existing insulation in the roof. I’ve installed a draft-stoppa thingo for the bathroom fan. I have also thoroughly draft stopped the windows and doors. We have so much movement in the house that it was almost impossible to draft stop the doors. I ended up nailing 5mm quad on the frame for the door to put up against and installed draft stop on the inside edge of the quad.

We don’t have RFL in the roof, but when we extend the house I’ll get that put in too.

We have four halogen downlights. I have installed the special heat-proof caps in the roofspace (that was a bastard of a job!) and put the insulation up to the recommended height around the caps. I intend to install LED downlights once the price comes down a bit. The fluoros don’t cut it for us in that application. We have compact fluoros in all other light fittings.

I have done all this and the place still drops to 12-13 deg overnight on a cold winter night and would get to 30deg inside in the current weather if not for the evap cooler.

I’ve looked into retrofitting solar hydronic heating but the cost is prohibitive.

We have a 4800L tank that catches 80% of the rain that falls on our roof and the evap cooler runoff and which is used to flush the toilet for 75% of the year saving the best part of 50kL.

Your place sounds great, and I’d love to come and take a look around sometime, as I have an idea I’d like to build a solar passive place myself. My experience is that it is quite difficult and expensive to retrofit 35 year old brick veneer houses and the result is just not that great.

OK. As I said, I haven’t had one, but was aware some dewgree of window opening is required to allow air movement, which is after all how they work. Hence my careful wording above about degrees of same.

Sepi – 12L for a loo flush? Time to update your cistern dear. Ours is 3 or 4 litres depending on button used, but that low requires special bowl/rim design, but after market cisterns can give you 3/6 with simple changes.

Aidan, I agree that evap coolers are better options then refrigerated A/C for dry inland areas. But window shading – both internal (blinds/curtains) and external (awnings/trees) – (and insulation as you’ve mentioned) should be up the list of priorities.

Sealing up drafts around windows, doors and skirting boards will have a surprising impact. Sealing a door up will cost about $10 for edge strip and $20 for a flap on the bottom. Hardware shops have Draft-Stoppers for about $30, which sit over your exhaust fan to kill off that MAJOR heat entry.

Do you have downlights? Change the halogen globes for compact fluoros then the lower heat generated means you can place these little plastic caps over them to stop the draft (and you can stuff insulation right up to the cap instead of leaving a foot square gap around every light!). And save heaps on the juice they chew through to boot…

A bit further up the cost scale, Adapt 2 at Mitchell have an aftermarket product to convert your existing windows into sort-of double-glazed. The glazing is perspex, and the frames have magnetic strips that stick to other strips that you stick onto your existing frames. They look good and are dead easy to install. Not always practical, but worth considering.

Remember that all of these solutions have double benefit because they help you in winter too.

Then you can start thinking about other heat sources – reflected heat off paved areas is a big issue. Can you shade that concrete on the west outside the windows?

And if you have a cooler, then think about capturing the water they purge. For instance, if you do have a tank fed by part of your roof, does the purge run to that downpipe? If not, a pipe stuck on the end could allow you to some part of your garden nice and green…

Al

As sepi said, you have to have the windows open for them to work. The installers of the unit told us that the wider you have them open the more cooling effect you will get (within reason and the ability of the unit to push the air out). We were told we could have different cooling in different rooms depending on how open the windows were. I don’t think it is quite as straightforward as that, but it works to a degree.

The unit doesn’t dump the water when turned off. It has a sensor which determines the levels of salts and dumps the water when it exceeds some limit. At a guess it does this every few days, but I honestly don’t know how often. It will also dump the water if it hasn’t been turned on for a number of days, but I don’t know how often that is.

In Canberra’s climate, short of knocking down and building lovely solar passive designs like yours Al, Evap cooling is the best retro-fit option for shitty little brick veneer boxes like mine. (I also have ceiling and wall insulation).

All of you whinging about Rome and ‘modern cities’ seem to miss the point that this isn’t a technological issue. It’s a meteorological and geological issue. There’s a drought. When the rain falls, it doesn’t fall in catchment areas. There aren’t any suitable areas to construct new storage. Come back when you’ve sorted these out – or suck it up and be prepared to use less, pay more or recycle.

ps – you have to leave windows op for them to function, it isn’t a choice.

