Ping Larkin

BTW, It's delightful here, feels like San Diego ;-) ...Jim Thompson

If the swamp coolers weren't so big and ugly ...

Mine was on the south _end_ of the house (NOT roof mounted) where it went essentially unnoticed. (Lots of space on an acre to hide things :-) ...Jim Thompson

In our case, there is a little electronics unit in the attic that connects to the fan lead in the thermostat, and to a damper control in the outside air vent. The outside air duct goes from a vent in the roof to the manifold in the hallway which also has return air ducts from the two smaller 'bedrooms' (my wife's office, and my lab!) When it kicks in (like right now!) it opens the ducts and turns on the fans. Since the manifold is before the filter, the air gets filtered before being circulated through the house.

I know that whole house fans were usually venting types, because the idea was to bring in cooler outside air through all the windows, and vent the hot air near the ceiling into the attic and out through the vents there.

Charlie

Well, I saw an evaporative assisted air conditioner unit, where it sprays water on the coils, that would be especially usefull out here in the desert.

But, evaporative coolers need to be pretty big. The concept is that there is not too fast a flow through the mats to provide time for evaporation to occur and give the necessary cooling. Surface area means added throughput.

Charlie

Predicted high for today... 65ºF... must be global Slowman slop ;-) ...Jim Thompson

I've seen that a few years ago. Finally it has sunk in how to make them more efficient, progress in the HVAC biz is so sloooow.

Sure. But the ones I check out all work the same way: HUGE squirrel cage sucking air through a slowly revolving felt pad. Why can't there be a slow but flat propeller running instead and the felt pad have a pump that oozes on water from the top?

That's quite exactly what I was asking for at HW stores. All I got back was puzzled looks. Technically you'd need a 2nd damper control and vent that opens to the outside, to let air out. Because otherwise you are just pressuring the house and then when someone opens a door ... whaddabam ... shatter. Of course you can also leave a window cracked.

Well, with the cooler air it also brings in a nice yellowish layer that goes on furniture, carpets and other things. It's from pine forests, mostly, and can travel hundreds of miles.

Hmmm... All the units here are a box with three or more fixed pads, about 2" thick, with a reservoir at the bottom, wtih a pump that feeds a tube above the pads to wet them. Around here you need to clean it out from the filtered sand and dirt about once a month, and replace the pads every couple of years from the encrusted minerals.

Charlie

is

Mine was stainless steel, 6000CFM, pads on all four sides, down-draft, recirculating pump plus a controlled bleed-off to minimize the calcium build-up. I built my own stand and ductwork routing the air flow thru an exterior wall, under a raised closet floor into the interior A/C ductwork when a slide was pulled out ;-) ...Jim Thompson

There are electrically-controlled dampers available. In my grandiose days I was considering such a system.

Right now, I just opened a skylight hatch in the kitchen, then cracked opened a window in my office... air flow by chimney effect... nice ;-) ...Jim Thompson

is

Yeah, but I bet they are the usual ugly boxes of about 4ft by 4ft by

What is more efficient _sucking_ AND _blowing_? Squirrel cage beats prop hands down.

And there _is_ a pump to recirculate the water, a float valve, and a waste line to keep mineral deposits from getting out-of-hand. ...Jim Thompson

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Sure, but makes the things look unwieldy and ugly. Air flow is slow, unlike a whole house fan (which is blades, BTW) you don't need tons of air.

Most don't even have an automatic drain function after longer shut-downs. Forget to clean it and some legionaires disease might fester. I've seen bottoms of swamp coolers where stuff was living in there.

Sounds like you're looking at cheap s*it.

My coolers had all the features you claim you haven't seen, except for an automatic drain function.

Don't you always lose if you don't maintain your equipment? When I had coolers, I changed out the pads every year, and flushed and covered them for "winter".

Since you seem to not know all that much about coolers... all better brands of cooler pumps automatically "waste" some water to keep the mineral levels under control. And I had a valve on mine to allow a weekly "full-flush" ;-) ...Jim Thompson

Aha. And why did it not have that function where it's purpose would be so obvious?

You and I are engineering minds, meaning we have check lists like pilots do, we do the regular PM stuff, watch out for danger, our fire alarm batteries will be changed Saturday and not one day later, etc. Joe Sixpack does not do that.

I've looked at enough coolers to know that, for example, they do not do an automatic and complete waste after 24h or whatever of inoperation. But they should. What is so difficult about that? Cuz grampa's cooler didn't have it either?

And why is that so obvious? How would you define that without a microprocessor ?:-)

I don't either, mine are hard-wired, cabling inside of fireproof conduit, sound off on power failure... lead acid back-up... connected to a monitoring company.

Takes electronics.

Probably. Grandpa knew to go out and open the drain valve, and sneak a swig of whiskey when no one was looking ;-) ...Jim Thompson

Nah, I'd use a CD4060. 12 cents a pop, no regulated supply, just a divider off the 24VAC thermostat line, diode, cap, triac switches valve, done :-)

Ok, but you do check other things like the oil in your cars regularly, don't you? Seriously, I know people who ran a car dry, forgot to "fill up" oil for who knows how long. Oil change? Huh?

Easy with a mechanical timer if needed. But that's what the CD4060 was invented for. Maybe that's too difficult for a HVAC mfg ...

:-)

I put one in my NY house. It worked. We didn't have AC so between the whole house fan and pool we survived. ;-) The key to the whole house fan was blowing the attic out in the evening and cooling the house down. We then closed it up during the day. If you're going to have windows open at all you'll have pollen in the house. I prefer windows open, if possible. I certainly don't want the dust and insulation from the attic in the house!