Swamp Cooler Season
Post-Script: Of course, there's a bit more involved in restarting one's cooler, but I left out the additional details to keep the length of the piece to one sheet of paper, and to keep from boring all but the most hardware-obsessed. There are "old-school" style swamp coolers with thin pads on three or four sides (depending if it's downdraft or sidedraft style), and the newer "Master Cool" style coolers with one thick pad, which I have, and which seem to do a better job of cooling. Then there is the matter of cleaning rust and scale from the cooler. Mine is pretty rust-free, as the water tray is a thick plastic piece, but the "old school" designs were just painted metal troughs, prone to rusting, and would have to be scraped and sanded and painted with a marine coating every year. Fun stuff, especially if you waited too late in the season before starting, in which case you'd be up on a hot roof in 90+ degree heat.
Regarding editing this down from the original first draft, you wouldn't necessarily go out of your way to remove entire lines and paragraphs (like I did) if writing this in ASCI directly to the computer. Typecasting like I do often involves creating text in page-sized chunks, convenient for posting as a consistently-sized graphical image, so it's often inconvenient to have to add a partial second page.
Another example of how typewritering (that's a new word) is different from keyboarding into a computer is when you have to make a carriage return to finish off a paragraph, and would otherwise be stuck with a short bit of text on an otherwise empty line, it offers a good opportunity to add additional verbiage, since that line is already started anyway. So one's writing ends up being distorted by the mechanics of fitting words into lines and paragraphs on paper. My first draft was done in 1-1/2 line spacing on the little endless roll of paper, which is a lot more stream-of-consciousness than typing up a neat final version for scanning.
Typecast via Olympia SM-9, image of close-up of swamp cooler pads being wetted via Lumix G5 (you were wondering what that picture was about, right?)
posted by Joe V at 5:15 PM
5 Comments:
Sounds like a great way to increase comfort.
Ahh yes, the twice-yearly ritual to set up the cooler and put it to bed in fall. Back when I lived at the Monastery, the Swamp Cooler was the only respite from the summer heat. I don't miss the August humidity, but I do miss those low, low electric bills in the summer. (:
I just hope it rains...that's all I'm saying! :-)
Hi, great info. We just moved back to Albuturkey, I serviced the old style Champion 15,000cfm unit. Water delivery is good, barrel spins nicely, float works as it should. However we have no air moving through the duct work, seems like we might have a dampner hidden somewhere but I cant find it, the house is Adobe style...any suggestions on this issue?
If you have one central duct in the hallway, try pulling off the grill and look for an obstruction. Sometimes the damper is in the duct on the roof. Good luck.
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