EVap coolers do use 18 L to fill up – but that is once a day if you leave it on. And considering a toilet flush is about 12L (?) I don’t think it is that much to get excited about.

I think the more modern evap coolers use a lot less water than the older ones.

I really think as a modern city we should be able to water our yards, grow vegies and have decent showers and baths. And run reasonable cooling. And let kids play in a tiny clamshell pool in their own backyards. And grow a tiny bit of grass to go under the swing set etc.

I have heard that physios are treating a lot more back injuries due to people bucketing water around. It is like we are in pioneer times.

And green spaces will work to cool down a city anyway.

I am really over these water restrictions – can you tell!

I guess it would also depend on how open you have the house. Many people like evap coolers because they can leave windows open. But the more you do this, the more your evaporated water is just blowing outside, and the harder one is likely to have it running…

Although I haven’t had one, I’d assume they also use 20L or so first up to fill their tanks – the amount that is dumped when they purge after being turned off?

Johnathan Reynolds was interested in how much water Evaporative Coolers use. I went and checked the water usage for my evaporative cooler (Breezair) last night. At 7.30 pm (it was still over 30 deg outside) the unit was using 4L/hr. It was cranked up pretty well as high as we ever have it (7 bars on the display).

This water usage figure will depend heavily on the amount of air going through it, the temperature and the relative humidity.

I will have to check the water use in the middle of a scorching hot day to see the absolute maximum consumption of the unit.

Bear in mind that this 4L/hr figure represents the upper-limit of our use. In most cases we have the fan speed set at between 2 and 3 “bars”.

Some nice points imhotep!

Holden Caulfield said :

(Holden Caufield) …”I’ve never understood watering down driveways (for example) when sweeping is usually just as effective.”

I agree absolutely. The same with watering gardens in the middle of the day and watering on a set schedule regardless of weather. I don’t care if the odds and evens system becomes permanent.

But I stand by my point that Canberra, as a city, should be able to function without little old ladies carrying buckets around.

One ML of water grows about one tonne of wheat. (Supplied to the paddock as irrigation water). We also happily irrigate to supply the dairy industry and the myriad of other goods and services we ALL use as city dwellers.

My point is, relative to the amount of water we take from the environment just to live the way we do, complaining about evaporative coolers and the like is completely missing the point.

imhotep, I take your point (kind of), but once this drought is over (assuming it does break), I just hope we as a community have learned to be a little more water wise.

I’ve never understood watering down driveways (for example) when sweeping is usually just as effective.

There is a growing number of people in Canberra and elsewhere who consider that such things as gardens, long(ish) showers and swimming pools are no longer PC. I don’t agree. The water we need to run this city is minuscule in the scheme of things.

Why should my neighbour (little old lady) have to save the water from her washing up and carry the little bucket around to her flower beds? Why should the front yard of many houses in this city be bare earth and weeds? This isn’t the third world. Even the Romans managed to supply water to their cities.

I wouldn’t have a problem with this if there truly wasn’t enough water in this region. But there is. What there isn’t enough of is storage.

We already pay too much for water.

Please tell me you are kidding! What is it, a couple of dollars (at most) for 1000 litres of water!!! If you think that’s expensive then I hope you aren’t a bottles water consumer!

I am a keen gardener, I struggle to keep it going over the summer even when I do capture water in the shower using buckets. But I do have to use the watering system once a week if there’s been no rain.

Even with the very low cost of water – it adds up man! I worked it out to cost me about $6 every time I run the watering system – not exactly big bucks!

I do what I wan to conserve water without being weird about it, but I do use drinking water to keep my garden going. Even if they triples the price of water (no real complaints here), I’d still do what I do and pay the price. It’s only a matter of time until the cost of water is 3 times what it is now anyway.

johnboy said :

poor people are just as welcome as always to recycle their own water and get a rainwater tank for their garden.

If they want to pour pristine potable water onto the dirt then that should be the same financial choice as for everyone else.

Guess what, poor people don’t have it as good as rich people, who’d have seen that coming?

