Swamp Coolers vs. Refrigerated Air (Albuquerque, Belen: lenders, landlord, price)

[mortimer]

Originally Posted by Humming Bird

A friend told me to never turn off the unit because mold will grow on the pads. I want to use it only when needed (afternoons, etc.). Do I really have to keep it on all the time?

Your friend is wrong. Worse, they don't have a clue.

The pads are exposed directly to the air. They will dry out in a matter of minutes once the cooler is turned off.

When you are not home, leave the cooler off. Sure, the house will be warm when you get home, but unlike a closed, refrigerated air system, the swamp cooler can take all the warm air in the house and replace it with, at least, ambient air in a few minutes. After that, it will get cooler as the pads get saturated.

Originally Posted by Humming Bird

I am new to NM and have rented a home with a swamp cooler. The settings available to me are HI Cool, Low Cool, Hi Vent, Low Vent, Pump Only and Off.

What your settings mean:
------------------------
Pump Only -- runs the water over the pads. This is sometimes used to keep the cooler from sucking in warm air from outside without first cooling it. I find this a pretty useless setting.

HI Cool -- Fan runs fast. Runs the fan and the pump at the same time. It cools the air as it brings it into the house.


Low Cool -- Fan runs slow. Runs the fan and the pump at the same time. It cools the air as it brings it into the house.


Hi Vent -- Fan runs fast. Runs the fan but not the pump.. It brings the outside air into the house.


Low Vent -- Fan runs slow. Runs the fan but not the pump.. It brings the outside air into the house.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Use the "cool" settings when the inside of the house is too warm for you and the outside air is hot. The Swamp cooler will "cool" the air by passing it through wet pads - causing the air to evaporate some of the water which cools down the air at the same time.

The effectiveness depends on how dry the air is, but can bring in air 25-30 degrees cooler than it was to start with.

Use the "Vent" setting when the inside of the house is too warm for you and the outside air is "nice" like when it is raining or well into the night or in the early morning.

Use the "High" setting if the "Low" setting is not getting the job done for you.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Running the swamp cooler with the pump on ( the "Cool" setting ) does not cost significantly more money than not running the pump.

It will make the air more humid, so it is not wise to use it when it is raining outside. It will make the air too cool if it is already at a decent temperature ( frequently written as "descent" in this forum - don't be fooled by the difference).
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
The beauty of running a swamp cooler is the fact that you can run it for hours a day at less than 1/4th the cost of refrigerated air. Also, since it doesn't run 24x7, you save even more money. For someone who is only home during the evenings, a swamp cooler can cost 1/10th that of refrigerated air that runs whilst you are away from home at work.

[jazzlover]

Great post, Mortimer. Also, there have to be enough windows open to allow the air to exhaust out of the house freely. Turn on a swamp cooler and keeping the windows closed renders the cooler ineffective. There needs to be unimpeded air movement through the house.

[Humming Bird]

Originally Posted by mortimer

Your friend is wrong. Worse, they don't have a clue.

The pads are exposed directly to the air. They will dry out in a matter of minutes once the cooler is turned off.

When you are not home, leave the cooler off. Sure, the house will be warm when you get home, but unlike a closed, refrigerated air system, the swamp cooler can take all the warm air in the house and replace it with, at least, ambient air in a few minutes. After that, it will get cooler as the pads get saturated.



What your settings mean:
------------------------
Pump Only -- runs the water over the pads. This is sometimes used to keep the cooler from sucking in warm air from outside without first cooling it. I find this a pretty useless setting.

HI Cool -- Fan runs fast. Runs the fan and the pump at the same time. It cools the air as it brings it into the house.


Low Cool -- Fan runs slow. Runs the fan and the pump at the same time. It cools the air as it brings it into the house.


Hi Vent -- Fan runs fast. Runs the fan but not the pump.. It brings the outside air into the house.


