Cool Boss CB-16 Evaporative Air Cooler — 16" Fan, 60 Gallon, Duct-Ready

The CB-16 is the only cooler in this range you can genuinely move around during the working day, and the only one that will take a ducting kit. Those two facts together make it a different tool from its bigger siblings, not a smaller version of them.

Everything else in the Cool Boss line-up is a machine you position at the start of summer and leave. The CB-16 weighs 200 lbs, rolls on oversized 4-inch caster wheels, plugs into a standard socket, and is small enough to follow the work: onto the bay where a rebuild is happening this week, out to the yard for an afternoon, back inside when it rains.

Ducting: cooling a person, not a building

The optional ducting kit is the feature worth understanding, because it changes the arithmetic completely.

Cooling a whole workshop means fighting its entire heat load — the roof, the doors, the machines, the sun. Cooling the two square metres a person is standing in means moving a modest volume of chilled air to one place and keeping it there. Ducting lets a compact cooler do the second job properly: into a booth, under a bench, into a pit, at a fixed workstation, or into a machine enclosure where a person has to work next to something hot. That is a job no amount of extra fan diameter does better, and it is why a small cooler with a duct outlet often beats a large one placed hopefully in the middle of a room.

Where the cooling actually comes from

Three Honeycool media pads, each 30" high, 13" wide and 6" deep, sit behind the fan. The pads are a resin-coated hexagonal honeycomb: the coating stops water pooling in the media, which is what causes scale and smell, and Cool Boss puts the resulting water-efficiency gain at up to 30% against comparable coolers.

Air is drawn through those wetted pads by a 16" (406 mm) axial-flow fan on a 1/3 HP motor, delivering up to 5,845 CFM at a rated coverage of 1,330 square feet. The axial-flow design moves a high volume of air at relatively low blade speed rather than forcing it through a small blade at high speed, which is both quieter and less demanding of the motor. Fan speed is variable, so you can set a breeze or a blast.

The honest limitation, the same for every evaporative cooler: this works by evaporating water into the air, so it does most in dry heat and less as humidity climbs, and the space needs ventilation for the moist air to leave. Sealed, humid room — disappointing. Hot, dry, ventilated workshop — genuinely effective at a fraction of the running cost of mechanical cooling.

Water, power and siting

The reservoir holds 60 gallons and the unit uses between 1.3 and 2.0 gallons an hour depending on settings, so a fill lasts a long working stretch. Connect a standard garden hose and it refills itself, with an automatic water source shutoff and an inlet flow control managing the level; leave it unconnected and it simply runs on what is in the tank, which is what makes it usable in places with no plumbing.

Power is 110V, 60Hz, 1Ph through a GFCI plug — an ordinary socket, no wiring work, no electrician. The unit is 41" x 34" x 66.5" and weighs 200 lbs; it ships at 46" x 39" x 63" and 220 lbs. Point it into the space rather than at a wall, and leave the intake face clear.

What else is built in

A built-in negative air ionizer runs alongside the cooling and helps pull airborne particles out of circulation — worth having in a shop that generates its own dust. An adjustable 80W outdoor-rated floodlight throws 4000 lumens, so the cooler doubles as a work light where it stands. There is a Bluetooth® audio player with stereo speakers, a built-in timer, soft-touch LED controls and a remote with its own holder, and a protective cover comes as standard.

The housing is high-density polyethylene with an antibacterial additive: impact-resistant, UV-resistant, and untroubled by sunlight or by being a cabinet full of water.

Perfect for

• Single-bay workshops and home garages where the cooling needs to be where you are working, not spread thin across the whole floor.
• Spot cooling at a fixed station — a welding bench, a machine operator's position, a paint booth — using the optional ducting kit.
• Anyone who needs the cooler in two places, indoors and out, on the same day.
• Sites with no water supply, where a 60 gallon tank and a plug is the whole installation.

Specifications

Certification

Cool Boss states the CB-16 is UL® certified, and it ships with a GFCI plug. On an appliance that combines mains power with a 60 gallon water tank, the GFCI is not a formality — it is the protection that matters, and it is fitted as standard.

Nothing further is recorded in our data for this model, and we will not name an approval the product does not claim. If your workplace requires a specific certificate for portable equipment, ask before you order and we will confirm in writing what this unit holds.

Shipping and delivery

This is a freight shipment within the lower 48 states, 220 lbs on a pallet. It is the most manageable machine in the Cool Boss range but it still arrives by truck: arrange a forklift, a dock, or enough people and a proper ramp, or take advantage of the Cool Boss pick-up locations listed further down this page. Residential delivery carries a residential fee.

Check the pallet with the driver present and note any damage on the bill of lading before you sign it. Photograph the crate before you open it. A polyethylene housing survives the journey well but not a forklift tine, and after a clean signature that damage becomes yours.

Warranty

Cool Boss states a 36-month warranty on this unit — three years on a machine that spends its life outdoors, wet, and being moved around, which is a reasonable statement of confidence in the housing and the motor.

Two habits protect it. First, if something fails, do not take the unit apart before the claim is opened — the failed part usually has to be inspected in the state it failed in, and a dismantled machine is the most common reason a good claim is refused. Second, drain the tank and let the media dry out before any long period of standing idle. Water left in evaporative media grows a smell and lays down scale, and neither is covered by any warranty anywhere.