Sunday, June 05, 2011

Swamp coolers rock!

Finally, it’s was hot enough today for me to need to hook the water up to the swamp cooler.  About 3:00 this afternoon, sitting there watching Voyager with the swamp cooler on vent (no water), I realized it was pretty damn hot in the house.  I looked at the thermostat and it read 90°F (32°C).  It was finally time to hook up the water to the cooler.  Normally, I have it hooked up by the middle of May.

So I got up on the roof, cleaned out the bottom, rinsed out the pads, put in the overflow and then went down to the basement and turned on the water.  Of course, I still had to go back up on the roof to make sure the pump was pumping, since they tend to go out every 3 or 4 years.  Voila, it was, and the house was cooled down to 68°F (20°C) within a half hour.

Finally, summer is here.

7 comments:

young-eclectic-encounters said...

I remember swamp coolers from when I lived in Ephraim. So much better than air conditioning out there, but here in Georgia air conditioning is a must. Right now we are close to 100 and our air has been running for a couple of months now. Going to be a hot summer here and at times I long for a Utah summer.
Johnina

Max Sartin said...

Johnina - I remember the summers back in Boston when I was growing up. Humidity sucks whether it's hot or it's cold. When we first moved out here I was 14 and dumbfounded that people would be putting water into the air, I had never heard of a swamp cooler. Now, even if I had central air, I'd still use it 90% of the time.

The English Teacher said...

Ugh. I could do without the heat.
But your house got up to 90 yesterday???!!! Are you freakin' kidding me? How?
I closed all windows by noon, and my house got up to 72 yesterday, but I slept with the window open all night, and it was okay.
Yeah, I'll pull the cover off the cooler today and "summerize" the thing with new pads and some oil, although I am loath to see the hot weather arrive, but how on earth did your house get up to 90 yesterday?!

Max Sartin said...

ET - Well, considering the weather the last few months, I didn't expect it to get that hot. And since I really like the air movement, I had the swamp cooler running on vent, which pumped all that 90 degree air into my house. Which meant I had no choice but to get the water going so I could cool down the house enough to stand it.

21 Wits said...

Ah isn't it good to have summer once again! Oh yeah!...and the image of Max scrambling up and down from the roof....priceless!

Max Sartin said...

I built this whole back porch so I wouldn't be scrambling too much. Now I can just walk right up the roof, and if I fall, it's not 12 feet down onto hard concrete. Just 6" to a wood porch.
Sorry to ruin the image of me scrambling.

The English Teacher said...

Yeah, Karen, he's got a spiffy porch now.
My swamp cooler's in a window, so I just need a step-stool to fix mine up. And, since today turned all windy, mine's still all bundled up in its winter wear.
Thanks for the explanation, Max. I could NOT understand how your house had gotten so hot yesterday.