Water policy is not the place to be re-balancing social injustice. (tiered pricing to guarantee basic necessities of hygiene and survival assumed).

Demand management including through pricing and by not being able to supply people with the water they want is the cause of the inequity.

If price does influence demand then it will influence demand more if a scarcity price applies to every KL of water not just the amount that a government determines is excess and if it only applies when scarcity exists.

It is more cost effective and environmentally sensible to supply Canberra water users with the one standard of water even if for some of its purposes it has been treated when unnecessary at a cost of less than a cent a KL.

Of course when governments and water corporations get caught with their pants down they’ll come up with lots of waffle to obscure what the real problem has been. And talk of saving pure pristine potable water is just a bit of it. As is the idea that rainwater tanks will save most people money here in Canberra. They are good for beating restrictions.

miz said :

(miz)… I mean, we don’t have a problem storing grain and wool against a poor season.

I agree miz. It is not the ‘drought’, greedy irrigators, evaporative coolers or gardens which are causing Canberra’s water shortage. There is plenty of water in this region for a small city like Canberra to live comfortably without (relatively) significant environmental effects.

If you believe in climate change (and I think you should), our weather will become more extreme (droughts, floods etc.) If we want to continue to live the way we do in our growing cities, we will need to build more storage. Tough decisions need to be made.

poor people are just as welcome as always to recycle their own water and get a rainwater tank for their garden.

If they want to pour pristine potable water onto the dirt then that should be the same financial choice as for everyone else.

Guess what, poor people don’t have it as good as rich people, who’d have seen that coming?

Water policy is not the place to be re-balancing social injustice. (tiered pricing to guarantee basic necessities of hygiene and survival assumed).

I mean, we don’t have a problem storing grain and wool against a poor season. Go read the story of Joseph (the one with the amazing technicolour dreamcoat), which provides a salutary lesson about how to manage essential supplies.

What monomania said.

If the water use of these units is as high as the scant information I can find indicates, there may even be a for having these systems metered separately (think: provision of off peak electricity). Then water usage for cooling purposes could be charged at a differential rate.

Yes, let’s set up an expensive monitoring and regulation regime to track what might amount to 4% of daily water targets a few weeks a year. Next on JR’s water hit list – people with teenaged daughters and people who shower more than once per day.

Jonathon Reynolds said :

(Johnathon Reynolds)”… why aren’t these (evaporative air conditioners) subject to water restrictions?”

You don’t have to be a scientist to know that evaporative coolers are WAY better environmentally than refrigerant-based coolers.

Back when the Snowy Scheme was built, peak load on the NSW/Vic grid was in on winter mornings, when everyone turned on their little 2 bar radiators.

Now peak loads are on hot summer afternoons, when everyone arrives home and turns on their big reverse cycle units.
http://www.transgrid.com.au/trim/trim191126.pdf

url>http://blogs.smh.com.au/lifestyle/renovationnation/archives/2007/12/air_conditionin.html

The fact that this city has now reached a point where people are complaining about the water used in evaporative air conditioners reflects the success of various governments, including the ACT Government, in deflecting the responsibility they have to make the tough infrastructure decisions.

ActewAGL more or less expect us to use more water on hot days…as long as most days over summer have a water usage figure which is under the target, we should have a figure for summer which is under the overall target of 12,510 ML. (And for those of you wondering where that number comes from, there are 90 days in summer…90 x 139).

I can’t understand why so many people attack water consumers who just want to use water that is available. They should be angry with politicians who have decided how much water we are allowed to have and that it should be less. The same mob who tipped out a years supply before they woke up that the problem had not gone away.

We already pay too much for water. The A.C.T. should have enough water. If the anti-dam lobby had not held sway for so long, we might already have more dams catching more water and in dry times like now we may not have reached level three restrictions. Evaporative coolers do use water, but what’s wrong with that? Gardens use water but what’s wrong with that? And it’s not wrong that pools and washing the car at home uses water. Canberrans are not responsible for problems with the Murray Darling basin. Our water use is miniscule compared to the amount of water used by irrigators. And we pay a hell of a lot more for it.

jakez said :

johnboy said :

The whole things brings us back to pricing water seriously and leave people free to make their own decisions.

