OT: Swamp cooler question

yeah so do i

-- I have multiple DUIS, beat my kids, paid $360K for a house worth $275K got handed a divorce and a Restaining Order to keep away from all of them. I'm 36, got a beer belly that looks like I'm pregnant 9 months. Gawd, isn't life good!

What Jim said "It's too small". How about getting another small unit and putting it at the other end of the house? Venting the exhaust air up thru the ceiling and into the attic will help reduce the heat gain significantly. If you do this you may have to add additional vents so the air can escape the attic. Check out Up-Dux.

I've been toying with the idea of rolling my own single pad cooler, fit into garage wall. Then use attic fans to pull cooled air thru garage, up thru attic and out thru side vents... my attic is so high I have 4' x 4' louvered vents on each end ;-) ...Jim Thompson

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Well, you don't know this house. Frank Lloyd Wright design, meaning very modern for its time but with complete disregard for energy stuff and additions such as swamp coolers. There is no way to get a bigger unit in there without creating some major inconveniences. Waaay too many windows.

We have, but nearly inaccessible.

I do the same but there are situations where you just have to concede and accept that the super duper solution ain't possible.

One neighbor is a civil engineer. When I lay tiles I measure, roll up the sleeves, cut, mix mortar and off I go. He fires up AutoCad and spends at least two days pondering ways to lay it.

No space there :-(

I was thinking about that and had looked at louvers at Home Depot. Found them a bit ugly but I am sure I can order nicer ones. It's only possible in the bedroom, other parts have cathedral ceiling.

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down

At the old house I had a very accurate floorplan (that I drew up myself). So I made up an octagon-and-dot overlay and shoved it around until I minimized cutting and grout-line fudging (?).

(?) I had a hallway problem... tapered about an inch in 35'. Fortunately it was ~4' wide... the builder was a polio victim on crutches, so all his hallways were wide... so I tapered the grout lines to eye... can only be noted if measured :-) ...Jim Thompson

Exce[t. of course, if this causes some areas to not get any air at all. Then, you open maybe a second window (each halfway...) to get air flow through both paths.

Charlie

You might just need to 'help' the airflow with an extra fan or two to get the air going in the right direction. You might have lots of cracks that spill all that nice cold pressurized air before it gets all the way to your office.

Maybe you are right. I mean, 3000cfm isn't the same as the 5000cfm of a big cooler but still a whole lot of air.

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radiation.

The aluminum is supposed to go on the inside! That's what keeps water from condensing in the insulation during the winter.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

You want the bits that are usually in shade bright white. Adjusting the building with exterior climbing plants like morning glory to cast shade on the S & W side is another option.

And it is also what discourages thermal radiation into the interior space. Metallic surfaces are bad radiators. Try a few tests with different materials and LCD telltale thermochromic paint in the sun.

You might be able to fit another layer to the underside the right way around or put additional insulation on the floor to keep heat ingress from the roofspace to a minimum (and winter losses too).

If you have hitech friends (or commission a survey) with a long wave thermal imaging camera in winter from the outside will quickly determine where the weak points are.

Regards, Martin Brown

No plants on the house walls. It's all wood structures out here, that's guaranteed to invite rot and critters. Oh, and roof rats down in the city.

Then you can't nail it down to the batten system. Plus there's roofing felt underneath and it's vented.

There is another layer of insulation on top of the ceilings.

:-)

I found that insulation measures on a wood frame house have a rather limited impact on the whole energy balance.

Maybe a modest exhaust fan? Push-pull makes a big difference in getting the air through, and where you want it.

James Arthur

Strange.

And the foil (if it exists) pointing which way?

...Jim Thompson

Squirrels and racoons? Not at all common in the urban UK.

How much? Needs at least 8" preferably with an aluminised upper surface. I think UK mandates 10" for new build now.

Possibly. I have little experience of wood build homes. But you should be able to make progress by controlling where the heat builds up.

The old timers were onto something with their shaded verandas to keep height of the day sunlight off the walls of the building.

Some modern designers tend to build oversize S facing glass greenhouses and then add a huge amount of aircon to sort out the resulting mess.

Regards, Martin Brown

Good idea. I don't know where to put it but initially it might work with our big "Hollywood hurricane simulator fan". We seem to no longer need it in the living room after the swamp cooler came on line.

AFAIR that was the method prescribed by Decra. It's more known in AUS and NZ, over here most roofs of this style would be Gerard shingles. I just found Decra more sturdy and asked our roofer to use that (and later he said "Shazam! This stuff is really sturdy").

Up. But no condensation. As I mentioned, it's vented.

I've heard racoons have shown up in Berlin. But maybe over in the UK they all die because they look to the left when crossing a road ;-)

It's around 12" but that one doesn't have aluminum. Maybe it should.

That we have. Huge low roof overhangs. But no veranda enclosure because we want to use the sun to help heat the offices and part of the living room in winter.

Luckily we have no windows on the south, that's where the garage is. However, the summer sun when at its hottest comes right from above, can't hit any walls.

Yeah, but it gets soaking wet in the winter, which kills the insulating capacity and eventually rots out the rafters. And moisture barriers on both sides eventually has the same effect. Some idiotic government droid in BC made double moisture barriers mandatory there, leading to a _lot_ of rotted studs and rafters.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs