How to fix your swamp cooler ("Overclock" it 50%)

Step 8 Improvements and such

I would be interested in ideas to improve the cooling ability of this project.

My business parnter said that the second pump should only come on when it is over 95 degrees outside (to save electricity) and that I should install a second switch for the second pump.. But I don't want to do the wiring.

so, possibly a wireless switch in the swamper with the other switch downstairs. It would be really cool if you could just get the second pump to kick in when necessary, but that is beyond my techability.

Other ideas might involve adding a unit for spraying the inside or outside of the pads with a sprinkler head. to get better distribution of the water on the pads.

Anyway, hope it works for you .

Comments

[solarmatrix]

Hi all,
I live in Melbourne Australia where we have extremely hot and dry summers and as a result I have done a heap of modification and testing of evaporative coolers or Swamp coolers as you call them. My greatest success came from the use of celdex which is the media commonly found in rooftop home /commercial coolers.
It is a specially treated corrugated cardboard which remains rigid, is highly water absorbent, has much greater surface area than aspen and it doesn’t rot and smell like a swamp. The design and angle of the corrugations/ channels forces the air to foil or roll up and down through the material rather than a straight horizontal flow though creating a much cooler and less restricted and more directed airflow.
 I recommend being careful about airflow restriction as the motor/fan relies on flow for cooling and not all portable coolers have a thermal cut-out. I would not recommend multiple layers of aspen for that reason. Celdex is easy to cut to fit and is somewhat self cleaning in operation.
Filtration of the water going through the pump and spider is recommended because evaps filter a lot of dust from the air which ends up in the water reservoir and blocking spreader/spider holes. Flywire or fairly fine mesh around the pump does ok.
Bigger or more pumps will help to a point but the main key is the surface area of the media. I get superb performance from my coolers after mods but the only downfall is they use at least twice as much water. But this goes to prove that I am getting at least twice the performance from them as the more you evaporate the more you are cooling. A friend was seriously fooled into thinking they were a refrigerated air conditioners! I think they need float valves connected to the garden hose as I got sick of trying to keeping them topped up. I also experimented with a solar powered evap cooler made by fitting a small cooler with an auto thermo fan and 12 volt bilge pump from a boat running from 80 watt solar panel. One final note is to the importance of both ventilating the moist air from the opposite side of the room from the cooler and providing the back of the cooler with fresh dry air from outside. This helps keep internal humidity down so your sweat can also evaporate. Hope this is a help for all to stay as cool as I and use little or no power to do so.

[dangerous dan]

This is exactly what I tell My wife: "you have to open the windows for it to work dear"!! I just installed the Low Profile "DURANGO" cooler from BONAIRE.
http://www.bonaire.com.au/evaporativecooling/range.aspx
I live here in Las Vegas Nevada, And this is the first time I've ever seen this type of media. The celdex is very efficient, wets completely, and allows for good air-flow even when salts are built-up. There was the added boon of cutting a 23x23" hole in the wall to install it, as I chose not to mount it in the windo!!!! RRRRRRR!!

[lukeyj15]

Hi, I also live in Melbourne, and we also have a "Swamp cooler" Ours is a fairly recent model, with some handy features. The first, is if the cooler is left for 72 hours, it automatically drains the water, so it's never stagnant. The second is a float valve, so we never have to worry about the water levels. I believe it has paper pads, as we have never had to replace them.

[dangerous dan]

Your friend is overlooking the savings you will achieve at lower temperatures by being able to run the cooler at a lower fan setting. Excellent 'Ible, as I wonder: Hmmm, May-be I can Boost mine!!

[ramjet]

My previous house had a swamp cooler, and I was always looking for ways to improve performance. My best idea was to merely shade the unit. I used a piece of plywood larger than the surface area of the unit and placed it on standoffs on top of the unit. On my current house which we had built, I had the coolers installed on the ground (one at each end of the house) to allow for easier maintenance. They also were in the shade more.

[tweakinreaper]

use an outdoor thermostat(placed on the afternoon shady side of the cooleraway from any hot metal or asphalt shingles for greater accuracy) set to 95 degrees so that the power to the first pump would be on when switched and the 2nd pump would be on ONLY when main pump is switched AND the outside temp is 95+degrees. and to my previous comment of using mister sprayers you can build a PVC setup(a PVC cube that uses the cooler to hold it up?) to have 2+ levels of sprayers and to point the sprayers directly at the pads for more compete coverage of water on the pads(my cooler uses "green" pads so the water absorbsion is not as good but i have ALOT LESS chance of getting that musty/moldy/mildew smell. maybee i could do some drawings to better express my idea. shoot me a message if your intrested in taking this further

[tweakinreaper]

i am wanting to do this mod to my cooler(im a renter so it may not be feasible) but using the ecopump(shaft driven pump) as the secondary pump. the idea i had was to add a water mister system to the outside of the cooler. have 1-2 on top(spraying down) and the same on bottom (spraying up) on each side to pre-cool the air entering the cooler. this may only be usable on days with low wind or when the cooler is on high setting to have more pull for getting the air into the cooler thus pulling in the chilled misted water .my only worry would be the calcium clogging the system so i would highly recommend getting the in-line carbon filter available for these water mister systems. i have nearly no knowledge of swamp coolers as i am from the east coast but would alot of ice(or dry ice) placed in the cooler do any good by chilling the water to be pumped onto the pads?

