Champion, Essick Air, and AeroCool swamp coolers: parts, failures, and costs

Three brand names cover most of the residential coolers in this metro: Champion and Essick Air, which are the same manufacturer, and AeroCool, which is not. Knowing which one is on your roof changes very little about a repair, because the failure modes are identical, but it changes a lot about which parts we bring, what a replacement pad set costs, and whether a new unit earns you a PNM rebate.

Who makes what

Essick Air Products and Champion Cooler Corporation. One trademark family: Essick Air, Champion, MasterCool, UltraCool, AIRCARE, Super Wick, Masterstat, Masterlink, MoistAir, and Trapmax. Champion is the aspen media line, described by the manufacturer as covering models from about 1,520 to 4,743 CFM in window, residential, side-draft, and light commercial configurations. MasterCool is the rigid media line in the same family, covered on the MasterCool page.

Phoenix Manufacturing Inc. A separate Phoenix, Arizona manufacturer with over 50 years in evaporative cooling, making AeroCool, Frigiking, and the Agricool commercial line. The residential range includes the AeroCool Pro Series, Pro-V Series, and Trophy Series, plus Frigiking window, residential, and rigid media units.

Aspen versus rigid media, honestly

Champion describes its aspen pads as shredded aspen wood held together with plastic netting, which spreads water evenly across the pad face and stops the pad sagging into hot spots. They are non-toxic, made in the USA, cheap, and disposable. In Albuquerque they are a one-season item, because every gallon the cooler evaporates leaves its mineral behind in the pad. That is not a manufacturer defect; the Water Authority says the same thing on its own drinking water FAQ, describing the residue left behind by evaporation as exactly what collects on evaporative coolers over the summer.

Rigid media is stacked corrugated sheet material. Phoenix Manufacturing’s spec sheet for the AeroCool Pro Series describes its media as corrugated cellulose impregnated with insoluble anti-rot salts and rigidifying saturates, in an 8 inch or 12 inch depth depending on the model. It costs more, lasts three to five seasons, and gets closer to full saturation because air moves through it more slowly.

The AeroCool features that actually change maintenance

Phoenix Manufacturing publishes real engineering data on the residential AeroCool Pro Series, and a few of the named systems affect what a tech does on your roof:

• Pro-Clean. A sump dump pump that drains and refills the cooler on a cycle to keep mineral from building up. The manufacturer claims it can save as much as 3,000 gallons a month compared with a standard bleed-off system. If your unit has it and it has stopped cycling, that is a repair worth making before you buy another pump.
• Flomate water distribution. The patented manifold that spreads water across the media. When these scale up, one media panel runs dry and the cooler reads as weak rather than broken; see weak airflow.
• Pro-Armor wet section. A polymeric inner structure shielding the wet section from corrosion, which is the same idea as MasterCool’s plastic reservoir and the reason those cabinets tend to outlive galvanized pans.
• Pro-Shield weatherizing panel. A winter panel that blocks heat loss through the unit in the off season. It is not a substitute for draining the water line, which is what actually splits over winter.
• Bearings and motors. Published L10 bearing life is 39,000 to 39,600 hours, and the 4,800 CFM Pro Series models carry a three quarter horsepower two-speed motor drawing 11.9 amps on high and 6.4 on low at 120 volts, with the 6,800 CFM models at one horsepower and 14.1 and 7.4 amps. Those numbers are what the running cost calculator is built on.

What fails, on any of these brands

The order is the same regardless of badge. Pump first, seized by scale or burned by a dry run, $150 to $400 installed. Float valve second, $100 to $250, failing open onto your stucco or closed onto your pump. Pads or media third, on schedule. Distribution tubes or the manifold, scaled and leaving a panel dry, $100 to $200. Then the fan side: belt at $40 to $100, bearings that wanted oil at spring start-up, and eventually the motor at $300 to $700. The problems pages work through each symptom, and every price here is the same range on the pricing page.

The one failure that ends a cooler rather than costing a part is the pan. Galvanized pans rust through at the seams, usually after a winter or two of being left full of water. Cabinets with polymer or plastic wet sections resist that, which is worth knowing when you are choosing a replacement rather than a repair.

Which models earn the PNM rebate

PNM’s published qualifying list for the up-to-$400 large evaporative cooler rebate includes AeroCool Pro Series, Pro-V Series, and Trophy Series units from Phoenix Manufacturing, Champion Elite and Champion MasterCool units from Essick Air, Breezair and Convair units from Seeley, and Premium units from Symphony. The rebate requires a down-draft or side-draft unit with 12 inch rigid media; PNM states that some units are available with 8 inch media which do not qualify, and it requires the model number to match its list exactly. Window and wall-mounted units with rigid media qualify for up to $200.

Against a new roof-mount cooler at $1,500 to $4,000 installed, that rebate is worth planning around. The permits, rebates, and water page covers the program terms, the permit requirements for a replacement inside city limits, and the licensing rules that apply to whoever does the work.