Edgardo Vazquez, a Filipino inventor and entrepreneur, promotes the misting system to protect Filipinos from the scorching temperature, with the onset of the hot dry months in March.
“Because of climate change, we will have a hot summer. If you got it so cold in January and February, then you can get it so hot starting March. With a heat index of over 40 degree Celsius, you can get a heat stroke already. Even animals such as dogs, chicken and hogs suffer from heat stroke. That’s why we want to promote the misting system in the Philippines,” Vaquez says in an interview in his workshop in Makati City, where he tinkers with his tools to develop new products.
“Orchids and other plants in greenhouses are also very sensitive to temperature. The only thing that can address the problem of high temperature is misting,” says Vazquez, a 65-year-old innovator who developed the VazBuilt modular housing technology in the early 1990s.
Vazquez and his son Gardo believe that Misty Kool—a patented misting system with a timer that lowers outdoor temperature by 3 to 5-degree Celsius—is the best cooling solution outdoors, not only for Filipino households, but also for various industries such as livestock, poultry, vegetable production and floriculture.
“We want to help improve the environment. The main objective is to make people understand what it can do, and its health benefit. The fan is being used now in restaurants and open spaces, but I feel it can do more justice in the agribusiness. It can also be beneficial in the poultry and hog sector, because the heat of summer can be detrimental to chicken and pigs,” says Vazquez.
“Even mushroom farms are now using the misting system,” he says.
Vazquez offers the technology in two forms—a line machine and electric fan-type unit that can produce Baguio-like breeze instantly. The father-and-son tandem, together with distributor-partners, have already sold about 300 units of Misty Kool, which cost P35,000 plus tax for the electric fan type. Vazquez says the local product costs less than a tenth of foreign brands, which are being sold for as much as P500,000.
Misty Kool, according to Vazquez, is a misting system that sprays ultra-fine microns of water that can cool off any area. It conserves energy while offering an air-cooling effect and repels flying insects, dust, smoke and pollen.
“We are now looking for distributors to bring Misty Kool units across the country to protect Filipinos from the heat of summer,” says Vazquez.
Vazquez says both the line and electric fan type Misty Kool systems can be used to generate cool breeze at patios of homes, open spaces of restaurants, hotels and resorts, gardens, concert grounds, golf courses, sports venues, public areas and open areas of government offices, churches and hospitals.
He says aside from cooling the open areas, the misting system also controls the spread of dust and insects. “Mists also serve as air filter and prevent flies and mosquitos from flying anywhere.
Vaquez hopes to bring the Misty Kool units to more areas such as the resort islands of Boracay and Palawan and the high-temperature provinces of Cagayan, Isabela, Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur and Nueva Ecija.
“We are getting calls from a lot of resorts. They always go for the electric fan type Misty Kool, but when they see that it is working pretty well, they shift to the higher budget line system,” he says.
“Eventually, we want to bring Misty Kool to other Asian countries such as Papua New Guinea, Vietnam and Cambodia,” he says.
“So far, we don’t have any [defective] returns from the units we sold. What we get are referrals. Those who try to copy our product cannot come close to what we have produced. We have a superior product—designed by Filipino and patented in the Philippines—that is the only misting system with a timer, which is important so that the ground will not get wet from the mist,” he says.
Vazquez says Misty Kool is different from other products because it has an oil monitor and programmable timer.
The electric fan type Misty Kool consists of a high-pressure misting fan, 41-liter water tank, heavy-duty wheels with locking mechanism, programmable timer, automatic switch-off feature, oil indicator and automatic water pump. A unit can cover a spray area of 85 square meters.
“This is a Filipino-designed product for the benefit of the Filipino families and industries,” says Vazquez.