How I use the Sun to Cool my House.

Step 7 Enjoy.

That's it.
Now turn it on, grab a beer and sit back and watch the Cricket (the Aussies are playing South Africa) in style.

Comments

[IronManMC]

Chlorine and ammonia? There's a warning on all ammonia containers to AVOID mixing with chlorine. That potentially produces deadly free chlorine gas, and several other deadly toxic poisons, depending on the ratio of bleach to ammonia. This article ought to scare the **** out of you.

http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/classic/A795611

Do a search for "ammonia chlorine" and see all the disasters listed. It's scary!

Other than your mention here, there is no other reference to "clormanated". Could you please check with your water supplier and let me/us know? Thanks in advance.

-o-

Evaporative coolers REQUIRE a free flow of air FROM OUTSIDE through the wet pads into the house and out open doors, windows, etc.

Some think this works like a refrigeration type air conditioner (it doesn't) and try to "keep the cool air inside" by closing doors and windows. All this does is make the house HOT and HUMID. To remove heat, you must evaporate water with free flowing air.

When you sweat, a fan blowing lots of air across your wet skin and wet clothing cools you. If you wrap up in a plastic rain coat, you will be VERY hot.

I rebuilt an old evap cooler (a large window mount with a 1/2 HP blower motor) and set it up in the back yard for testing. It was well over 110 degrees that day, with very low humidity. It literally cooled the entire back yard.

The less restricted the air flow, the more water it evaporates, and the cooler it gets.

[jholsinger]

BEER IS GROSS Thats what I think in the nicest way I can say it of course you may all fill in the blanks with far more Graphic words

[love4pds]

LOL, are you serious?

[jimvandamme]

You have never tasted good Belgian beer.

[The_3rd]

So drink lemonade?

[fuzvulf]

To each his own on what they drink, nice "able".
There is a version of this which uses one more step that doesn't send moist air through your house. It sprays the water over the inward facing slats and then pumps it from the catch pan at the bottom through a heat exchanger through which air that is already in your house is circulated and blown back inside so that you don't have to cool hot outside air. moisture is in fact removed from the air in the house condensing on the cooler surface of the heat exchanger. This moisture (if any) is then routed to the catch pan reducing slightly the demand on municipal water. From the heat exchanger the water then flows to the spray nozzles over the inward facing slats of the enclosure and the process starts over again. everything else is the same as your setup, although using solar to run it is ingenious. Great Job!

[labtecmike]

Swamp coolers are terrible for high humidity climates. No matter how much air flow you have it won't cool your home enough to make it worth your while. The rising humidity level will only make it unbearable.

[campingisgood]

This looks very interesting, but I don't understand how it cools. Thanks

[Rob Patterson]

My unit cools in the same manner as it would if it was still a 240 volt unit. Hi campingisgood; The hot outside air is pulled through the wet "batts" and the water evaporating off the "batts" cools the air. To test the principle stick a finger (preferably one of yours) in your mouth, wet it then pull it out and blow on it. Amazing isn't it. I hope this helps. All the best. Rob.

[tbone56]

Thanks for making this instructable.
It is a brilliant idea!
However, here in East Texas, we have pretty high humidity and the house would get 'wet' from using an evaporative cooler. In west Texas they are everywhere.

So, as an alternative, could this be used to cool the attic area of the house? Would this save enough on the main A/C unit to be worthwhile? Would it cause too much moisture in the attic?

Do you know where I might find the answer to these questions?
Thanks.

[MTJimL]

Great 'able. Just a thought about air flow through a house in East Texas. A powerful ceiling exhaust fan is a godsend, when taking air in from the shady side of the house and blowing it out through the attic. Just that will make a sweltering afternoon feel tolerable. If the incoming air is routed through a swamp cooler, so much the better. If the house is air-tight, the ceiling fan should provide all the air exchange you need, and prevent moisture buildup in the house and attic.

