You must live in the sticks! I can get a motor rebuilt a few miles from here (and I think *we* live "in the wilderness").
Our old cooler used an odd 220V 1HP design. When the motor crapped out, I brought it down the street for a rebuild -- and had them replace the bearings at the same time. It's relatively commonplace, here (though not for Joe Average consumer who simply replaces items any time they hiccup). As you end up getting much of your *old* motor back, it's remarkably affordable.
My tolerance range is quite wide. Right now it's 85F here in the office and I feel perfect. In winter it's usually 63F in the office and I feel alright. Of course then I don't wear shorts like right now.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
I service ours about every three weeks. Keeps it nice and clean.
Similar here, sans the belt because there is none. Sounds more complicated than it really is once it becomes routine.
Well, you should clean the condenser. I used to do that once at season start and then after every major pollen/dust/soot or whatever storm.
The fire marshall might not like that :-)
Sure, but it doesn't even need "low" to keep up that pressure. Also, once the cooler is on VF drive that can be thermaostat controlled so it would automagically speed up when hot air wafts inside.
It doesn't get to 115F much here but it does get to 110F. It worked nicely through that because the outside humidity is close to zero during those times.
Yup, and there goes a lot of the energy savings.
We pretty much play that by the ear. TV has become unreliable as a weather forecast since this dreaded switch to digital. But we can gauge it pretty well by eye.
Nope. Hint: PID-regulator. A really sloooow one. This is where a uC is called for.
On hot days, if there is any wind, it comes from the south and we don't have any windows in that directtion. Well, one slightly in the kitchen and then we just open another one instead on those days.
That's the output temp from the cooler. Yesterday it was 80F in the house with the cooler on high. A bit much for my wife but bearable. For me, just fine.
We got no Monsoon in Northern California.
Wot's a rain storm? :-)
Or ... run a MEMS-size mini cooler which gives you that information :-)
You need both the cooler input and output temps, plus the house temp.
It's also available for skylights, where they automatically open/shut in case of a fire. A relative was in that business for a while.
That's really strange. Maybe you have a clean air allergy :-)
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
Jenkinson Lake which isn't as bad as the situation in the flatlands. Yet we were still called to voluntarily conserve 30%. Most people don't but we are consistently at -30% to -40% versus last year by meticulously adjusting watering schedules for plants. With the swamp cooler operating.
Ripping out the stupid lawns everywhere would be majorly more efective for water conservation than banning swamp coolers. As I said, our water bill was barely different after installing the cooler. And we have zero lawn area.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
Educate yourself on the (measly) requirements for fresh air intake in commercial A/C system. Then think about how that works in an evaporative cooling scenario. Maybe then you can figure it out, too.
The HP4191 doesn't either. The Dolch logic analyzer doesn't either. Should I go on?
Hint: I am a believer in PM and do clean this gear regularly. Which everyone who owns and uses this gear should.
Miraculously I am by far not the only one. I've asked medical professionals about it because I used to work in that field. "Is there anything one can do about it?" ... "Yeah, move into a building where you can actually open a window".
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
I would guesstimate over 95% of the residential properties have no "lawn" -- crushed stone *or* "natural desert". I *think* I can find perhaps two "patches of grass" in our subdivision (~200 homes) and neither would qualify as a "lawn".
The most common abusers are BUSINESSES that deliberately want to flaunt their water use. There is no legislation prohibiting water use; just a pricing structure that discourages "waste" (of course, that leaves it up to the purchaser to decide what constitutes "waste"!)
Figure ~15,000 gallons of water annually getting dumped into the air
*per* swamp cooler and that's a significant amount of water for a region that gets ~11 inches of rainfall annually!(I think swimming pools are similarly frowned upon. I can't think of anyone who *uses* their pool -- unless their grandkids fly in from midwestville -- on even an *occasional* schedule yet they can lose up to an inch of water, daily, in the hot/dry months)
Just a typical neighborhood around here:
There is here now.
