Portable Water Cooled Air Conditioners for Hospitals

Water cooled portable air conditioner units from OceanAire are uniquely positioned to provide the perfect solution to today’s hospital spot cooling requirements.

During the era of the COVID-19, a lot of hospitals are employing negative air machines to help mitigate the spread of the air-borne viruses and contaminants from one room to another. Unfortunately, when using a negative air machine, you are by design, exhausting more air from a room than is being delivered to a room. This overwhelms the existing air conditioning system and supplemental air conditioning is needed to maintain a comfortable space within the hospital.  An air cooled portable unit, would not operate properly under a negative air situation because it needs to contend with the negative air machine for condenser air.   Most air cooled units are not designed for these levels of negative pressure and do not have a powerful enough blower to perform properly.

Perfect for Use in Negative Air Environments

One great function of an OceanAire water cooled air conditioner, is that it can operate perfectly in negative air environments.

The OceanAire water cooled unit does not require condenser air. Therefore, the need for air in a negative-pressure room is eliminated, allowing the water-cooled air conditioner to cool the air within the existing room.

Under negative air conditions, hospitals need to cool the air drawn into the building, known as make-up air.  Since the conditioned air is being exhausted from the building by the negative air machines, supplemental cooling equipment is needed to maintain a comfortable atmosphere.

An OceanAire portable water-cooled unit is perfect solution for cooling hospital lobbies, patient rooms, breakrooms, waiting rooms, MRI rooms, X-ray rooms and so much more.  Every hospital room has a water source (sink, bathroom) where you can attach our water hoses to and bring water to the unit and drain the water as well.  Because OceanAire water-cooled units recirculate the existing air in the room, they do not spread or exhaust any air out of the room.

• View technical specs for OceanAire’s OWC Range of water cooled air conditioners here >>

(More information for facilities managers on temporary negative air pressure patient room options can be found here.)

Commercial Grade Water Cooled Portable Air Conditioner Units for Hospitals

Our portable water cooled air conditioners are purpose-built for industrial and commercial applications and come in various sizes for use in any application. Units range from 12,000 to more than 60,000 BTUs, which simply means that OceanAire has a solution for hospital cooling, anywhere, any time.

How Do Water-Cooled Portable AC Units Work?

The basic answer is that cold water enters the unit, the heat is transferred to the water and hot water exits the unit.

About Water Flow

The OceanAire 1.5 ton water-cooled unit (our most popular unit) uses roughly .6gpm. (Water flow is measured by gpm or gallons per minute.) The water flow is determined by the water pressure and the temperature of the water. You will need a minimum of 25psi to insure proper water flow through the unit. The higher the psi, the faster the water will flow, thus using more water. The warmer the entering water, the more you will use. The reason you will use more water when its warmer is because colder water removes more heat so you will use less water.  Warmer water removes less heat, therefore you will use more water.

Regulating Water Flow

• The OceanAire water-cooled units are equipped with a water regulating valve installed inside the unit. This valve regulates the water flow (gpm) based on cooling demand of the unit when the compressor is running, and the valve closes when the compressor cycles off.

No Bucket to Empty

• There is no condensate bucket needed to be emptied. All the water-cooled units have a built in condensate pump.

Quick Connect – To Any Sink

• The OceanAire water-cooled units have “quick connects” for the hose kits for ease of installation. No pipe wrenches required.
• You can run the water hoses as long as you want, providing you maintain a water pressure of at least 25 psi during operation.
• The OceanAire hose kits come with a 4-way aerator adapter to fit any sink spout. There are times that you might need to get your water from a bathroom sink or some other type of sink. The 4-way adapter allows the hose kit to quickly attach to these sinks.

Easy to Operate

• Once the unit is installed, simply set the temperature on the digital thermostat to the desired room temperature
• OceanAire water-cooled units are equipped with numerous safety features.  One important feature is the manual HP reset button that will activate when there is an interruption in water flow to the unit.  The controller will display a warning code. The “CON” warning means that there is an interruption with the water flow to the unit. A simple check on the water supply and a reset of the button gets the unit up and running again quickly.

Why use an OceanAire water-cooled unit?

• OceanAire portable water cooled units are commercial duty air conditioners and are capable of cooling 24/7.
• There is no hot air exhaust, so no heat (or contaminated air is loaded above the ceiling grid) or is introduced into the space or needs to be exhausted to another room/area. User satisfaction guaranteed!
• When there is no place to exhaust hot air, the OceanAire water-cooled unit is the solution. No duct required.
• Uses less electricity than an comparably sized air-cooled units.
• The smaller cabinet size frees up more floor space and is more aesthetically pleasing.
• Much easier and faster installation than an air-cooled unit.

Common Myths About Water-Cooled Units

Introduces water to the air

• No it does not.  People think a water-cooled acts like an evaporative cooler.  It does not.  The water is not exposed to the air flow at all.  The water runs through a coaxial coil.

The water runs all the time

• No, the water does not run all the time.  The water only runs through the unit when the compressor is on.  When the units is not calling for cooling, the water is not running.

It is very expensive to run a water-cooled unit

• Not as expensive as you might think.  Because there is only 1 blower motor in the water-cooled unit, it uses far less electricity than the air-cooled unit that has 2 blowers in it.  Also, the average cost of water in the United States is about $1.50 per every 1,000 gallons. On average, our largest water-cooled unit uses 3gpm with an average daily cost of $2.70

Hot air is discharged from water-cooled units

• No, there is no hot air discharged from a water-cooled unit.  The heat is transferred to the water.

OceanAire is the Leading Water Cooled Portable AC Manufacturer in the World

OceanAire is renowned for innovations and is the most forward thinking manufacturer in commercial air conditioning today. We support a nationwide network of distributors to provide AMERICAN MADE portable commercial air conditioning units, which we strongly believe are the best available in the world today.

For more information, or to find a distributor in your area, please contact OceanAire today.