[Rob Patterson]

Hi tbone56;
Thanks for your nice comment and question.
This type of cooler can be used effectively in areas that experience moderate to high humidity but you MUST allow the cooled air to flow THROUGH your house. At least one window or door needs to be left open to allow the cooled air to escape.
In effect what you are aiming to achieve is a cool breeze through your house.
Simply pumping the cooled air into a room would soon cause problems.

Your Attic.
Does your house have ceiling insulation?
If it does then cooling your attic area might not make a lot of difference.
If it does not then cooling that area and using ceiling fans inside your house would make a difference I'm sure.

Does the air in your attic area get "baked" ( and dried ) by the heat of the Sun?
If it does then it might be much lower in humidity and therefore more suitable as the air source for the Cooler. You might even be able to have your cooler mounted in the attic area and ducted directly through the ceiling.
Just a thought.
Cheers.
Rob.

[tbone56]

Thanks Rob. Yes good tip on the airflow.

Yes, our house has insulation between the ceiling and attic. However, all the central A/C ducting runs through the attic space. My feeling is that if the attic space had cool air coming in at the eaves and the hot air drafting out at the roof peaks, then this may lower the attic temperature, and then reduce the heating of the cool air ducts.

When I first began thinking of making solar panels to generate electricity, I was kind of at a loss for how to use this energy in a way that would help reduce our energy costs rather than just give me more ways to use free energy.

After reading your instructables I think that I might be able to use your idea to reduce our energy costs without the issues of tapping into the house electrical system.

Thanks. You have given me some good inspiration here.

[jsadler1]

Normally your air ducts are insulated to keep attic air from warming them.
Evaporative cooling has severe limits in humid areas. For example large buildings use chillers with water towers. The water towers use high horsepower fans and pumps to drop the water down through the towers. The idea being that evaporation will cool the water that makes it to the floor of the tower. That turns 95 degree air into 85 degree water. That water chills the hot side of a huge compressor so that large amounts of freon are not pumped through the building. The reason being that people could drown in freon in those quantities. The cold side of the freon loop is used to chill water down to about 52F and that cold water is pumped to coils in various rooms where fans behind the coils push air through them to cool the rooms.
That is the only use of evaporative cooling in humid areas that bears fruit at all. It is expensive beyond imagination and the water bills alone would break you.
The best bet is to get a central AC unit and replace it more often than you usually do. The rotary compressors are a good bet these days and a great energy rating is vital. The days of keeping an AC for 15 years are not with us anymore and decent AC units are expensive.

[Rob Patterson]

Hi jsadler1;

I'm not sure what your message is.
My instructable is not intended as a forum for discussing the virtues of one type of air cooling over another.
The message my instructable is intending to give is this:
We have the necessary skills to make a difference to both our lives and the environment if we try. And we can do it on a small budget.
A simple conversion from an energy guzzling ( ergo carbon producing ) commercial air cooler to a recycled, self converted 12 volt unit running from solar panels, preferably home built, makes a difference.
We get to feel good about what we're doing and we produce less carbon.
I am not the only person who believes this.
The number of people who buy sets of solar cells from me (bigpat004) on Ebay (Aus) to build their own panels with is a testament to the truth of it.
If evaporative cooling is not suitable in your area simply get your thinking cap on and use my experience to help you convert a refrigerated unit to 12 volts, or......seeing how quickly my 12 volt car aircon defogs my windscreen (pulls the humidity out of the car) has me thinking that it could be used as an air "dryer" in conjunction with an evaporative unit in the house.....Maybe....

I think us common people have to be the leaders in changing the way our environment is being destroyed.
On our own our voice is merely a whisper easily ignored...together it becomes a roar that can only be quieted with positive action.

All the very best.
Rob Patterson.

[Rob Patterson]

G'day Tom;
A small point on the Air cooler.... We had power blackouts on 3 days over 40 degC last summer. My solar setup and air cooler made ours the only house in town with air conditioning and a working 'Fridge. It felt good :-) .
You could, perhaps, install yours to cool the attic space during normal times but be directed into the existing ducting in case of a power outage.
Cheers Tom.
Rob.

[lloydrmc]

Very cool (pun intended)!