Low Vent -- Fan runs slow. Runs the fan but not the pump.. It brings the outside air into the house.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Use the "cool" settings when the inside of the house is too warm for you and the outside air is hot. The Swamp cooler will "cool" the air by passing it through wet pads - causing the air to evaporate some of the water which cools down the air at the same time.

The effectiveness depends on how dry the air is, but can bring in air 25-30 degrees cooler than it was to start with.

Use the "Vent" setting when the inside of the house is too warm for you and the outside air is "nice" like when it is raining or well into the night or in the early morning.

Use the "High" setting if the "Low" setting is not getting the job done for you.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Running the swamp cooler with the pump on ( the "Cool" setting ) does not cost significantly more money than not running the pump.

It will make the air more humid, so it is not wise to use it when it is raining outside. It will make the air too cool if it is already at a decent temperature ( frequently written as "descent" in this forum - don't be fooled by the difference).
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
The beauty of running a swamp cooler is the fact that you can run it for hours a day at less than 1/4th the cost of refrigerated air. Also, since it doesn't run 24x7, you save even more money. For someone who is only home during the evenings, a swamp cooler can cost 1/10th that of refrigerated air that runs whilst you are away from home at work.

Thanks so much -- logic told me I didn't have to keep the cooler on all the time, but my husband thought we should listen to his friend who had lived here for years. You gave me exactly the information I needed to keep the temperature comfortable, our budget under control, efficiency maximized, and to say "I told you so" to my husband (tee hee).

[JDTH]

I live in Arizona and use my swamp cooler as much as possible. In June the dew point and temperature started to rise making the use of A/C pretty much mandatory.

I just received my June electric bill ($297). That hurts some, but the temperature stayed below 110 all the time. They are forecasting 116 by Saturday. I could be looking at a $400 electric bill the next 2 months. Ouch!! A/C unit is probably more than 20 years old and we are cooling over 2600 sq. ft.

Might be time to replace the A/C unit.

[_yb]

The breezaire is working great even when the humidity is up. The thremostat reads 70 degrees and the last bill was 62 bucks.

[JDTH]

I hate you, but I am happy for you! No I don't really hate you, just try to understand where I am coming from. Yes I did decide to live here on my own. I love it most of the time but as I get older I guess I am less tolerant of the heat. Spending the summer in Ruidoso is looking better and better.

[_yb]

Originally Posted by JDTH

I hate you, but I am happy for you! No I don't really hate you, just try to understand where I am coming from. Yes I did decide to live here on my own. I love it most of the time but as I get older I guess I am less tolerant of the heat. Spending the summer in Ruidoso is looking better and better.

I know were your coming from. When I worked at the nuke plant I lived out in Buckeye. We had both swamp and A/C system. Most times we only fired up the swamper very early in the spring or very late in the fall. Between keeping cool and maintaining the pool the utility bill was mostly over 400 bucks a month.
I never had to have any cooler when I lived in Rui. I would rather be in Rui this time of year even more with the moisture they have been getting. I still like Maricopa county in the fall or winter though.

[ABQConvict]

People think I'm crazy because I have not turned on my swamp cooler yet. In fact, I am attempting to go the whole summer without it. Of course it needs an overhaul, so that helps (if it would work at the flip of a switch I would've turned it on weeks ago) but so far I'm surviving with only fans to move air from outside to inside when the outside temp is lower than inside.

Anyone else tough (crazy) enough to survive an Albuquerque summer without A/C?


ABQConvict

[Mike Horrell]

We've probably used the swamp coolers (plural) 5 times so far this year;
usually when we come home beat and literally want to chill out. Most of the
time ceiling fans do the job but I'm not going to swelter over principle..

[ABQConvict]

I'm doing it only partly out of principle (our ancestors didn't need it) but also to push myself. I do a lot of things the hard way just to prove to myself that I can. Once I decided to walk from D.C. to New York instead of taking the train. I had a lot of free time. :-)


ABQConvict