Need advice -mist system or evaporative cooler-

[brewmyster]

I have a small greenhouse, 10'x12' w/low ceiling. With the summertime temps here in Louisiana hovering around 95 f. the temps in gh are around 100. Humidity is staying below 50%. I have several fans circulating air and an exhaust fan.

I have been in contact with Marty at MistKing about a mist system. I have also been looking at an evaporative cooler. Looks like either setup is going to be about same cost wise. I am needing to get the humidity up and temps down.

What is eveyones thought on this subject? Any advice will be much appreciated

Thanks
Mark

	Mistking Looking for a misting system? Look no further. Automated misting systems from MistKing are used by multitude of plant enthusiasts and are perfect for Orchids. Systems feature run dry pumps, ZipDrip valve, adjustable black nozzles, per second control! Automatically mist one growing shelf or a greenhouse full of Orchids. See MistKing testimonials

[RosieC]

Hi Mark, I don't know the answer but am interested in this myself. Just giving this a bump in the hope you will get an answer

P.S. Not sure if you realise but Marty is also the owner of Orchid Board. I believe there are others here who have a Mistking system from him but I'm not sure.

	Mistking Looking for a misting system? Look no further. Automated misting systems from MistKing are used by multitude of plant enthusiasts and are perfect for Orchids. Systems feature run dry pumps, ZipDrip valve, adjustable black nozzles, per second control! Automatically mist one growing shelf or a greenhouse full of Orchids. See MistKing testimonials

[johnblagg]

well hmm eveporative coolers dont work so well in Lousianna do they ? I know they did not in Houston.

[brewmyster]

Well that is really one of my questions. Does an evaporative cooler work in Louisian? Most of the larger growers here have the big wet walls. I dont really have room for this.

Mark

[johnblagg]

actually evaporative coolers dont work well here in Southeast Missouri because we have such high humidity they are not effective ...rice fields everywhere now days ...back in the 70s before rice was grown here they were pretty good here especially in the hill country.

Do you perhaps have your own well or are you on municipal water?AT my house and at as friends we use well water and a solar powered pump to run cold well water through a raidator and get excellent cooling with that ...but then you have to have a place to dump the water since its a open system not a closed loop.

But a mister system running off well water would work great

[Jerry Delaney]

Personally, I have never been a great fan of commercial evaporative coolers. I'm no engineer but I have always felt that the velocity of air across the pads in most of these coolers is way to high. They don't work well in a lot of areas and I would think you would be able to get better humidity with misters. However, you may be looking at installing both systems. Under bench misters will only go so far and overhead misters if run too long will keep things too wet perhaps. I not quite sure what you meant when you said you didn't have room for a pad system. I have a small greenhouse that I use a homemade pad/fan system where all the pad system sits outside the greenhouse and so it takes up zero greenhouse space. I'm sure Marty will be able to provide good guidance. Good luck with your system.

[Ray]

I have seen evaporative coolers wok in very humid environments - inside Palmer's Greenhouse in Houston (yes inside, not blowing in from the outside). I was stunned.

The last one I had was in Louisville, and it was still effective in the middle of the summer when the RH is maxed out - although not as effective as when the RH was lower.

If the RH stays in the 50's, they can be very effective for cooling, but as Jerry pointed out, they need to be sized for the environment so that the air flow does not overwhelm the cooling effect.

[DebsC]

Hi Mark,
My greenhouse is about the same size as yours but has a very high pitched roof. I live in Arkansas where the summers are very hot and humid, particularly so this summer and it's only just begun!

I have a mist system that I no longer use because it kept the orchids too wet. I also have a fogger, exhaust fans plus two large box fans running.

Hot temps and low humidity was still a problem. This summer I added a swamp cooler. It's the best thing I could have done.

It's taken some tweaking to get everything to work together but I think I finally have it. The gh temperature was rising to around 103 in the late afternoon and now rarely gets above 96. The humidity stays around 60%.

I really had my doubts about a swamp cooler working here in Arkansas. That's why it took me so long to buy one. But it's been worth every penny!

[mojomick]

I have a mist system that operates year round UNDER the bench and an evaporative cooler that I turn on when it gets about 95 here. But, I live in a desert environment and the evap coolers are great. Betty