4,500 CFM 3-Speed Window Evaporative Cooler

So I have owned a Bonaire for years. I moved and needed one to accommodate larger sq footage so I purchased this one. When this item is on low or medium it works fine. However when I have to put it on high its horrible. I've attached photos of the damage it's causing to my home. Pools of water on my table, black stuff dripping down on my wall. My flooring was so wet I had to lay towels down. Absolutely disgusted at this product. Home Depot refuses to return. I Suggest looking at other brands. I expect when I purchase a product it won't damage my home.

Starting our second season with this Bonaire window mount cooler and have been very impressed with it. Good construction, heavy duty plastic that will never rust out. Very quiet motor that moves a lot of air, we never go off the lowest setting. What I like most is the modern slim design that hangs nicely on the side of the house between the window and sidewalk. The old clunker actually had to sit out over the walk effectively blocking it. This model puts out as much cool air as the old style while taking up much less space, is better constructed and looks great. The second season I had to pull the water pump out and give it all a good cleaning because we have hard mineral water, that’s to be expected with any cooler. Be sure to get the Bonaire model that's made in Australia, sold in the U.S. at Home Depot. I hear there's some knock-offs being sold that have lesser reviews.

I cannot recomend this product. I installed the 4500CFM in my 31 ft winnebago in the back bedroom. Installation was easy. Had no problem installing by myself. Unit functions fine accept the purge pump I installed does nothing. The main issue is that this cooler is fine when it is below 85F then it is 72-74F. It is 98 degrees out in Quartzsite AZ with a low of 70F and with the cooler on high (1600cfm) and the pump drizzling water over the pads with a second box fan at 2500cfm blowing the air from the bedroom down the hall to living room the temperature in living room is 82F and the bedroom is 77F. I have both the driver and passenger windows open as well as a roof vent. Did have the door open till it was 11:30am. I have 1inch styrofoam panneling covering all my walls and windows with the silver bubblewrap over that as well as my awning out, a 31ft shade cloth covering the back side of rv, and windshield shade cloth. My rv has a max of 215 square foot... Soooooo... I should be frozen out of my rv with this on high... Yet my 12000btu ac can get it down to 78F in the living room. Don't see how this could handle a house. My other issue which I overcame was that these units come upsidedown in the manufacturers original box in which any manhandeling or drops and the bracket to the pump will break off in which the pump dangles by its wire and tubing thus smashing the pads and breaking the pump skirt. This has happened on 2 seperate orders. I ended up having to drive 80 miles to Lake Havasu to pick up in person. First box pads were smashed inside, but second box was fine. So I highly recomend purchacing this at the store and opening the box and taking off the back panel to look inside. Home Depot even lent me the screw driver to take off the two screws that hold the back on. Still... If this cannot even handle a 200 Square Foot Rv when it isn't even 100F out then I don't see the value in purchacing this unit and do not recomend.

Product cools great in my 1500 sq ft house, windows opened to draw cool to back of house. The remote makes it easy to run. I have only ran it on the low speed and it keeps the home cool. We have had it for one month, no problems with any of the functions, it all is working fine. It is very easy to install needed help though, not a one person job. My daughter helped me put it in and leveling it. All to easy.

Mesa, AZ. I grew up with swamp coolers, but over the years home builders have shied away from them. Too dated, I suppose. I do remember that during certain times of the year (when humidity was low) they worked quite well. After 25 years of not having one, I decided to buy one for use in early and late summer to (hopefully) offset the cost of running AC during those times. I chose the Bonaire Durango 4,500 cfm model because of it's slim design, ability to cover 1600 sq. ft. and the good reviews it has received. I mounted it in my den window (after building a simple wood framework within the window frame.) This placement afforded an almost straight air flow from den to living room, to hallway and into the master bedroom. In a nutshell, the whole length of my house. The first full day of running (105' outside temp) showed the den temp at 77', with each of the other rooms at 79'. Today was 100' outside; rooms were at 76' and 79' respectively. These readings were all at the "Low Cool" speed. To be sure, do your homework about cooler placement and a water source, it makes a difference. I bought a new shut off valve with an extra feeder for the "cold" line under the kitchen sink. Then it was as simple as drilling a hole thru the wall then running the 1/4" copper tubing to the cooler, about five feet away. I am quite pleased with the performance of this unit.