Ours doesn't even get close. Even if yours uses 50gals/day as your wrote earlier: Assume 10h/day of usage and four months. That's only 2500 gallons. People don't run it in winter.
We would never buy a house with pool again. Yeah, it's nice right now. But all that maintenance.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
There is usually an air filter associated with the AC (particularly central types); that needs replaced or cleaned (depending on type) annually or more often.
?-)
At my parents' house, the original A/C was installed about 1969. In about 1985 or so, we turned it on in the spring and it went through all the motions but blew warm air. Dad called for a service tech and two minutes after the tech got there, he asked for a garden hose... once the condenser was hosed out, coolth returned. Since seeing that, I try to hose mine out every year.
In commercial buildings in Germany, I have seen roof vents that were apparently tied into the fire alarm system. The hotel I stayed at had them in the stairwells. The panel was usually closed, but there was an air or hydraulic cylinder (it had plumbing, not wires) that could open it. Pretty typical hotel layout - long skinny building with a stairwell at the short end, a corridor with rooms on each side, stairwell and elevators in the middle, more rooms, stairwell at the other short end.
I *suspect*, but don't know, that the idea is that if there isn't a fire in or close to that particular stairwell, it's better to open that vent to help clear smoke from the stairwell. I don't know if the vent automatically opens, or if a firefighter has to manually activate it once they have checked the stairwell.
I've never seen this in the US.
There's always 162.x MHz, narrowband FM... if you haven't listened in a while, they've gotten an improved Mr. Roboto that is easier to hear. :)
Matt Roberds
Roof mounted makes that very tedious. Just dragging a garden hose up there is a challenge!
Didn't mean to imply it was complicated. Just another "chore". I.e., you can't just turn the cooler on (because it "suddenly" got hot) and expect it to use it.
By contrast, the AC condenser I can just squirt with a garden hose DRAGGED ACROSS THE YARD to clean off the coils. It's location protects it from accumulating much debris "inside" the coil loop. Unlike the cooler, I *can* just turn the unit on and expect cool air -- even if I forget/delay hosing down the condenser.
Where ours is located, it sees very little plant debris (nothing to shed leaves onto/into it). It may get a little *dusty* -- but Monsoon will wash it clean if I forget to.
Upscale homes already have such items. E.g., X-10 remote controlled.
The bigger problem is we don't have skylights in every room. Those without would not realize the full DIRECT benefits of the cooler's operation.
E.g., even using a window as a vent/exhaust, it is difficult to keep the office comfortable when I have several servers running. So, I try not to *need* more than one at a time! (eventually, I will extend the ductwork into the storage room off the garage and bring that into the normal "living space"; but, requires knocking a doorway through a load bearing wall so I am not in a hurry to tackle that...)
You don't JUST want pressure. You also want to move the HUMID air *out* of the house -- continuously. Of course, it just gets replaced with
*more* humid air but the new air and its motion contribute to the feeling of comfort.We did notice the huge swings in humidity (5%RH to 60+%) took a toll on much of the furniture -- especially the antiques. I guess they don't like expanding and contracting like that. Worse if you switch between cooling mechanisms (daily expand/contract vs. "seasonal")
We typically have ~100 days where the peak temperature exceeds 100F starting in about mid May and ending around 1 Sep (though it's been that hot in October, sporadically). Unfortunately, humidity increases in early July through mid August. So, you're facing
100+ with (relatively) high humidity (e.g., currently about 60%RH)
There's no free lunch. Sit in a "muggy" house "relatively inactive" (lest you drown in perspiration) or use more aggressive means to make the house more comfortable for a wider variety of activities.
The ACbrrr's biggest appeal, to me, is dehumidification.
I moved 20+ tons of stone into the yard when the outdoor temperature was above 110F (117 on one day). I was *more* comfortable outside than I was returning to the swamp cooled house, afterwards -- because I wasn't soaked in perspiration out in that heat (5%RH) but immediately was "drenched" when I came indoors -- 30+ degrees cooler but humidity approaching 70%!
