I got this out of the box and thought omg , how cheap is this. It only weighs about 7 pounds, it is kind of small and the wheels could not have been any smaller or cheaper. You can see the chair beside it for size comparison. I was complety amazed though when I turned it on. This little bugger can blow some air! I have not used any water in it yet so I cannot comment on that aspect. Yes, you can run it without water, that was my very first questions but the instructions, as usual, are terrible. You turn on the power and leave off the cool so it does not turn on the recirculating pump. The swivel feature for air flow is nice feature. So far my only regret is that I did not order the 3100 cfm.