[jpatramirez]

I assumed others had great ideas...glad I checked this. I'm not as "handy" and not sure if I'll try this, but I'd throw these 2 ideas out: **what about painting the entire outside of the unit/box white? Mine is a cream color and I can only assume that by retracting light, I may also retract some heat. **years ago, I remember a commercial on local TV about a "cover" for the cooler...which was essentially a fitted styrofoam box (like those coolers at convenience stores). The idea was to keep the box cooler. There were holes on the sides of this to allow air flow. I have the blue pads and will probably replace them. I got up on the roof just now (Its 103 on the ground!) and was washing off the bird poop. My wife and I noticed that when I came down it was cooler. I wonder if just cooling the box like you mentioned with some water sprinkler could work. Great ideas. Thanks!

[ojhawaiianlv]

Theres a lot of good ideas here thanks. Ive researched a non electric pump called the eco pump it uses the spindle of the fan drum to power the pump its actually is a really good idea to double the flow of water i think the link is www.ecopump.net or check it on you tube. But iam really thinking of getting a 8 spider instead of the 6 that i have running on my window swamp cooler so i have 3 outs on two sides and the normal 2 on one but experimenting with doubling two sides on 3 outs and 2 outs on one or maybe reversing so there is not too much restricted air on the doubled pads

[robhybrid]

You want to switch the second pump based on outside air temperature. The swamp cooler is already outside. Just wire the second pump through a thermostat switch on the outside of the housing that will close when the outside air temp rises above 95º F. Problem solved.

[desertguy]

Hello. What a wonderful ideal about the "overclock"! Instead of adding another spider/lines and adding another water pump, there are spiders available with 4, 8 and 12 holes/tubes. When replacing my spider this year I accidentally came home with a 12 hole spider and returned to Home Depot to replace it with my original 8 hole. Now, after reading your great idea I wish I had kept the 12 hole. I wonder if I can continue to use the same water pump if I go back and get the 12 hole. Would I need a stonger water pump? Also, I'm not happy with the cooling of my evaporative cooler and I've been using the blue plastic pads. They're easier to clean the cooler and cooler screens but if using the aspen pads would work better, the little work of cleaning would be worth it. Can I double up the aspen pads? Please advise and thanks, DesertGuy

[vatosupreme]

I'm not sure.. I think more holes would be much easier however... I think this is all based on the flow rate of the pump.... So if you could get a bigger pump, then I think this would be an easy upgrade. However, after using it for a while I would definately like the temp switch, because I noticed the house got a little too humid and a couple of my doors swelled up and I had to sand them a bit... As to the Pads, Aspen is way way better... I think to double the pads you may have to modify the pad holders but I'm not sure. I would do a test to see if your pads remain wet for 2 hours in hot weather. If they stay wet, then I would say that you would not need to dble up. On the divider, I just tried to center it as best as I could

[bryancos]

I came across this article when doing a search on swamp cooler repair. The aspen pads on our office cooler were shot and the unit was simply not cooling as well as it could. After reading the remark about temps above 94 degrees, I first replaced all of the pads with fresh aspen, deployed the upgrade and "overclocked" our system by **100%**

I purchased a complete second pump, basket, tubing, and identical spider and essentially "doubled up" the water flow to the pads by zip tying the second spider legs to the first. Now the pads stay wet when the temps are in the 90s, the air smells cleaner and the small amount of extra electricity for the second pump is worth the added efficiency. The guy at the electrical/plumbing shop where I bought everything thought it was an ingenious idea. Kudos to the author!

[desertguy]

...one more thing--on the top of the doors, the troughs have a divider in the middle. Was there a deciding factor in what side to put the extra line or doesn't it matter much? Thanks, DesertGuy

[desertguy]

Hi, Me, again. In regard to the suggestion your partner made about a second switch for the second pump. I wonder if keeping the wiring/switch as you have it and just adjusting the thermostat, if necessary, would be fine. I'm thinking of just redoing mine with a spider with 12 holes/lines from my current eight without the piggy backing. I hope I don't have to replace the water pump with another one that's more powerful. Thanks again for your "cool" idea. DesertGuy