[I was surprised at how easy *heat* is to tolerate -- as long as it is dry *and* you are not in direct sunlight. You just have to get used to drinking a quart of water every half hour, NOT perspiring and NEVER having to take a piss! These tend to have a disconcerting psychological effect -- "Where the hell is all the water going???"]Forecasts (even current conditions) are pretty meaningless, here. Too many microclimates. E.g., our street is probably four blocks long. But, Spring flowers (same species) will bloom two weeks earlier on the other end of the street than here. Likewise, our winter lows and summer highs are several degrees lower/higher than reported for nearby "weather observations".
Hence the reason for the rooftop weather station -- I don't care what the humidity is "downtown" -- or, even at the monitoring station across the was (~1 mile as the crow flies). I can look up and see rain in one direction, virga in another, and clear skies above! :<
Doesn't matter how fast/slow your control loop operates. Gust of wind is too short of a disturbance -- hot dry air comes *in* the window. You can't react quick enough to detect and counter it! By the time you *do* react, it is gone and you've just created an "artificial gust" inside the house. Overdamp your response and you've done nothing to counter the incursion.
Given that the outside air is MUCH hotter (20-30F) and much *drier*, it becomes very noticeable. Your only practical recourse is to install windbreaks to diffuse these (some office buildings here do just that -- of course, it's an eyesore to those hoping to stare out their window...)
South side, here, is largely consumed by the location of the garage. Wind comes from every direction, here. Microbursts tend to come from the North (closest side to the mountains) but storms come in from the South (Mexico), North, West (CA) and even East (NM, TX). Wind direction is usually a coarse predictor of our likelihood for precipitation.
It isn't possible to get the house down to 80F with a cooler, here, during Monsoon. And, in Summer, not possible once the outdoor temps climb above 110.
By contrast, it'll be 100+ with DP above 60 and the ACbrrr will still be operating at a low duty cycle.
When you get an inch of rain in an hour.
Have to come up with solutions that can easily be reproduced without
*me* having to make big investments (that essentially "benefit others" more than myself). Telling someone to buy any of the many such "weather monitoring stations" commercially available takes a lot less of my time and money. And, gives me more information (*is* it raining? what is the amount of total rainfall? what direction is the wind blowing? etc.)Hard to tell what evapotranspiration is likely to be without more detailed measurements than a "cooler model". Or, whether I should
*rush* to use any harvested rainwater NOW to be able to accommodate any likely precipitation "soon".Still tells you nothing historical or predictive. Is the barometric pressure FALLING? If so, chances are a storm may be moving in (which means humidifying the house will be a losing proposition as the outdoor conditions will be getting more humid).
These are the sorts of "expert decisions" that a human makes by "looking out the window". He surely can't tell the *temperature* by such a visual observation! (unless he is glancing at a thermometer mounted outside the window! :> )
But, you can only do that if you can make (and record!) lots of observations *and* actively (intuitively?) correlate between them. I.e., something to which a machine is ideally suited!
Doubtful. Had no problems in Boston or Denver. (Boston I figure was too urban for "natural" allergens; yet Denver/burbs was nowhere near as much). Only problems "mowing the lawn" in Chicago (despite being *far* more exposed to natural allergens). No lawns here but my "seasonal allergies" have become "continual allergies" (as something is *always* blooming with our year-round growing cycles).
Yet, SWMBO suffers on days that don't bother me at all! :-/
I've seen many folks from "out of town" literally unable to *see* due to the excessive tearing and sneezing when they encounter our flora. Don't know whether it's the quantity of airborn allergens, the variety or just the fact that they are all "foreign" to their immune systems... :<
Scratch test I think I "hit" on 43 of 45 allergens tested. MD decided further testing would just reveal "more of the same" :-/
[What was most amusing was the things to which I had *no* reaction! E.g., negative to "dog" but positive to cat and horse, etc.](SWMBO was really annoyed that *dust* wasn't a problem for me as she was hoping she could use it to motivate me to "dust" the office more often :> )
Allergies are annoying -- and can seriously impact quality of life! -- but there are folks with far bigger problems that help remind us to keep things in perspective!
