Swamp cooler repair

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Jul 24, 2020, 10:20 AM
Frank S

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Swamp cooler repair

I have an old 9500 cfm swamp cooler that years ago had outlived its use by date but I saw no reason why it couldn't have another year or few blowing cooler air than the West Texas winds of summer time. The 1 1/2 hp motor would run if you gave it a spin changing the capacitor did not help hence the start windings are shot no problem I had another 1 1/2 hp motor to replace it with. the cooling pads were crumbled and all of the straw like material had migrated to the bottom of the pan OK replaced with new Aspen cool pads made of the same straw like fibers it took 6 22 x 34 pads to fill the 3 sides. the drip troughs in the tops of the side panels were rotted away so I made new ones out of flashing material on my siding break
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the air comes out at around 30° cooler than amb.
Jul 24, 2020, 12:50 PM
Crusty

A friend of my dad took one of those and replaced the side panel with some old car/truck radiators that he had laying around and then routed his irrigation water through the radiators on the way to the fields and my dad said that it kept his house as cold as a meat locker.

Here where I live we get the humid sea breeze from the gulf for 6 months out of the year so swamp coolers don't work very good - wish they did.
Jul 24, 2020, 04:41 PM
Frank S

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crusty

A friend of my dad took one of those and replaced the side panel with some old car/truck radiators that he had laying around and then routed his irrigation water through the radiators on the way to the fields and my dad said that it kept his house as cold as a meat locker.

Here where I live we get the humid sea breeze from the gulf for 6 months out of the year so swamp coolers don't work very good - wish they did.

yeah our humidity has been up that past couple of days OK up for us that is 37% today and 42% yesterday we are more at home with the 22% it is normally but last week when we had 100°+ days it was sure nice the humidity hovered in the single digits made it feel quite a bit cooler than it actually was.
Several years ago the corners on the swamp cooler had rotted through so I cut some PVC pipes in half and used them as replacement corners. I treated the water pan with the KBS rust blast that I use so much to kill the rust then painted the inside of the pan with 2 coats of the KBS rust seal and one coat of the Black top the pan will probably out last the rest of the cooler. It was 3 or 4 years ago when I did this.
Jul 25, 2020, 05:46 PM
jdurand

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crusty

A friend of my dad took one of those and replaced the side panel with some old car/truck radiators that he had laying around and then routed his irrigation water through the radiators on the way to the fields and my dad said that it kept his house as cold as a meat locker.

Here where I live we get the humid sea breeze from the gulf for 6 months out of the year so swamp coolers don't work very good - wish they did.

The first "air conditioner" by a guy named Carrier was for a printing company in NY. It used well water and had about a 60 ton cooling capacity. It you're going to invent an air conditioner, might as well be a Binford 6100. More power!