Cooling Misters Best Ways to Save and Drought Tips (2024)

In a severe drought you may be restricted from using your cooling misters. In a moderate drought, you should consider following these water saving tips:

• Consider opportunities to conduct your activities indoors where air conditioning is already in use.
• For commercial applications, divide the misters into groups that can be independently controlled. No sense operating many nozzles where just a few can do the job.
• Turn off the misters when nobody is present. You may want to consider a timer or sensor device.
• Use trees and other shade structures to keep outdoor areas naturally cooler.
• Turn off the misters when winds are whisking the mist and cooled air away before it can reach you.
• Don’t use misters when outdoor temperatures are moderate.
• Don’t use misters during periods of high humidity — they don’t work well in those conditions.
• Don’t use mist systems for aesthetic purposes, such as creating fog-like special effects in outdoor landscapes.

Cooling Misters Water Use

The amount of water used by your cooling misters will depend on a number of factors including the type of nozzle, number of nozzles, and frequency of use. Most residential systems include nozzles that consume between a 0.5 gal and 1.5 gal of water per hour.

Nozzle flow rates may also vary depending on your home’s water pressure. In general, a lower nozzle flow rate and higher water pressure will create better evaporation rates and cooling.

To get an idea of how much water your system will use in a day, just multiply the nozzle flow rate by the number of nozzles by the number of hours you operate the misters. For example, if you have 5 nozzles that each operates at 0.5 gal/hr for 4 hours each day, your water use would be 10 gal/day. See below:

Figure 1: Examples of different mister nozzles.

Figure 2: Misters are used on patios and in parks.