[...]
X-10 is junk and unreliable. We have it. I've already ripped out and trashed most of it.
Those are the home project I try to postpone as long as I can.
We've never had such problems.
Then game's over for a swamp cooler.
But it also causes discomfort, for example in people like me. I can easily hike or bike in 110F and zero humidity outdoors but cooled dry air sloshing round and round in a building makes me uncomfy.
Depends on what you are doing. When I mountain bike and step on it (I tend to always do) then my T-shirt is drenched within 30 minutes.
I just look at the outdoor thermometer and the cooler discharge temp, then I know. In the beginning I looked at the humidity reading from the local weather station afterwards and it was always spot-on.
We do not open windows in the direction where the wind comes from and never had that problem.
At one area whe have a natural windbreak that looks pretty and even blooms: Two oleanders. They bloom in girly-color though, my wife planted them :-)
I don't mind microbursts. When I work with the window open I get the occasional one into the office. No big deal. Takes only a minute or so untill cooler air from the swamp cooler pushes it back out.
Ours would run >50% most of the time. Combine that with punitive invertse tiers in the power bill (higher kWhs cost 3-4x) and you'll hear a gigantic slurping noise. From your bank account.
Ah, Caribbean style. I know those but we don't have that.
[...]
Well, the cooler can simply stop when that happens.
However, the outside thermometer has been invented a couple hundred years ago :-)
That is something frequently happening to people here. We live near Sacramento, the pollen capital of the US. Folks told me that I'd be a suffered in less than 10 years. We'll, pushing on 20 now and no problems.
Same here :-(
Oh, then don't go mountain biking here. Lots and lots of horses. On many trails my main job behind the handlebar is dogding horse poop.
Yep. And many of them avoidable by more exercise, stopping to smoke, and so on.
I am quite convinced that the rash of (often life-0threatening) peanut allergies in the US is caused by keeping kids cooped up in sterile environments too much. Farmer's kids almost never get that.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
And straighten out the fins where li'l Joey's basketball hit it.
That's where I learned about it. It's all automatically controlled and saves lives.
There is a lot of stuff we don't have in the US and it costs lives. Like inductive train collision avoidance. That's when I lost my last sliver of faith in engineering licensure because it was licensed engineers who signed off on rail systems that are severely subpar with what was state-of-the-art in Europe more than half a century ago. Pathetic.
I'd rather listen to Ms.Roboto :-)
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
The condenser is the outside heat exchanger, outdoors.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
It could be that folks inclined to allergies that would be exacerbated by a farming lifestyle migrate AWAY from farming as a vocation!
I'm pretty sure (despite Lamark) that being *in* that environment and developing a tolerance to particular allergens would not, by itself, be passed on to progeny.
[However, I can't claim that exposure during pregnancy wouldn't provide some inbred immunity to the offspring; nor that exposure after birth wouldn't help alleviate symptoms!]In my case, I apparently had severe allergies from birth (some of the symptom remedies that have been recounted to me seem really gruesome!). But, going of to "the big city" for college seemed to leave them behind. Likewise, other relocations thereafter saw "diminished" sensitivity (much more troubling than my years at school but much better than my youth -- which frequently saw my eyes swollen *shut*).
I was pretty confident that I had largely "outgrown" them as an adult -- only to find them return with a vengeance when I moved here! :<
[I tried a year of SLIT a couple of years back... not sure if that made a difference but SWMBO claims my reactions are much less severe than they've been, historically. I guess SCIT isn't practical when you have year-round symptoms :< ]
Replace all the green with brown, gold, pink, violet (stone colors) and you'd have *this* neighborhood (probably the same number of pools, etc.)
I think it is part of the state constitution that water access can't be restricted -- hence the pricing disincentive.
I think you can be fined for "wasting water" -- e.g., if irrigation water runs off your property onto the sidewalk, into the street, etc. But, I've never heard of anyone cited, thusly.