Yep Johnboy is right.

You could even have a tier system for equity purposes.

the only thing that we would have to be aware of is the theft of water from your taps on the outside of the fence perimeter. i already have tap locks, after i caught the housing neighbor watering her lawn from my tap.

actew agl suggested locking the taps.

Well I don’t have an evaporative cooler. So I’m going to water my lawn tonight.

@chrispy:

chrispy said :

Asking how much water Evap coolers use is like asking how much electricity Airconditioners use. There are hundreds of designs, the installation, location and current temperature, humidity and air pressure all make a difference on the amount of water used. To actually find out an Average usage someone would have to pay for a study to be done.

Actually the you are incorrect. There is probably an (Australian) standard with regard to temperature and humidity against average power and water consumption is measured. That would give a set theoretical values. This is no different to the fuel economy Km/L figures manufacturers publish for motor vehicles (even they allow for different types of typical use: Highway and City Driving and as they say “your milage may vary“).

@Holden Caufield:

Holden Caulfield said :

How much electricity does an air conditioner use?

Here are the figures for the two split unit reverse cycle units I have installed (vintage 1999) – these are from the manufacturers specification sheets :

Panasonic CS-G93KE
Cool mode: Cooling Capacity 2.60kW, Running Current 3.75A, Power Input 0.73kW, C.O.P 3.56
Heat mode: Heating Capacity 3.60kW, Running Current 4.80A, Power Input 0.99 kW, C.O.P 3.64

Rating conditions:
Inside air temp: Cooling 27’C DB/19’C WB, Heating: 20’C DB
Outside air temp: Cooling: 35’C DB/24’C WB, Heating: 7’C DB/ 6’C WB

Panasonic CS-1873KE
Cool mode: Cooling Capacity 5.2kW, Running Current 10.7A, Power Input 2.19kW, C.O.P 2.4
Heat mode: Heating Capacity 5.5kW, Running Current 10.6A, Power Input 2.08kW, C.O.P 2.6

Rating conditions (AS1861.1 Aust Standard):
Inside air temp: Cooling 27’C DB/19’C WB, Heating: 21’C DB
Outside air temp: Cooling: 35’C DB, Heating: 7’C DB/ 6’C WB

C.O.P = Coefficent of Performance

For comparison the specifications on a Penguino Portable unit (vintage 1995) I own but no longer use is as follows (from the Use and Maintenance Manual):

Pinguino PAC25Classic
Water function mode: Cooling Capacity: 2.40kW, Running Current 3.85A, Power Input 0.83kW
Air function mode: Cooling Capacity: 1.62kW, Running Current 4.45A, Power Input 0.95kW

Rating conditions according to standard ASHRAE 128P

So when is the next bright spark no-water restriction ban weekend on. Such a brilliant idea last time – an even better one now.

How much electricity does an air conditioner use?

I ran around the suburb turning on every tap I could see from the street, and deliberately dug into the water main.

Put me down for 55 Megalitres.

Are we saying that only rich people should be able to have gardens?

Demand in Canberra is pretty fixed, regardless of price.

Unless we raised prices to levels where some people wouldn’t be able to afford gardens, demand will not change much.

We’ve now had so many years of water restrictions that people are jack of seeing their gardens and amenity (eg kid’s paddling pools) being taken away, yet the govt is doing very little to ease the situation. In fact, programs like “Live in Canberra” are making the situation worse.

Then there is all the doubt about the efficacy of “environmnetal flows”, where what we are releasing is simply being picked up for virtually nothing by downstream irrigators.

Which brings us back to JB’s point, which is that pricing mechanisms are about the best tool available to the govt.

Asking how much water Evap coolers use is like asking how much electricity Airconditioners use. There are hundreds of designs, the installation, location and current temperature, humidity and air pressure all make a difference on the amount of water used. To actually find out an Average usage someone would have to pay for a study to be done. Are there any readers of RA with some money burning a hole in their pocket? (probably due to not having air conditioning)

At least I only watered our garden.

Well I did my bit for the record – set up a paddling pool for the kids. Put me down for about 20 litres.

