EuropAce Air Cooler

This air cooler was on sale recently at the Mega Discount Store. In preparation of the hot months coming up, and the promised haze sweeping into Singapore, this will be a useful addition to our home. The ever increasing electricity tariffs makes it impossible for us to stay indoors with air-conditioners running all day.

This is the EuropAce ECO 336C air cooler. It cools air using an evaporative humidifier. The air cooler has a 6l water tank at the base of the unit. Water is drawn from the tank for the evaporative humidifying function, which cools the air as it exits the front of the air cooler.

There’s also a basic air filter at the rear, and there is also an ionising function. The air filter may work for larger-sized dust particles, but don’t depend on it to fight the haze. The ioniser helps reduce airborne bacteria. (So that’s what the marketing folks like you to believe. It’s hotly debated whether it is really useful at all.)

If you don’t find the cooling function good enough, two ice packs are included which you can drop into the water tank to cool the water further. It might, however, be much quicker to simply top up the water tank with cold water.

The control buttons are at the top of the air cooler. The EVA button controls the evaporative humidifier (cooling function). The louvers can be set to oscillate from side to side. There are three fan speeds. There’s a on and off-standby button, separate from a master on-off rocker switch at the side of the unit. The fan can be set in normal, natural, or sleep mode. YOu can choose a 1 hr, 2 hr or 4 hr timer function. Finally the last button controls the ionising function.

A remote controller is included with the ECO 336C too.

The air-cooler is certainly no replacement for an air-conditioner. The cooling effect is, honestly, not significant. However, sometimes you just want that little bit of relief. Also, considering the upcoming haze conditions when you’d likely keep windows closed, this could help compensate for the lack of natural ventilation.