Excellent unit. Relatively easy install but need two people to lift and hold in place. Could provide some larger and longer screws for different install locations and window configurations. Very quiet except on high speed. Also would be nice to have weather stripping included to fill in any gaps around unit. Highly recommend product and is UL Listed for safety, too.

I originally bought the larger one through the mail and it came to me broken with a large crack in the bottom to which I was very disappointed because it's made of plastic which does make it very lightweight it bolts directly to your wall and you will probably want help with this. It is the quietest cooler I've ever heard I can sit directly beneath it and watch t.v. with no problem. However it's difficult to open and close for checking and removing the pads the little parts have to line up just so and being plastic can break easily threatening to break the machine with every change.which worries me. Although it keeps my house pretty cool and if it's not hot enough for it...down right cold. I recommend checking this product at the store before you buy it and hopefully you are mechanically inclined because it's not that easy to handle by yourself for sure I do love mine now that I have it and would probably buy again the best part about it is it takes almost no space on my front porch oh and it's quiet as a mouse. The pads run about $60..

Super energy efficient and much easier to install than an industrial swamp cooler that requires a frame and a stand. This pushes so much air both as a cooler and simply a fan. It has decreased my insane 112 garage temperatures down to 78 in a matter of an hour. Works on a remote very well. I have my greenhouse one on a plug in thermostat, this unit functions perfectly in that fashion as well. Very well built and I highly recommend it.

