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Originally Posted by SentinelAeon
Fans seem to be doing fine so far, i am waiting for a heat wave to really test the difference. Fan are working all day, when i go to sleep i put them on lower rpm with resistor, in the evening i open windows, during the day i leave a small gap in the doors. Another thing i did was put 2 wet towels over the windows so that during the day when that area heats, the dry air in that area will help water evaporate and cool the area. And then that air is pulled outside anyway.
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Once you add in a way to create cooling below ambient temps then you really need a way to keep heat out of the enclosure. The issue isn't necessarily the cost of water but what are your environmental conditions. Can you get enough cooling and keep the Relative Humidity in range to not cause issues? Even if you have balanced airflow all of the water you put into the air is not getting outside through the exit fan. A portion of it will go into the building materials somewhere due to air pressure differences between the inside and outside. When conditions are right you will then have a place for mold and rot to occur. If the evaporative cooling takes the RH from say 30% to 50% then the portion that goes into the building materials likely won't build up enough moisture in the materials to support mold, mildew, or fungus growth. But I have a feeling doing much evaporative cooling isn't a great idea in your climate.
I think you would be best to understand how your apartment is heating up. Since you state it gets hot quickly then takes a long while to cool down, I don't think all of it is due to solar gain through the walls, as in the sun shining on the walls outside and warming up the thermal mass which then releases the heat inside. I think the majority of it is heat gain through windows (solar gain) as well as air leakage. So you are in effect heating the thermal mass from the inside and the outside. The kicker of it is that likely the majority of the through the window solar gain isn't happening in your apartment, but in those below you.
BSI-075: How Do Buildings Stack Up? | Building Science Corporation
You would likely do best to understand how your apartment is heating up. Get your air leakage measured, measure the internal temperature and the outside ambient temperature, measure the temperature of the walls, floor, and ceiling in many places, measure your pressure differences. From that data a theory on how best to implement energy efficient cooling strategies can be developed and then tested.