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This is our first year with a swamp cooler so we're learning. We had the pump and fan on pretty much all summer and just turned them off for the first time in about 2 months. It now smells like low tide. I'm wondering if I should have left the fan on until everything dried out or if that's just the way it is or we did something wrong. Any insights from more experienced users would be greatly appreciated.
Swamp coolers can develop a 'swamp' smell. You can drain the water and clean it out. There is also a couple of products to keep the micro-organisms that contribute to the smell to a minimum. You can purchase them from Home Depot/Samons/Lowe's.
For sure. Swamp coolers they are generally on or off until sometime in early October (Indian Summer, it may get warm again). The water sits in that pan and may get a bit stinky.
I suggest going to home depot and getting the blue pads and taking your old ones out as they may get mold and lime scale.
Here's a plan:
Ready to turn on in May/June:
replace your pads with synthetic pads
scrub out the basin and use a shop vac to get out all the old lime scale.
Buy an inline filter for the water supply to your cooler to prevent hard water build up on the unit and pads
make sure all the water spouts are working (they make a snake to clean them out, again, home depot)
End of the season:
empty the basin
replace the damper
buy a canvas cover for your cooler
I never used my swamp cooler in "Fan only" mode. Some may disagree but there is a danger of things overheating...
Thank you both for the advice! We're new to the house and cleaned the cooler out before starting it up but it was REALLY scaled up so there was only so much we could do. We got the inside pretty well cleaned out and we did get the inline filter and new pads before starting it for the season. I don't mind low tide so much as I grew up on Long Island Sound I just wanted to be sure that we weren't doing anything to break the whole system.
I'm certain that we'll be turning it on again for the next few months but we'll certainly empty it all out and clean it before we close it down for the season.
Thank you both for the advice! We're new to the house and cleaned the cooler out before starting it up but it was REALLY scaled up so there was only so much we could do. We got the inside pretty well cleaned out and we did get the inline filter and new pads before starting it for the season. I don't mind low tide so much as I grew up on Long Island Sound I just wanted to be sure that we weren't doing anything to break the whole system.
I'm certain that we'll be turning it on again for the next few months but we'll certainly empty it all out and clean it before we close it down for the season.
Thanks again! Enjoy the cooler weather!
If its really bad ! drain it , then fill it with clean water , add 1/2 cup of bleach run the unit for 15 min , the smell should go away. Then go to home depot/ Lowes and get the 2" blocks for swamp coolers , that will do for the long term , they usually last all season.
If its really bad ! drain it , then fill it with clean water , add 1/2 cup of bleach run the unit for 15 min , the smell should go away. Then go to home depot/ Lowes and get the 2" blocks for swamp coolers , that will do for the long term , they usually last all season.
I was wondering the same thing. We turn ours off each night even in the heat of the summer and then back on again around 10am. When we have the really hot days, we turned it on earlier in the morning. I am surprised that the OP's motor didn't burn out (assuming it was on 24/7 for 2 months).
I was wondering the same thing. We turn ours off each night even in the heat of the summer and then back on again around 10am.
Whaddabout when you are not home? After I got the 24x7 question answered, I was going to go with the
"whether you are home or not?" question or the "even when you are gone?" or something along those lines.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lobo
.. surprised that the OP's motor didn't burn out (assuming it was on 24/7 for 2 months).
I'll bet you dollars to donuts that your "motor" would be more likely to burn out if you
were running it for an hour at three different locations in the day ( total 3 hours )
that the 3-hr-motorr would burn out way faster than the 24x7 motor.
Yeah, 24/7 for 2 reasons. 1. We have 2 floors and even at night, our bedroom on the 2nd floor was hot and 2. We have dogs so even when we weren't home, we didn't want them to fry.
Our electricity bill was still half what it was when we had refrigerated air in our former rental so it didn't seem outrageous to leave it on.
I'm open to change though so if the consensus is that we shouldn't leave it on all the time, I will defer to long time users.
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. Any insights from more experienced users would be greatly appreciated.
I just wanted to be sure that we weren't doing anything to break the whole system.
