I recall vivisitng my grandparents as a kid without AC had huge box fans in their windows to blow air on us.
These days we are so use to living with Air Condition ,it's hopeless to stay cool!
My husband's grandfather who had a little money had fans in windows ,but they had a tray on the unit to fill with water to make it cooler.
We used this during a power outage for 2 weeks after a Hurricane in Baytown Texas 1983!
Coolest thing I've ever seen. I was only 23 years of age at the time,but these fans were almost as good as an window unit! Let me say this Again.Almost as good! But it was definately cooler than the traditional fan in a window!
Wish I knew what it was.
Fortunately, our heat wave doesn’t last long.
The Monsoons will cool us right down.
It’s the waiting for them to hit that is fun, not!
What your husband’s grandfather had sounds like what we called a swamp cooler.
That’s what we used growing up in Albuquerque and in our 1st home in Phx. after I married.
Only the wealthy people has AC back then.
They are called Evaporator Units. We got one right after we got married and took it with us when we moved to California. The people thought we were nuts but the neighbors liked to come visit in our cool house.
Unfortunately those types of units caused a lot of illness.
“Evaporative units used for home air conditioning are a potential source of Legionnaires’disease.”
Remember the BIG break out of Legionnaires years ago? They had these units on the roof tops.