Evaporative cooling has gained serious ground over the years as a viable alternative to cooling large areas. Evaporative cooling, sometimes known as swamp cooling, is known for being able to rapidly cool down expansive areas at a significantly reduced cost in comparison to conventional alternatives. What does this mean? Well, it means that places like large warehouses or factories will have a cooling solution that can immediately provide themselves with cheaper comfort. With that being said, evaporative cooling has people questioning whether or not the system itself is safe. Let’s talk about the potential health risks associated with evaporative cooling.
Are Evaporative Coolers Safe To Use?
Evaporative coolers operate on a system that is fairly easy to understand. Remember the last time that you got out of the shower and walked around in your cooler apartment? You probably felt a cold breeze when you walked by the fan and that chill was exacerbated by the moisture on your skin. This is how an evaporative cooler works, by circulating water in a reservoir a fan pulls the moisture through the system and out into the air. For obvious reasons, people have concerns that there may be health risks. Specifically, people are concerned that evaporative coolers can contribute to the spread of Legionella.
1) What is Legionella?
Legionella is a serious disease that is an offshoot of pneumonia. Legionella is traditionally caused by breathing in droplets of water that have been tainted by a specific type of bacteria. People who suffer from Legionella will feel similar symptoms to the flu, including achy muscles, a fever, and shortness of breath.
2) Can evaporative coolers spread Legionella?
In order for Legionella to be spread by way of an evaporative cooler, something has to have gone incredibly wrong. Evaporative coolers do not operate in a number of conditional areas that are required for the spread of Legionella.
Specifically, evaporative coolers operate at a level that is too cold for Legionella to exist. Additionally, evaporative coolers also do not transmit the disease because they also do not produce any such aerosols that are required for the bacteria to be spread. So, not only is there no way for Legionella to exist within the cold water, but there is also no vessel for the bacteria to be spread even if it were to be found in the reservoir of the cooler.
Finally, the proper maintenance of an evaporative cooler will require that the reservoir is changed out, drained and cleaned with regularity. So long as these practices are followed, there should be absolutely zero concern with regards to any kind of potential health issues.