Review Bonaire Durango 4500E, Purchased 5-27,15, SLC, UT Summary: Relatively easy to install. Much better than anticipated cooling. Quieter operation than expected. Almost free to purchase with Utah’s public utility rebate. I did a lot of research before making this purchase and landed on this style of cooler and model for four reasons: ease of self-installation, flexibility, cost of operation, public utility rebate. I compared it to a similar model at another box store and chose the Bonaire Brand because it received many more positive reviews and far fewer negative ones. A few specifics might be helpful: Evaporative coolers don’t work when it’s humid. If you are used to AC, this kind of cool air, with lots of moisture in it, will feel different and maybe not as cool. Since I was switching from a large AC window unit, I wasn’t sure if the cooler would ultimately be in the right place and that is why I chose a window unit as opposed to permanent. After a week, I doubt I will change its location because it is performing excellently, even at the opposite end of the house from where most of the living is done. Cost: This is probably a bit more expensive than a typical “box type/squirrel cage” evaporative cooler. But… our public utility is offering a significant rebate on “premium evaporative coolers” and since I installed this myself, after rebate, this will cost me very little. Installation: The installation instructions are straight-forward although they assume you live in a modern “builder” style home. If not, you’ll have to improvise. I have a late 1800s frame home with thicker walls. The cooler fit almost perfectly in my situation and only needed a 1” filler board outside. The inside window trim made the suggested bracket installation impossible so I created another solution. For lifting and leveling the cooler, you’ll need two people, and once it’s resting safely in the window opening, one person can finished the job. If you are lifting the unit into a higher window, as in my case, three would be better at least until you have the cooler through the window and resting on the sash. The third can help guide in the fan assembly and hold it in place and/or close the sash until you can attach it. Installation issues: I noticed a few things that may cause confusion: First, the cooler is shipped with the fan assembly not in the fully extended position, presumably to cut shipping dimensions and cost. This will require you to hand fit 9 screws, which is simple with one catch--pay close attention that you are getting the screw through both holes thereby connecting the two pieces. In a few spots on mine, on the first try, this did not happen and caused a slight bowing of the fan housing. In some cases the holes weren’t exactly aligned so I used a twist tie to run through both holes showing the proper screwing angle. I would definitely hand screw. Your electric driver won’t give you the feedback you need to see if both holes are penetrated and… could strip the plastic. Leveling: This is emphasized in the manual, but if it’s not obvious, if the cooler is not plumb and level, water may not drain over the pads uniformly and the effectiveness of the cooler will be reduced. In SLC, you want all the cooling power possible! Water pump: When I originally switched on the cooler for the first time, after letting the reservoir fill with water, the pump did not work. I read the manual, took off the back panel to see if the supply house had come loose from the water delivery tray, which it had not, and then restarted the cooler and it worked. In retrospect, this certainly was an issue of pump prime and nothing else. I drained the water as recommended after ten hours of use and experienced the same thing. I just shut down the cooler for a few seconds and turned it back on and the pump worked. If the pump is working, you will be able to hear falling water, see water trickling from the top of the pads and they will be uniformly moist. You will smell them for two days but… Water change: The instructions recommend changing the water twice, each time after ten hours of continuous use. Do it. You will notice, almost immediately, that the smell of the new pads goes away. With the water off, this will require that you unscrew the exterior nut of the overflow, push the overflow back into the cooler and let gravity do its thing. But… you’ll have a hard time getting the overflow tube back into the hole without removing the back cover, and in my case it’s trickier because it involves going up a ladder. So, I handled this issue on the second drain by making a long “S” hook with a smaller hook on one end and a larger on the other to grip and pull. I fed the smaller hook up into the overflow, next to the bleed off line, until it cleared the top then pulled it snug against the top of overflow. After the water drained, I simply tugged on the hook until about ¼” of the overflow extended from cooler housing, reattached the nut then retightened it, which drew out the overflow stem into the correct position. Much less work than taking off back panel. Especially six feet above ground. Cooling effectiveness and noise: Some have claimed that the cooler was neither as effective as they had hoped or made more noise than they expected. Regarding effectiveness: SLC, UT has been over 100 many times already this summer. My interior temp was 77 in the middle of my house and 78 at back on those days. My house is 2000 sq feet and I am only cooling the upstairs 1100 sq feet. The cooler is located at the front of the home, about 50 feet from the back where the main living space is. While the cooler is not in a direct line of site to the back of the house or bedroom, each of those rooms is only 1-2 degrees warmer, which seems remarkable seeing that there is 16 lineal feet of glass facing South or West at the back -- 50 feet from the cooler. Noisy: My experience does not bare this out. I tested the sound level on mine with a Radio Shack sound level meter, set to “A weighting”, the standard for sounds heard by the human ear, and got the following readings five feet to the side of the cooler: low cool 52 dB; medium cool 58 dB; high cool 64 dB. I doubled checked these numbers with a free app on my phone and turned in similar results. Sizing and venting: I learned that sizing and especially venting are crucial to how evaporative coolers work. Cooling power is determined in cfms, not btus like in AC. Sizing is determined by calculating cubic feet to be cooled divided by 2, ie: 1000 square feet with 8 foot ceilings would be: (1000*8)/2 or 4000 cfm. Regarding venting, evidently it’s the thing most people, including me, get wrong as it seems counter intuitive. The rule I found,and you can verify this by googling the topic, is 2 square feet of venting for each 1000 cfm of blower capacity. For this model that would be 9.8 square feet (I presume this is when cooler is on high)! I have spread the openings out over the rooms I want the most cooling in, and have used the flue in my wood burning also as a vent also. I have also been opening the cover to my attic space about 1 square foot and letting that help exhaust the hot air up there. And, after the sun goes down, I turn the blower on high, close up most of the house, and turn the cooler into an “attic fan”, so to speak, to help rid that blanket of hot air before the evening. Anecdotally, it seems much cooler! Finally, I called Bonaire’s customer support line and they were friendly, helpful and offered some good suggestions, like at the end of the season soaking the media in light vinegar water then rinsing to get scale off to prolong the life of the media. They also suggested a MaxCool Scale inhibitor, but I am skipping that for now to see how the pads do without help. I know this is a long review, but hopefully it was helpful.

This is an awesome unit. I live in a 1000 sq.ft. rental home in which i am not allowed to make ANY permanent changes, so this unit works Faaaaaanntasic. Being from WA, the dry AZ makes my allergies go crazy, this thing puts just the right amount of moisture in the air to keep most my allergies suppressed (at least until i step outside) and I really don't want to pay $400+ a month cooling my home to 80 degrees either when its 110 outside and with the $200 decrease in our power bill, it pays the unit off in 3 months. I also put up a sunshade over the window this was installed in, just to help keep the direct sun from raising the water temp as it trickles down the media. I am using some small tubing to moving the water bleed off away from the house. So with it being 110 outside, the unit is blowing out 73 degrees, and it is 86 degrees at the far end of my home. Now that is awesome. This unit is blowing out air on average 30-40 degrees cooler than outside air temps. May vs June power usage is pretty drastic considering Junes average Temps are 25-35 degrees hotter than in May. In May we used A/C, set at 79 degrees, when it was reaching 80's-90's outside. And now in June we are using this unit when temps are reaching 110+ we are using slightly less power then when avg temps were 30 degrees cooler. I am very grateful for the help I received from Frank in Plumbing at Thunderbird store #468. He answered all my questions when other stores could not. I am still a Home Depot shopper because of him.