[cjenkins]

Evaporative cooler owner here. Thought I would add a few data points in case people were curious. We live in Denver, CO (arid climate, typically mid 90Fs in the summer but can reach over 100F. We tied the all time record of 105 in June FYI).

We inherited a MasterCool evaporative cooler (think big metal box where the evaporative pads are made of aspen fibers) when we bought our house. It wasn't very well sealed so we were only able to drive the temperature down ~10-15 degrees F so it would get pretty uncomfortable once it got above 90.

Replaced recently with a Breezair unit and it's been way better. The air it draws in seems to all be going through the evaporation media so we've been able to maintain 72-75 degrees in our old drafty house throughout the summer so far. I mostly don't mind the added humidity as I get fairly dry skin but we have a few doors which swell and stick due to absorbing the additional moisture.

I really wanted to get a Coolerado unit but they only seem to be readily available for commercial applications. The difference with this unit is that it is an indirect evaporative cooler so the air it blows into the cooled space has no added humidity (and it claims to be able to achieve > 100% wet bulb temperature due to its design [1]).

[1] http://www.coolerado.com/pdfs/PowerMagMCTCfiguresCooleradoTI...

[gm-conspiracy]

The Coolerado looks like a self-contained evaporative cooler with a heat-exchanger.

What are the costs and specs on such equipment?

[cjenkins]

The specs seem fairly detailed (at least to a non-HVAC person) on their website [IE: 1].

Cost on the other hand doesn't seem to be readily available (my guess is expensive since they seem to be targeting businesses vs consumers).

[1] http://www.coolerado.com/m50-energy-efficient-air-conditione... (Downloads tab)