Next Week - Fredericksburg's Only Air Conditioned Patio

This early heat wave had us scratching our heads, 104 degrees (heat index) in June ? Anything is possible in Virginia, but this seemed really extreme. And of course, we went from being wait-listed every weekend since we opened to where did everybody go? We could hardly blame anyone, we didn't want to be outside either. Since outside is our only income producing real estate we knew we had to act quickly.

We had heard about misting systems used in South Florida and California and thought one might be useful for us. But how did one work? Would people feel wet? Would it work in the humidity?

Turns out the technology with misting systems has become very advanced and it can bring down the temperature 15 to 30 degrees when installed properly.

Mist Cooling works by forcing water through specially designed misting nozzles to create a fog of ultra fine water droplets. A common misconception is that misting is meant to get you all wet to cool you off. Rather, the tiny droplets or fog, quickly evaporate, cooling the surrounding air. Properly designed, a mist cooling system will work with prevailing winds and air movement, and are often combined with fans to move mist or cooled air into the cooled zones. Mist cooling can reduce the temperature up to 30 degrees Fahrenheit in very dry climates. And, it can still perform quite effectively even in very humid climates, often reducing temperatures by as much as 8-10 degrees by employing fans to facilitate evaporation.