Is Instachill worth buying or is there a better alternative?

[kenj]

Sprinkler?

Ken

[DrNum]

I phoned the Instachill 0800 number after watching their TV ad several times. Looks like one Instachill machine costs $550. I want to cool down my rooms in the coming hot 🥵 summer days which are about one month away.

Looked up a similar machine on the Bunnings website which shows its price as $340.

Then had a look around for air cooling hacks on the Net and found this: https://www.wikihow.com/Make-an-Easy...-Water-Bottles

Looks like this third option would be cheapest after a bit of tinkering to make sure the third option works well.

Any new suggestions from this forum on chilling air without air conditioners would be welcome.

Thanks in advance,
Barry.

Yes for me, I got one for my study room and the other one for the bedroom Pretty cozy.

[tweak'e]

Most? The Northern part, Waikato and up is humid.......even possibly Taupo and up, but most isn't.
I heard people complain about it last year here...humid, what humid I thought. They have no idea.

Humid is when it stays sticky all night, humid is when your car vents leak mist, humids is when the windscreen mists up, all of which we got regularly in Auckland.

Here it is hotter for sure, but it isn't humid.

the average humidity for NZ is 70%. many town, especially anything moderately coastal is typically an average humidity of 80%. included in that is winter where its a lot lower humidity especially south of auckland.
for evaporation coolers to work well they need the humidity below 50%.
eg chch in 35c heat at 40% humidity. it can work ok.
in aucklands "heatwave" of 32c 95% humidity they just do not work at all.

one of the issues is it adds moisture to the air increasing the humidity, which in turn can make it feel hotter.
comfortable humidity is around 50%. so anything above that, an evaporation cooler is going to make the humidity worse and make you even more uncomfortable.
keep in mind the country average is 70%

i suggest getting some gauges and seeing what it actually is. relying on "feel" is a really poor and subjective way to test.

[CliveM]

the average humidity for NZ is 70%. many town, especially anything moderately coastal is typically an average humidity of 80%. included in that is winter where its a lot lower humidity especially south of auckland.
for evaporation coolers to work well they need the humidity below 50%.
eg chch in 35c heat at 40% humidity. it can work ok.
in aucklands "heatwave" of 32c 95% humidity they just do not work at all.

one of the issues is it adds moisture to the air increasing the humidity, which in turn can make it feel hotter.
comfortable humidity is around 50%. so anything above that, an evaporation cooler is going to make the humidity worse and make you even more uncomfortable.
keep in mind the country average is 70%

i suggest getting some gauges and seeing what it actually is. relying on "feel" is a really poor and subjective way to test.

An exellent explaination of how they work. May be usful in Canterbury but pretty usless in Auckland.

A couple of other considerations: Anything that has a big promotion on TV adds is going to be more expensive than it should be. I am always wary when it is difficult to easily find out the up front all inclusive cost of any item. Weasel words such as may, could be, and the like which abound in the current Funeral insurance adds are also a reason to be careful before handing over your credit card details.

[piroska]

the average humidity for NZ is 70%.
for evaporation coolers to work well they need the humidity below 50%.
.

I guess so...didn't know those things need that low.
Rather pointless. We find opening the windows and the french doors works well...doors are more or less in line so nice airflow.

My mum resists using the heatpump as aircon cause of cost but I suppose if it was like Auckland, we could.

[tweak'e]

I guess so...didn't know those things need that low.
Rather pointless. We find opening the windows and the french doors works well...doors are more or less in line so nice airflow.

My mum resists using the heatpump as aircon cause of cost but I suppose if it was like Auckland, we could.

"didn't know those things need that low." the thing is thats not regarded as low humidity.
we all get used to our surroundings. i'm used to 70-80% humidity. just like people get used to the cold.

also kiwis have been well taught not to use power. a lot of moldy home issues come back to lack of heating because they don't want to use power.
unfortunately the governments over the years has let kiwis build inefficient housing that costs a lot to heat or cool. so we get used to being cold.

i think humidity is something thats very poorly understood by most people. they all harp on about ventilation to dry a house, but ventilation also brings in wet humid air.
the good thing with the aircon is it dries the air out a bit which keep the house dry and makes it more comfortable even at a hotter temp.

a big trend at the moment is whole home humidification. people tolerate a wider range of temps than they do humidity. if you make it a nice humidity level, the heat/cold is far more tolerable so your not running the heating/cooling as much.
but it doesn't work if the house is air leaky and that air brings in humidity with it.

[piroska]

also kiwis have been well taught not to use power.

i think humidity is something thats very poorly understood by most people. they all harp on about ventilation to dry a house, but ventilation also brings in wet humid air.

Taught? Learned, because of the power bills you mean.
There's a lot of **** about houses too.........this seal them up mentality..........I have lived in both very old ones and modern ones. The very old was far better...no condensation, no stinking hot in summer nonsense.

Interesting article here:
https://www.oneroof.co.nz/news/a-hot...overheat-38613

[tweak'e]

Taught? Learned, because of the power bills you mean.
There's a lot of **** about houses too.........this seal them up mentality..........I have lived in both very old ones and modern ones. The very old was far better...no condensation, no stinking hot in summer nonsense.

Interesting article here:
https://www.oneroof.co.nz/news/a-hot...overheat-38613

taught. they have never used decent heating to find out what the power bill is like.

the article has some points and some false info.
one of the issues with a good well insulated home is it can overheat if the glazing is not done correctly. this all comes down to nz's poor building design. heating, cooling and ventilation in nz is an after thought. its not designed into the house.
ordering the wrong spec glass can make a house cook. but also the style of house makes a big difference. a lot of newer ones have huge amounts of glass and no overhangs to provide shading.
verandas where a common thing to provide shading in summer.

using an extractor fan to ventilate is laughable. they are so small and house air volume so huge they have no hope in hell of ever cooling down a house.
a houshold fan next to a window is better but even that doesn't do a whole lot.

aircon is not that expensive if the house is built right. i'm sub $120/month (total power bill) with 2 heat pumps that run most days. (edit: if i remember right your old house was the same era and similar design to what i have).

one of the issues with air leaky homes is they leak hot air in, which is made even worse if you blow air out of the house. with nz homes you always want to pressurise the house, blow cooler air in so hot air gets pushed out.
that needs to be done all day so hot air can't be pushed into the house.

lastly i doubt you have ever lived in an air tight house. there is so few of them built in NZ and they are usually top end homes.
what you have had is poor quality homes and poor quality homes, and that variability is typical. you can get two identical houses and they can be completely different in terms of heating/cooling.
thats one of the big issues found by the investigation into nz housings effect on health.