[And, folks routinely drain their swimming pools into the roadways so how is that any different?] 4 months * 30 days/month * 50G/day = 6000 gallons. Figures here are closer to 20,000 gallons (for a home without an alternative cooling strategy)! We have a *long* cooling season! (What we have of "Winter" is more like 5 days! :> Actually, I don't think it dropped *to* freezing this past Winter!)
Yup. We see many neighbors with yards wasted on pools that sit idle. Cost, maintenance, liability, etc. I think they are now being seen NOT as "assets" but as "things to avoid" by many home purchasers!
We'd talked of buying an "infinite pool" (none of the pools here are large enough for me to take a single *stroke* before crashing into the far end wall! Figure you need 20 ft just to kick off...). But, I want to work *less* around here, not more! Retirement should be for working on things you *enjoy*! :>
season
I was talking about the one associated with the indoor air handler that includes the evaporator.
?-)
Normally not. When they migrate away it's either very early on because some of the kids had no interest in farming or later when they couldn't make a go of it economically.
Not that, it's being exposed to stuff that makes one tougher. Kids that were babied way too much and kept away from any and all virus and bacteria risks can become much more sensitive.
For example, I knew a lot of farming people while living in Europe and I know some here (though it's monst ranchers out here). I can't remember a single one of them being an allergy sufferer. City folk, plenty of them. Out here it hits many of the Silicon Valley transplants really hard.
I don't know what that is but meds have a limited effect when you have allergies from a very young age on. One of the guys I mountain-biked with had to stop and he'll rejoin us in winter. The last ride was really miserable for him.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
Well, the CA legislature has just done exactly that. Democrats do not care much about constitutions and laws and such anyhow, although in this case the politicos have a point. We've got to conserve. We pull our weight and have reduced by 30+ percent but people in many Bay Area locations have done ... absolutely nothing.
It's starting out here.
We never do that.
But you said the whole monsoon time coolers can't work.
We get a lot of Bay Area transplants moving here. Down there they had a tiny house, no lot, no pool, no nothing, and sold it for close to a million. Then they come up here and want everything, including that pool they never had. A year later they think differently but now they've got a house that is way too big for them, with a pool. And a boat they never use. And a travel trailer they never use. And a massive Turbo-Diesel truck they only drive to the super market.
That's how I also see it. I want to have enough time for mountain biking when I retire, and ideally some before.
BTW, just installed the new motor in the cooler, works again. Came with a sheet that said 1 year warranty. Essick Air, the company behind the Champion brand, told me (after "checking"!) that it's only 90 days and I'll have to pay for motor #3. I will raise a stink because I feel treated dishonestly. Anyhow, what brand is your cooler? I may have no choice but I'd rather buy the bigger one from a more reputable company.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
Using words like "measly" doesn't replace figures.
That still doesn't answer the question of why you are sensitive and others aren't or what it is you are sensitive to.
-- Rick
That wouldn't account for my allergies from birth. And, we surely didn't live in a "sterile" environment (e.g., the house *still* isn't air conditioned, etc.)
I think a bigger part has to do with the *difference* in environmental allergens in each location. They are "foreign" to your body -- never encountered before, etc.
As I said, I've seen plenty of people "with no allergies" end up unable to breathe/see when they confront the stuff we have floating around, here!
And, some of the *quantities* (e.g.,pollen) are massive! For example, the ground (cars, etc.) gets covered with a fine yellow powder at one time of the year.
Recall, also, that we don't have lots of rain to wash the crud *out* of the air.
{SubLingual, SubCutaneous} ImmunoTherapy
I believe each tries to "desensitize" your immune system to allergens by exposing it to ever increasing doses of those allergens.
Thankfully, I don't seem to suffer from any *food* allergies. Those, apparently, can be difficult to live with. Especially given how little information is made available about how our foods are prepared, processed, etc.
[A friend is severely allergic to tomatoes in all forms. I think he ends up hospitalized once every year or two from a "chance encounter" with some tomato product in a prepared foodstuff or a restaurant meal -- despite being terribly vigilant about checking labels, questioning the chef, etc.]ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.