Note to self:

All fan belts are not created equal.

I got the new motor all ready to go on the new swamp cooler, tightened up the fan belt and plopped down on the couch to enjoy the cool.

Lasted about 45 minutes, when it just stopped.  I checked the breaker switch, it was fine as evidenced by the water pump still pumping water.  I went up top and realized the motor had overheated, it was quite hot.

So I loosened the fan belt, a lot looser than you would ever want your car’s fan belt.  Almost an inch and a half of play in the belt.  That would squeal like hell on your car.

I had to wait a bit for the motor to cool off, but it’s been running for several hours now, and as you can see from the temperature gauges, it’s working quite well.

Ahh, the smell of aspen in the evening.

The new swamp cooler is up and running.  It only took 3 days and half a dozen visits to Home Depot.

Right now it’s doing a fantastic job of cooling down the house, and since the pads (the straw ones made out of aspen) are brand new, the house is full of the smell of aspen.

There is worse smells the house could be full of.

Cat on a hot tin roof…

and “Anatomy of a Swamp Cooler”.

My swamp cooler bit the dust.  I’ve been planning on replacing it since last summer, it’s over 15 years old and rusting out all over the place.  I was hoping to get one more complete summer out of it, but the pulley on the fan broke and the spot where the water shut off valve bolts up rusted all the way through.  (It’s a thing a lot like in your toilet bowl that automatically stops the water from overfilling.  Without it securely attached I’d have a river flowing down my roof.)

I was up on the roof, ripping out it’s guts so that I could remove it to I’d be ready for a new one.  It’s only just past the middle of July, there is no way I’m going to make it through August without one.

Denny decided to come keep me company while I worked.

In the first picture, he was on the side of the roof that falls a whole foot down to the deck I built so I can work on the cooler.  But at first he was on the north side of the roof, which made me a little nervous.  It’s only a one storey house, but it’s still a good 15 foot drop.

Fortunately, he’s ok and sleeping on the chair right behind me.

Anatomy of a Swamp Cooler : caution, the following pictures are graphic shots of my disemboweled swamp cooler.  Not for the faint of heart. 

The Swamp Cooler skeleton.  Metal top, four corners and the water pan at the bottom.

It’s epidermis, the four pads that become the sides.

The lungs, the fan that pulls the air through the water soaked pads and into the house.

The guts.  The heart, the water pump that gets the water up to the top of the pads so they get soaked.  The muscles, the electric motor that turns the fan.

There ya go, more than you ever wanted to know about a swamp cooler, aka Evaporative Cooler.  I hope it wasn’t too gory for you.

Swamp Cooler vs. Heater

One of the problems with the swamp cooler system is that it is completely separate from the heating system.  They have no idea when each other is on.

So, if I spend the morning up on the roof cleaning up and tightening everything on the swamp cooler to get it in tip-top condition, and turn it on without turning off the heater, voila – the heat comes on while the cooler is on.

Yup.  I did that today.

Fortunately I was home, in the house, and turned it off immediately.  It’s happened before, when I’ve gone out to run errands just to come home to a split-personality home fighting itself.

Swamp coolers and ceiling fans

I got a lesson on the effectiveness of ceiling fans. I was laying on the couch watching my 3rd Rock DVD's, it was a warm evening and my living room gets the evening sun, so as always the swampcooler* was working at keeping the room cool. At least where I was laying, outside the flow of air. I leaned forward to grab the remote off the coffee table and noticed something I hadn't before; there was a cold breeze coming through the room. It was the cool air from the swampcooler, going right past the little nook the couch sits in. So I thought "Hmmm, maybe if I turn on the ceiling fan, it'll mix up the air a little bit and cool off the couch area." Less than 2 minutes later it was actually getting a little cold on the couch. Amazing what mixing up the air can do, now I know why I put ceiling fans all over the house...

*Swampcooler, also known as an Evaporative Cooler, is an effective way of cooling a house in areas like Utah where the humidity is low. Basically, you're pulling outside air through water soaked pads and blowing the cold air through the house. Unlike an air conditioner, you have to leave windows open because of all the air you are pumping into the house. I really like it because it's real cheap to run ($10 a month for the hottest months) and you're always running fresh air through the house.