Learn About Portables

1. Coolzy

  • Concentrates cooling where it counts, on people who need cooling.
  • Feels cooler than other portables
  • Only 340 Watts – 12 hours daily use only adds about $43 to your monthly electricity bill.
  • Easy to carry and move where you need cooling.
  • Quiet, ideal for sleeping
  • Almost instant cooling in a minute or so.
  • No pipes, no water, no installation

2. Old-style portable air-conditioners

  • Spreads cooling around whole room
  • Cooling after 30 minutes or so is only 3 – 4 °C (5 – 7 °F), even with a large and powerful machine
  • Needs large exhaust pipe fitted to window
  • 1,000 – 2,400 Watts – 12 hours daily use adds about $100 – $220 to your monthly electricity bill
  • Large, heavy, need help to carry one
  • Too noisy for sleeping

Pumping hot air through an exhaust pipe heats the room and causes hot outside air to be sucked into the room through openings. Learn more here.

Where does Coolzy’s waste heat go?

Coolzy has no exhaust pipe. Coolzy uses so little electricity that it does not need one.

Coolzy directs its warm air exhaust to the ceiling where the heat is absorbed, just like the warm air from your fridge which you don’t notice (warm air rises naturally). Any excess finds its way out of open windows or doors.

A Coolzy releases only 340 Watts, similar to three people in the room. So, in larger rooms, Coolzy will not warm the room much at all.

In a small room, especially if it is well-insulated, Coolzy will create some warming in the upper part of the room. With good ventilation from open window or doorway, this will not be perceptible to people using Coolzy.

Later in 2022, we will release a new accessory for Coolzy soon to help remove unwanted warm air. Watch this space.

Use a fan to improve room ventilation if needed. Learn how to use a fan to provide extra ventilation for a small room.

Coolzy: 55 cm high x 29 cm x 39 cm, 15.4 kg, easy to carry.

Old Style Portable: typically 80 cm high x 40 cm x 45 cm, 32 kg, hard to move.

In moderately hot weather, a Coolzy can be used on its own (as shown) or with a normal mosquito net. We recommend the optional Igloo bed tent in really hot conditions with indoor temperatures consistently over 28°C at night. The tent amplifies cooling over the bed and can also reduce energy consumption by about 30-40% which is ideal for battery and off-grid applications.

Old style portables are unsuitable for bedrooms. They are much noisier and have relatively low cooling performance compared with a split AC using the same power. Also humidity builds up in room with time.

Coolzy: use it anywhere because there is no pipe

Old-style Portable: has to be close to a window to attach the large exhaust pipe with the window kit

Coolzy: $549-699 plus $15-$30 monthly electricity cost, total cost over three years $1,089-$1,799

Old-style Portable: $350-$990 plus $120-$250 monthly electricity cost (Sydney), total cost over three years $4,670-$9,990

Coolzy: 800-1,100 Watts cooling, 340 Watts electricity (same as a few incandescent light bulbs), 0.25 tonnes CO2 over three years, equivalent to 110 litres of petrol

Old-style Portable: 3,000-7,500 Watts cooling, 1,000-2,400 Watts electricity, 1-2 tonnes CO2 over three years, equivalent to 450-900 litres of petrol.

Coolzy: all cooling directed around people using it

Old-style Portable: mixes air in room, sucks out more air than it cools and sucks in hot air from the roof space outside. Very little room cooling.

Click here for more details

Coolzy: 47-54 dB – quiet, like an electric fan

Old-style Portable: 55-63 dB – noisy, can be hard to hear people speak

Coolzy: Open

Old-style Portable: Closed

A Coolzy eliminates the need for an exhaust hose: such a wonderful improvement. It is on caster wheels and can easily be moved where you want to use it. At 15.4 Kg it is easily carried too. Take it anywhere you need cooling, even outside in sheltered places.

The old-style portable comes with a hose and window kit which is fiddly to install, and only works with some windows. That means you cannot easily move it once you have installed it. Plus the exhaust hose is ugly, helps to heat the room, and makes lots of noise.

Answer: A Coolzy releases only 340 Watts, similar to three people in the room. A Coolzy directs its warm air exhaust to the ceiling where the heat is absorbed, just like the warmth from your fridge which you don’t notice (warm air rises naturally). Any excess finds its way out of open windows or doors.

Without sufficient ventilation, even this small amount of heating can raise the temperature in the upper part of a small room. Learn how to provide extra ventilation for a small room.

A Coolzy works in any room, even outside in sheltered places. It creates a micro-climate, a cool zone, up to 4-5 square metres.

If the temperature inside your bedroom regularly exceeds 28°C at night, the Igloo bed tent provides extra cooling to keep you comfortable, and also provides chemical-free mosquito protection.The Igloo bed tentalso reduces the air conditioner power consumption to about 180 Watts average, a valuable saving for off-grid battery installations.

The Igloo bed tent also provides an ideal place for your baby or small child to be cool and comfortable during the day time.

We recommend keeping a Coolzy near you, no more than 1 or 2 metres away.  If you need it further away, or want to use while you are standing, we recommend our Coolzy-Pro Enhancer accessory which extends the range and optionally directs the cool air flow at a higher angle.

If you need to cool a crowded room for 2 – 3 hours, a split AC is effective. Split ACs provide no fresh air exchange and the doors and windows need to be closed to retain the cool air so carbon dioxide, volatile organic compounds and body odours build up with time.  Prolonged use of split ACs for sleeping can cause dry itchy eyes and skin irritation from dry air and the running cost can be very high.  Expect to pay $1,500 or more to install it and $120 – $250 a month for electricity if you use it for sleeping or during the day.

Ceiling fans can be effective in moderate heat.

An electric fan on a table next to a window can draw outside air through the open window and blow it across a bed to provide effective cooling for sleeping. Make sure that there is one other open window or doorway tor air to escape.

Fans provide about 2 degrees of apparent cooling. (A Coolzy provides up to 10 degrees of apparent cooling, sometimes more.)

A large roof exhaust fan installed in ceiling of the highest room in the building can provide cost-effective cooling at night for the entire building, especially for brick buildings. The air flow capacity should be about 3,000 – 4,000 m3/hr with a low speed motor drive to ensure quiet running. Arrange for the fan to be switched on around 10 pm, and let it run until about 7 am. Leave some windows open to ensure that fresh air can be drawn into the building and pass through other rooms before reaching the exhaust fan.

Roof exhaust fans prevent a building from getting hotter every day of a heat-wave: the building cools to a temperature 2°C above the night time minimum temperature. A Coolzy can work well with a roof ventilation fan to provide extra cooling when needed.

In dry weather (up to about 60% relative humidity), evaporative (water) coolers can provide effective cooling.  There are many types available, both mobile (not portable) and ducted systems.  Avoid small portable models as they require frequent refilling with water, or have limited effectiveness.  Indirect evaporative coolers provide cooling with only moderate increases in humidity.  Direct evaporative coolers, the more common type, do increase humidity and can cause very high humidity at night. A Coolzy can work well with ducted evaporative cooling systems for homes and offices.

In extremely hot conditions, wet towels draped on your legs can provide effective cooling and sun protection when travelling by car.

Coolzy.com is a Perth and Singapore based start-up company founded in 2007. Inventor James Trevelyan created the concept after experiencing summer heat in Pakistan with intermittent electricity for air conditioning.  He refined the concept with a series of prototypes, assisted by our manufacturers in Taiwan.  Our first commercial models went on sale in India and Pakistan in 2016.