Air conditioning boosts man's efficiency no less than his comfort. Air-conditioned homes, offices, and factories unmistakably raise human productivity and reduce absenteeism, turnover, mistakes, accidents and grievances, especially in summer. Accordingly, many employers every year cool workrooms and offices to raise summer profits. Employees in turn find cool homes enhancing not only comfort and prestige but also personal efficiency and income. With such economic impetus, low-cost summer cooling must irresistibly spread to all kinds of occupied buildings. Refrigeration provides our best cooling, serving well where people are closely spaced in well-constructed, shaded, and insulated structures. However, its first and operating costs bar it from our hottest commercial, industrial, and residential buildings. Fortunately, evaporative cooling is an economical substitute in many regions. First used in Southwest homes and businesses and in textile mills, it soon invaded other fields and climates. In 1946, six firms produced 200,000 evaporative coolers; in 1958, 25 firms produced 1,250,000, despite the phenomenal sale of refrigerating window air conditioners. Though clearly secondary to refrigeration, evaporative cooling is 60 to 80 percent is economical for moderate income groups and cheaper to buy and operate. Thus, it climates where summers are short. Moreover, it cheaply cools hot, thinly constructed mills, factories, workshops, foundries, powerhouses, farm buildings, canneries, etc., where refrigerated cooling is prohibitively expensive.

"Providing guidance to design engineers and contractors, this book illustrates in full detail how operational savings of 50 to 75 percent can be achieved with evaporative cooling technologies compared to equivalent electric-based systems. Thorough in scope, the book addresses the technical aspects of evaporative cooling, as well as a broad range of specific commercial and industrial applications. Topics include cost analysis, technology and equipment options, application guidelines, and operational and performance characteristics. The third edition adds a new chapter which shows how evaporative cooling can be integrated into large-scale HVAC systems, with discussions of achievable savings, maintenance costs, cooling tower and finned coil indirect cooling, wet bulb economizers, precooling condensed air, makeup air and return air, humidity control, and more, including sample calculations as well as demonstration and engineering data."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

* A broad range of disciplines--energy conservation and air quality issues, construction and design, and the manufacture of temperature-sensitive products and materials--is covered in this comprehensive handbook * Provide essential, up-to-date HVAC data, codes, standards, and guidelines, all conveniently located in one volume * A definitive reference source on the design, selection and operation of A/C and refrigeration systems