Split systems vs evaporative cooling

Hoping somebody can help me-

I have a split system in my front lounge room that needs replacing.
I also have a split in the back room that works perfectly.

Now I'm trying to decide between replacing the split system, which doesn't cool the 2nd and 3rd bedrooms or upgrading to evaporative cooling through the entire house.

I've never lived anywhere with evaporative cooling- so I'm not really sure if it's going to do the job.

Please share your experiences.

I'm in Melbourne BTW :)


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evaporative cooling does not work well when it's humid. it also doesnt work well on those days that are above 36 degrees or so. it's great on 25 degree days though!

The evaporative cooling depends on the humidity, if you google it theres a very simple formula which explains what cooling you can expect with xyz humidity.

It also needs a constant water source.

We moved somewhere very dry 8 weeks ago and they have 35-40 summers and they mostly use evaporative cooling here.

The place I used to live in had ducted evaporative cooling. We had to make sure we kept the windows open so the humid air could be blown out of the house, otherwise everything just felt damp. It was definitely better than nothing, but I've found a split system, then a pedestal fan to try and redirect the cool air into other rooms is much better.

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Same as what Ginger and Miss_Dee has said. Humidity affects the evaporative cooling system and when you have had quite a few days in a row of humid days it is not that effective. We have only had evaporative so I can't compare it to a split system. One thing I do like about the evaporative system is that I can have windows & doors open & if kids are going in & out of the house it doesn't matter if they don't close the doors properly.

Evaporative is rubbish. It was one thing that was going to stop us buying our current house. I'd rather ducted refrigerated cooling but apparently we cant convert it without spending a small fortune. We're planning on installing a split system in the living/dining and hope that may help.

definitely RC and nit evap. My folks have evap and last summer they had it switched to fan only because it wasn't coping with the humidity. They ended up turning it off completely and used a pedestal fan - or camped at our place in the RC!!

The last few years have been really humid so evap hasn't coped too well, when it's hot and dry ours stays 10deg cooler when it's humid it's the same in and out and horrible. We put in a split system in the loungeroom so we had one cool room in the house

We have evap and we won't get it again. For it to function, you need to leave a window open. Humid days mean the house feels damp and hot and you can see moisture on our floors. I know you've got tiles, but it's terrible for laminated floorboards - they creak and swell whenever we have it on. For it to keep the house cool, we find we have to run it from first thing in the morning to after the sun goes down at night - there's no quick cool down if you've been out on a hot day and haven't left it on. Makes it pretty expensive.

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evaporative cooling does not work well when it's humid. it also doesnt work well on those days that are above 36 degrees or so. it's great on 25 degree days though!

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Yep, crap in humidity and where we live it gets to 43 degrees and it may as well be off

I have a few friends with evaporative cooling, as well as neighbours and they all complain about it. I have been in their houses with it running and have been sweating! Doesn't seem worth it to me. We have reverse cycle and I would not be without it now!

I have had evap in my last 2 places (Perth and Alice Springs), brilliant in those very dry, very hot climates. Keeps the house very cool even in 40+ degree heat, but absolutely rubbish when humid. At least with split systems you can heat as well.

We recently upgraded the old evap on our house and added the 4 bedrooms as well. It suits us perfectly, and we find it really effective most of the time. Yep on humid days it isn't as effective, and on the 35/40+ days it will only go around 10 degrees cooler, but we can cope with that. I personally find it harder to cope with the heat if I'm spending all my inside time in cold refridgerated air con then the heat hitting you like a wall when you have to go in and out to work/shops/garden etc. With littles ones running around it's much easier leaving windows and doors open too.

We did buy a unit that is slightly bigger than what is needed for our house, and when installed they let us know which windows etc to leave open to make it operate the most effectively, and we really can't complain. But then I do seem to be one of the few that is okay with it!

We had evap in our old house but only put it through the centre corridor of the house to just direct cool air into the main living areas. We were living in SE Melbourne and on those really HOT summer days you really didn't get much relief (the evap can't handle excessive hot days and considering Melbourne can get a week of 40c days in summer) especially if there was a hot northernly wind, as you need to have windows and doors open to circulate the air and it was like the cold air was getting blown out the doors and the hot air was coming in behind it. Yep and on humid days everything would get damp and it was like walking on an ice skating ring with tiles or laminate/hardwood floors.

In our house now, we live just out of Ballarat we installed 4 reverse cycle split systems, in the lounge room and in all 3 bedrooms. I find it works much better and once the house is at a nice temperature we adjust the cooling temp up (generally to about 28) and it maintains a nice temp throughout the house for us. I also love the fact that we can go out during the day if necessary and leave the cooler on so the house is nice when we get home. With evap you need to turn it off if you are locking the house up and then start it up again when you get home, and for cost of electricity it is more cost effective to keep it on constantly at a set temp than turning an evap off and then having to 'crank it' up when you get home to cool the house down.

You need more than one window open, we have to have two upstairs and three downstairs to get the air moving through house, we put it on early and turn it off after dark.

If your budget allowed have a look at refrigerated cooling, we have it and it's worth every cent! Even on really hit days and nights we can be sleeping under the doona from cold! They use larger ducts than normal though and it is excy.

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If your budget allowed have a look at refrigerated cooling, we have it and it's worth every cent! Even on really hit days and nights we can be sleeping under the doona from cold! They use larger ducts than normal though and it is excy.

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Should also say that as well as being expensive to install it is significantly more expensive to run. We have two big aircon units for our house and last summer with me pregnant, DH working from home and Perth breaking all the records we had the aircon on heaps. Our electricity bill over a two month period was $1,700. We also run a bore, pool filter and septics with gray water but most of that was aircon. Definitely something to bear in mind if your general living budget is tight.

Evaporative uses/wastes quite a lot of water and as others have said, is no good when it's very humid. I personally like ceiling fans and only use the split system when it's really hot.

Holy cow Lulu that is huge!!! We used ours heaps as well although I was working 2 days a week and DH full time and our winter heating bill is more this quarter than our summer one and is around $850 - we only have one unit though but ran it overnight on those hot nights in Melbourne. Ours is a Daikin.

I should add that we have ceiling fans too in the bedrooms and main living room. It does really help to keep air circulating. I'd consider outside blinds as well. We found this to make a huge difference in cutting out alot of the heat burning into the windows

Evap is not recommended in Melbourne. I have three spilt systems which are run day and night and my total electricity bill is about $300 a quarter. Including dryer and everything else too. So they can be very cost-efficient.

Although spunky sparky says I do have the best ones on the market (Fujitsu) and the other ones are more expensive to run, so paying more at the outset will save you long term.

We also have a Fujitsu and never notice it on our power bill.

I think our ducted is Fujitsu, power bill is usually around $500 per quarter and that's running it almost all the time.

Thanks ladies!

You have definetly given me a lot of food for thought!

It's the new inverter type split systems that use far less electricity so aim for one of those.

Divvy, can you ask spunky sparky what he thinks about Daikin or Mitsubishi split systems? We are looking at getting one of those, but hadn't heard Fujitsu were better.

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Divvy, can you ask spunky sparky what he thinks about Daikin or Mitsubishi split systems? We are looking at getting one of those, but hadn't heard Fujitsu were better.

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I'm not a spunky sparky :redface:

But Fujitsu really is the best- with a matching price tag too!
I have heard great things about Panasonic and Mitsubishi also :)