The reason I'm considering one at all is that we have a need to cool a number of rooms - particularly during this hot spell - but at different times of the day. An air cooler would operate in the office during the afternoon, a child's bedroom in the early evening and the parents' bedroom later in the evening. All of them can get incredibly hot. In the latter two cases the cooling could take place prior to the room being occupied, which fans wouldn't really do, then be switched off, eliminating the noise.
In an office environment, I'm a little worried about the idea of chucking a couple of litres of water per hour into the air near some computing equipment....do they actually cause dampness around the place, or does the existing hot air take care of that?
(I'm looking for a solution today rather than next year, so there won't be any planting of greenery outside the windows, installing an aircon system or anything like that)
C heers
Brian