[tbone56]

Congratulations!
Nothing like a good idea put into action paying off bigtime!
Glad to hear that bit of news!
Tom

[campingisgood]

Hi, Thanks for the info. The design is simple, yet brilliant.

[throwedoff]

nadeem5476, there are no coils to this system. It is an open system with water as the coolant. The water is pumped to the top of the swamp cooler where it is trickled down the sides into an absorbant media. Air that is pulled into the vented sides through the media cause the water to evaporate thus cooling the air. Swamp coolers or evaporative coolers work very well in dry climates and do not pose any health problems in a properly maintained system. These systems are very poplular because they have less power requirements than refrigerated systems, and they are used world wide.

[menahunie]

True. My parent and grandparents were raised in the desert around Palm Springs Calif.
You will see over 90% of houses with swamp coolers.

Most if not all commercial bldgs. use this type of system on a much larger scale to cool the bldg. They would cool down a chill water loop to around 50 degrees and pump it in insalated pipes to evaporator where air would be blowing through them into the bldgs. rooms.

[adrian.ccs]

Hi Rob Patto, Where do you include the part that power up the whole system?

[Rob Patterson]

Hi Adrian;
Sorry it took me so long to get back to you but I've been busy writing the instructible on how I built my Solar setup
http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Solar-Setup/
I hope you find it useful.
Cheers.
Rob.

[nadeem5476]

bcz the water comes in direct contact with the air so it will fill humidity in the room ! and much humidity is not good to live in .

[Rob Patterson]

Thank you for your comment. If you just pump the cool air into your room it most certainly will make the humidity in the room rise but that is not the correct way to use evaporative cooling. The idea is to create a cool breeze that flows through the room/house. The cool air comes in from the cooler and goes out an open window or door cooling the room as it does. It is very effective and is used in many thousands of buildings in all parts of the world. Cheers. Rob.

[nadeem5476]

thats just a SWAMP COOLER , ok ? and for sure the swamp cooler is not using thousands of buildings , those u r saying the same thing is actually a CHILLER and thts different from this . in chillers the water is not come in direct contact with the air.

[Rob Patterson]

I'm not trying to re-invent the wheel. All I'm doing is sharing the experience of converting an existing and very common 240 volt Air Cooling unit to 12 volts so that it can be run from my DIY solar panels. But to refute your argument.... If you dive through any Australian town you will see the 240 volt Evaporative Air Cooling units on the roof of at least 25% of the houses and a large number of the bigger buildings. Maybe Australia is way ahead of most of the world with using evaporative cooling but I think not. Cheers. Rob.

[nadeem5476]

try to let the cold water circulate in the coils so it wont produce much humidity.

[Rob Patterson]

Thank you for your comment. It is good, open, discussion like this that helps people to learn. Cheers. Rob.

[nadeem5476]

http://www.instructables.com/id/Portable-Evaporative-Cooler-swamp-cooler/step6/Swamp-cooler-in-action-in-the-Nevada-desert/

[mankysteve]

I hope your treating that water looks like a great way to spread legionnaires disease

[Rob Patterson]

That's a very good point. The water I use is " town" water which is treated with just about every chemical known to mankind (at least it tastes like it is) and is turned in the unit over twice to three times daily. Even so I drain and thoroughly clean the unit weekly. If using untreated water in a unit like this it is very advisable to disinfect twice a week and drain and clean weekly. Incidentally, another place about the home where there is a risk of water becoming contaminated with pathogens such as Legionnaires is in overhead micro irrigation pipes in hot/shade houses etc. Some water stays in the pipes and is warmed to a temperature suitable for bugs to bloom in. Thank you for your concern. Rob.

[Foxtrot70]

Hi Rob Here in central Iowa area our water is "Clormanated" it is a mix of chlorine and ammonia. It keeps the water safe in the piping system but it can still grow algae, it also has the nasty thing of killing your aquarium fish if you do not treat the water first it is the ammonia component chlorine readily evaporates. I have heard of an incident where a water main in the countryside broke and the water ran into a stocked pond and the local water district had to replace all of the fish.