Portacool PAC2K36HPVS 36-Inch Portable Evaporative Cooler, 10100 CFM, 2600 Square Foot Cooling Capacity, Variable Speed, Black

Bought this unit for my son's "barn, 40 by 60 foot metal building. Easy set up, took a while to fill the water reservoir! She works great, short of air conditioning. But in Arizona, its a dry heat!

I was hoping to be able to leave my initial impressions of the Port-a-Cool swamp cooler that I bought last week (Aug. 7). Unfortunately, it has not arrived yet. Although, when I purchased it, I was promised delivery by Friday, August 10, after the transaction the earliest available date to schedule delivery was 08:00 to 12:00 on Monday Aug 13 (just the first bait and switch). I selected that as the delivery time, even though our plant does not open until 08:30. During the week we received 2 phone calls from the local Home Direct rep. The first call indicated that the unit would be delivered on Friday, Aug 10 (the original date). The second call informed us that the cooler had not arrived in the warehouse and that the unit would be delivered on Monday morning (Aug 13). In any case, I arrived early, just in case the truck did (fat chance, eh?). At 10:00, with no delivery, I called the local rep and was informed that because of a "scheduling problem", the unit would not be delivered until the next day (Tues., Aug 14). When I told her that this was not acceptable, she said that she would "try" to have it delivered later on Monday afternoon. I told her that I could not have someone stay after work on the off chance that she could have it delivered. I asked to speak to the depot manager, whom she said would call me back. Of course, no return call. At noon, I tried calling the rep again but was shunted to voice mail. At that point I called the Home Direct national office. After a 4 minute wait on Muzak, I talked to a customer service representative and explained the situation . She put me on hold for a few more minutes and then the local rep came on the line. Needless to say, she told me that the delivery was scheduled for Tuesday morning.More as this developsAugust 14, 2012Our Port-A-Cool finally arrived. Packaging was superb. Even the apparently arduous journey through Home Direct Land couldn't damage the cooler.Aug 25, 2012:We have been using our 36" Port-a-Cool for just under 2 weeks now and it is working great! 3 days after we installed it, the ambient temperature dropped to around 74°F and hasn't budged since. So we figure, installation of the unit has modified the weather in our area (in defiance of the much ballyhooed global warming). What more could we ask for? For the few days that the weather was hot enough for us to really need the cooler, it WAY exceeded expectations. I cannot help but wonder why more people in our area (central Colorado) have not embraced this technology instead of the far more costly, and problematic, central air conditioning.Pros:Well made, sturdy constructionLow power consumptionLow water consumptionVERY easy to install and maintain (every thing is easy to get to if service is necessary)Ball bearing casters make the unit easy to move aroundLowers temperature 15°F to 20°F (ambient 90°F, 15% RH)Fast and responsive customer and technical supportCons:After two weeks (and the addition of 1/2 cup Downy Fabric softener, per Port-A-Cool tech support), the media still stinks. It IS getting better but the smell of burnt phenolic paper still greets us everytime we turn on the water. A new binder for the media might eliminate this problem.

Our metal building is 2500 sq feet and it does not cool it down like the descriptions say. You have to stand in front of it to feel the cool air. We have moved it different places and have adjusted the settings. Waste of money.

I must say it is better than nothing. These idiots didn't even put a drain in the bottom. Called portacool to complain and the idiot told me the pump drains 95 percent and that is a lie. They said use a wet dry vac to get the water out. Lol. I wound up dipping about 20 gallons out. If you have one of these do like I did and put a drain in the bottom. Much easier than tearing the thing apart to get to the water resavoir. The man at portacool told me even with a drain you can't get all of the water out and it will cause mold. Another lie. Put the drain in and filled it up and drained it by tilting it just a little. Almost all of the water came out. Then I turned just the fan on and in 10 minutes it was as dry as could be. What a bunch of yo yo's. You must remember the are assembled in east Texas. When they built this unit it is like they didn't finish it by not putting a drain plug in it. If I had it to do over I think I would get a commercial evaporative cooler and forget about portacool. In my shop it keeps just a small area where I work tolerable. Really a lot of money for what you get. The only good thing I can say that if you do call portacool you can talk to someone.

Our store is a glass building - greenhouse - which former owner chose due to visibility of inside from the street. Unfortunately, it is extremely hot. We have put ultraviolet coating on it ($$$$), we have used small portable air-conditioners, fans. We hoped Portacool would make a big difference. We have only used it 3-4 days as heat hasn't been bad yet. While the fan is great, the moisture build up is sauna like. We are still hoping with experience we will figure out how to make this help us. I am convinced it would work in a warehouse or any building with real walls and ceiling

It's huge but it works GREAT! You do have to "break it in" to get rid of the smell... I helped that along by changing the water every day. It's easy to drain and refill and really moved the break in process along quickly. The fan is quiet and variable...My shop is 5200 square feet with 22' high ceilings and this unit brought the comfort level in the minute you turned it on. Very pleased overall.

It works pretty well. Evaporative cooling doesn't work as well in Dallas as it does in dryer climates, but this unit works better than any of the others we have tried. The large adjustable fan really helps. We have had problems with the water shut off valve not working properly, and flooding the shop, but everything else is working well. We have only had it for a month, but it looks good so far.

Pure garbage. We purchased 3 of these units for our shop guys to deal with the heat....EACH unit had the water pump go out within 30 days. They sent us replacements pumps we had to PAY ourselves to have an electrician come install due to company rules and liability....go figure they ALSO went out 2 weeks later. We will never purchase any products made by this company again. Dont waste your money