What type of air conditioning do you think is best, evaporative or refridgerative?

I am a Heating and Air conditioning tech. I live in the United States. The reverse cycle you are referring to is what is called a Geo thermal heat pump. They are the most efficient for saving on heat if you live in a warmer climate, they are very popular in southern United States however, in the northern States where they have to switch to electric backup to supply heat on colder days the cost of electricity along with the very high cost of purchasing and installing a Geo thermal heat pump discourage most. The conventional central air conditioning is usually the most cost effective and efficient unit. This unit uses an evaporator and a condenser. The unit does not create any humidity, if you are experiencing a high level of humidity you may need to increase the size of the unit for example from a 2 ton to a 3 ton or larger. The size of your home will determine the size unit you need.

Hi,

If you live in a dry climate the evaporate is the best.

My mother in law lives in a town called Corwa in New South Wales Australia and my friend in Perth both use evaporate A/C. Perth and Corwa have very hot dry heat and the evaporate A/C works great.

I live in Sydney and use a Panisoinic 8.1kw split reverse cycle A/C and I love it. Sydney has more humid weather.

Hope that helps you out.

It really does depend on where you live and the humidity level.

I live in Perth, and we bought refrigerated because my husband insisted on it to cope with the few humid days we get here. It is far more expensive to run than evaporative.

However, the reverse-cycle option on most refrigerated systems makes for very inexpensive heating in the winter.

I recently stayed with friends (also in Perth) who have evaporative, and I was surprised at how efficient it was.

If you already have an efficient heating system, and live in a dry climate, I'd go for evaporative. If you live somewhere humid, go for refrigerated, reverse cycle.

I've not used evaporative type of ACU but I've seen it in an ad and I believe that it operate with a coolant sucking air outside and converts it to cold vapor/mist unlike with the conventional ACU that simply cools air using a condenser.

I believe the evaporative is much cheaper because very few buy it. Why not give it a try. Anyway, during summer the air is really dry and the vapor/mist could be a cool treat.

Just limit its use during cold weather so you don't get a 'dampy' feeling inside the room. Too much vapor/mist in unlit portions of the house is a good place for bacteria.

If you use evaporative and your starting humidity is NOT very low like 10-15% then the evap cooler will produce a claminess rather than cooling.

I would not install a evap cooler unless I lived in the desert.

Refrigerative, all the way, and for the same reason: humidity. Refrigeration is only modestly more expensive than evaporative. And you have to be in a desert for evaporative to make any sense at all -- it would be completely unsuitable for any place in the southeastern United States.

forced air cooling is dry and swamp coolers or energy effeciant.