Outdoor Air Conditioner
Cooling systems, or air-conditioning, are mostly engineered for indoor use. They are only ideal for closed spaces to limit the spread of the freezing and maintain the temperature of the room. But there’s an inventor and businessman from the Philippines who developed a new kind of cooling system that is perfect for outdoor cooling. Outdoor Air Conditioner anyone?
Edgardo Vazquez, a 65-year-old innovator based in the country’s business district Makati, has built a misting system called Misty Kool Outdoor Air Conditioner that allows outdoor temperature to be lowered by 3 to 5-degree Celsius. It comes in two forms: a line machine and an electric fan-type that provides a December breeze even during the summer.
“This is ideal for a tropical country like the Philippines. We are near the equator. The only way to reduce the heat [outdoors] is to put vapors in the air,” says Vazquez to The Standard.
Misty Kool Outdoor Air Conditioner works by spraying ultra-fine microns of clean water that goes through a high-pressure misting pump. When the water is compressed, extruded through a high-pressure pipe, and let out in the finest of nozzles, it shows up as fog or water vapor floating in the air.
Vazquez explains further, “Now because it is floating, you can make it ride the wind. Where the wind goes, left or right, it will follow. Immediately, the moment it runs, you will feel the temperature drop 5 degrees.”
Like other engineered products, the idea of the outdoor cooling system just dawned upon Vazquez from an experience.
In one hot afternoon sometime in 2014, he noticed that the plants needed to be kept fresh with a lot of water. Upon considering the conservation of water, he thought of using a pressurized cleaner like the spray gun used in cleaning cars that will produce water vapors floating in the air.
So Vazquez studied how braking systems work in his attempt to make a high-pressure pump. He was able to make a device made from brass, copper tubes, and fine nozzles but it was a rugged design as it produced noise and vibrations.
Eventually he found the problem: he has to use finer nozzles and a timer to make it work better. But being those components not sold locally, Vazquez had to go to Guangzhou in China after two friends advised him so.
When he got back home, he was able to make his first successful prototype of a high-pressure pump. It is complete with these parts: switches, monitors, automatic shut-off mechanism, hose, water tank and its most unique piece, a timer.
For the first time, an outdoor cooling system is designed to have a programmable timer. This is essential to control the water that comes out of the Misty Kool, lessen the wetness on the floor, and guarantee that the misting system works only when it has water.
“It is very important that the machine is not running all the time, especially when there is no water. If there is no water, the friction will destroy the pistons inside the pump,” he shares.
Other features of the Misty Kool Outdoor Air Conditioner include the following: a high-pressure misting fan, 41-liter water tank, heavy-duty wheels with locking mechanism, oil indicator and automatic water pump. When working altogether, it could spread the mist over an area of 85 square meters.
The system produces mist half the diameter of a strand of hair that allows it to quickly evaporate and create the cooling effect. It is ideal for different open areas that are usually warm.
According to Vazquez, for every pound of water that evaporates in the air, 1,100 Btu (British thermal unit) of heat is used out of the air. He tells further that upon removing the heat from the air, the area becomes cooler up to 10 degrees lower.
Not only does Misty Kool Outdoor Air Conditioner provide for outdoor cooling, it also repels flying insects, regulates dust, and adds a relaxing effect in the area.
Pushing this product through would not be possible if it wasn’t for the encouragement that Vazquez got from a religious group, who already placed an order for 100 pieces of the high-pressure electric fans. If the invention proves to be successful, the same group pledges to buy as many as 3,000 units.
A commercial unit is now ready for sale at P35,000 plus VAT or P39,200 per piece. Vazquez claims that the price is only a tenth of the cost of other products with foreign brands.
The Misty Kool machines, which were already filed for patent, had already gotten interest from as far as East Timor, Vazquez reveals.
Both products have already been rolled out. The Misty Kool line machine had its debut at the Metro Rail Transit Line 3 last year, while the fan-type were used to cool off a gymnasium in Pangasinan while watching the recent Manny Pacquiao fight.
Vazquez graduated with a bachelor’s in commerce at San Beda College. But he says that he got his common sense from being exposed in the streets of Manila, and his technical expertise from his engineer-architect father who taught him how to fix their family car and work on the fuse box.
“My father told me that the day would come when he won’t be there, and I had to do what he was doing. Then somebody could not fool me, because I knew what needed to be done. All of these, combined together is one big common sense. Life itself is one big common sense,” he shares.
This isn’t the first product of Vazquez. His most successful invention so far, among the more than 200 he has patented, is the pre-fabricated or ready-to-build housing system Vazbuilt that was released in the 1990s. He won the “Inventor of the Year” award from the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva, Switzerland in 1995 for such construction invention.
Above personal gains, Vazquez hopes to teach his skills to other people through the Filipino Inventors Society Producers Cooperative.
“I cannot do it by myself. The only way you can see a product fly is when people look for it, and people use it. If the inventor just keeps it to himself, it is useless. But when you see everybody using it, it is not about money, but about contentment that you help mankind. The moment you start teaching people, that’s when you succeed,” he shares.
