Cool Surge Scam Artists at it Again

Share

Last year I wrote a blog article about a Miracle Amish Heater that generated a ton of traffic. I was even interviewed by the New York Times as a result of that article. Well, the company that brought us the Amish Heat Surge is at it again, and this time they are doing something even more despicable. They are misleading customers in their ads about a new cooler that uses ‘96% less energy than a window air conditioner’. There’s good reason it uses so much less energy than a window air conditioner, and that’s because it only has about 7% of the cooling capacity of a typical window air conditioner.

The $300 product is called the ‘Cool Surge‘ and it uses ‘glacier packs’ that you freeze and then load into the device so that a fan can blow air over the packs and presumably cool the room. Well, there’s only one problem with that approach and that is that device will actually make your house hotter, not cooler! Why? Because the energy it takes to freeze the ice packs comes from your refrigerator which exhausts the heat it removes from the water into your home. They conveniently forgot to mention this in their advertising. In fact, they say that the unit can’t be measured with a BTU rating. That is complete nonsense.

The BTU rating of this so-called cooler is absolutely minuscule compared with even a small window air conditioner. A small 5000 BTU/hr window air conditioner produces the equivalent cooling to melting about 35 lbs. of ice per hour. This cooler holds 12 lbs. of ice total. That’s about 1.5 gallons. Think about the volume of 1.5 gallons of water. You’ll be using a large portion of the space in your freezer to continually re-freeze these glacier packs. Assuming you swapped out these packs every 4 to 6 hours, which is how long they last according to the website, this device would have only about 7% of the capacity to cool a room as a window air conditioner. And, don’t forget, freezing the packs simultaneously puts all the heat removed from the water (and then some) into your home. There’s a good reason that air conditioners need to be vented to the outdoors. It’s because they need a place to dump the heat that they remove from inside your house. You cannot cool a house with a closed system like this.

I wish I could talk with the engineers who dream up these scam products just to see what they are thinking. I cannot imagine how they sleep at night because they are swindling their customers and the worst part is they must know it.

8 thoughts on “Cool Surge Scam Artists at it Again

  1. @Andy: At least the heaters are only overpriced, not-optimally-efficient products. The Cool Surge, on the other hand, is one of the most despicable rip-off products I’ve seen in a long time. I won’t be supporting this company at all.

  2. My Mom purchased a heater but SDGE said unplug it because it cost to much to use.

    She just received a letter offering a rebate if she sends 259.00 she will get a new LED heater, free shipping and can keep her old one.

    Is this for real?

    • Hi Kimberly, I assume you’re referring to the heat surge heater. The LED light bar is only for the light that runs the fake flame effect. It won’t have any affect on the cost to run it since the heater draws 1500W and the lights are only a tiny portion of that, just a few watts. The LED upgrade won’t save any energy they just may last longer than the incandescent bulbs so you can enjoy the fake fire effect longer before it stops working. I’d stay away from this company.

  3. Lee,

    Thanks for what you are doing to expose these unprincipled hucksters. No reputable engineer would lend his/her endorsement to the absurd “Cold Surge” scam.

    These products are sold out of Canton, Ohio, which has become something of a center for the marketing of overpriced, over-hyped contraptions like these.

    The principal company involved in these schemes is Suarez Industries, whose CEO, Ben Suarez,and CFO, Michael Giorgio, are in big trouble with the U.S.Department of Justice over alleged violations of campaign contributions rules. Ohio newspapers are following this case closely, as you can see from this link:
    http://topics.cleveland.com/tag/ben-suarez/posts-oldest.html

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

CommentLuv badge