@aidan

aidan said :

Properly designed evap coolers don’t use lots of water.

Really? You wouldn’t happen to have manufacturers the specifications available?

My Comments from: http://the-riotact.com/?p=10279

Jonathon Reynolds said :

I was wondering what impact that evaporative cooling systems were having on water consumption.
Surprisingly Australian information (from the manufacturers especially) on the actual water usage of these units appears to be quite scant, perhaps non existent (or I’m not Googling it right).

I did find the following paper from a joint project by Yarra Valley Water and the Water Services Association of Australia that describes a study into Evaporative Water Cooling systems (December 2005). In this report they found that the average daily usage of water per domestic unit was 216L/day, or 18.8KL/annum (for Melbourne on their test sample)
http://www.yvw.com.au/NR/rdonlyres/823F5570-98A1-442E-BB67-63781C813576/0/EACReport.pdf

According to figures from the ABS (March 2008), there are 25,900 evaporative coolers in the ACT
4602.0.55.001 Environmental Issues: Energy Use and Conservation, Mar 2008
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/4602.0.55.001Mar%202008?OpenDocument

On this basis alone (assuming that the figures for Melbourne could actually be directly applied to the ACT, which is doubtful given that we have different climatic conditions)

By Extrapolation Evaporative Cooling Water usage for the ACT would be:
25,900units x 216L (Melbourne Avg) = 5,594,400L/Day (Approx 5.6ML)

This of course doesn’t take into consideration Evaporative Water Cooling units that sit on virtually every large office block and most commercial buildings.

If we really want to be consistent about the need to “conserve” water, there is a valid case for mandating minimum efficiency standards for these units. (In fact that is something the Federal Government should be doing for equipment on a whole range of fronts).

If the water use of these units is as high as the scant information I can find indicates, there may even be a for having these systems metered separately (think: provision of off peak electricity). Then water usage for cooling purposes could be charged at a differential rate.

johnboy said :

The whole things brings us back to pricing water seriously and leave people free to make their own decisions.

Yep Johnboy is right.

You could even have a tier system for equity purposes.

3-part solution:

1/ JB’s consumption-based differential pricing (ACT Gov role via ACTEW).
2/ Energy and water star ratings on the units themselves (AGO’s role).
3/ Requirement on retailers of such units (are you reading this ACTEW shop??? Could be mandated via ACT Govt) to provide information to purchasers on consumption and water capture/reuse options.

Properly designed evap coolers don’t use lots of water. We have a Breezair that recycles the water until it gets too concentrated and then it dumps it and fills up again. This happens every few days as far as I can tell.

Clearly it is using water all the time, evaporation is a clue here, but not alot. The bonus is we use bugger all electricity (didn’t even notice it on the bill). Restricting their use would mean more people get refrigerative units that use heaps of (coal-fired) electricity. This would be bad.

I do know someone that installed an evap cooler and then installed a tank just to catch all the water that came out of it. Don’t know the brand of that cooler. Clearly some sort of minimum standard of water use is required if it doesn’t exist already.

The whole things brings us back to pricing water seriously and leave people free to make their own decisions.

why aren’t these units subject to water restrictions

To what alternative ?

Yeah lets ban people from using aircon on hot days?

Odds and evens.

get to know your neighbour day ?

Just not feasable.

Sure they use heaps of water but so do car washes, industry, infrastructure etc.

Banning them or regulating their use will have negligible effect compared to industrial water use, it will just creat a majority of tired and emotional people.

Whats the alternitive ?

Refridgerant based aircon that generates a bigger greenhouse gas footprint in electricity use ?

Damned if you do and damned if you dont.

Maybe we could start hinhabiting canberras underground spaces for summer eh p1 ?

I don’t have an evaporitive cooler.

But I did my bit towards the record by hosing down the bricks and pavers.

hmmm, so how come on this page ACTEW report water use was 184.7ML? What is going on here? Where is the ~10ML difference occuring?

I’d like to see ACTEW stump up with some real figures regarding the contribution that evaporative water coolers make to the total equation … I think they are definitely a factor on “hot” days, and if this is the case why aren’t these units subject to water restrictions?