1/4 inch,not 5/16th!

[Frantic Freddie]

Years ago I worked in a hardware store & in this part of the country we have the annual "get up on the roof & get the swamp cooler running" ritual (link is for you folks that live in humid climates).

There's always be some idiot who forgot to drain the copper water supply line,it froze & burst,then they'd cut out the burst part & find that the standard 1/4" fittings wouldn't work to make a patch.I would always try to patiently explain that the tube had swelled & while 1/4 wouldn't fit anymore,it certainly wasn't 5/16ths.

"You don't know what you're talking about! Gimme the 5/16" fittings & tubing!"

So I'd sell them the larger tubing,ferrules & nuts & inevitably they'd come back in a few hours or the next day complaining about how I (or other CWs ) had sold them the wrong thing.

*SIGH* "I told you the 5/16" wouldn't work on the cooler fitting,they're all designed for 1/4"...."

"Well you sold me the wrong stuff,it's your fault,you have to take this back!"

"Uh no,we're not taking back the expensive tubing that you managed to mangle in your ham-fisted attempt to get your cooler working after we told you it was wrong"

Cue the "This is bullshit!!! I wanna see a manager!!!"

(not really an SC) Then there was the lady who came in wanting to know why her house wasn't getting cool even though she had the cooler running full blast.After some questions,we found out she was from back east & had never seen a swamp cooler & didn't know that you need to open a window in every room about 2-3 inches for it to work properly.
She came back a couple of days later & thanked us for the advice

[Pairou]

I've never heard of a swamp cooler- why do you have to open the windows?

[bhskittykatt]

I'd never heard of a swamp cooler until I met Hubby. He's from the SoCal desert area and had to explain it to me. A window needs to be cracked so the air can circulate.

(Where we live, it seldom gets very hot, so most residences don't even have an AC.)

[teh_blumchenkinder]

mmm swamp coolers. Life saver. No bloody noses, no heat exhaustion-- just lots of white noise and the occasionally annoying wind pattern.
I like them better than freon/a/c units. Easier for me to fuss with, since they're typically so large.
Reading the wiki article, it sounds like these were invented in the early 1900's, 'cuz of the simplicity/complexity weirdness they have... and the relative danger. I firmly believe it was the invention of the car and a/c that enabled white people to choose to settle in places like Arizona, southern Utah, and yes, even Oregon and parts of Washington. Dry and hot as a skillet. Well, let's just say 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer isn't uncommon where I live.
Bleh.

[Frantic Freddie]

mmm swamp coolers. Life saver. No bloody noses, no heat exhaustion-- just lots of white noise and the occasionally annoying wind pattern.
I like them better than freon/a/c units. Easier for me to fuss with, since they're typically so large.
Reading the wiki article, it sounds like these were invented in the early 1900's, 'cuz of the simplicity/complexity weirdness they have... and the relative danger. I firmly believe it was the invention of the car and a/c that enabled white people to choose to settle in places like Arizona, southern Utah, and yes, even Oregon and parts of Washington. Dry and hot as a skillet. Well, let's just say 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer isn't uncommon where I live.
Bleh.

Complexity? Danger? I guess if you stick your hand in the belt or the fan (squirrel cage type) it could hurt you,but I've never heard of anyone getting hurt by a swamp cooler,except maybe falling off the roof.As far as "complex",it's just a small pump,an electric fan & the pads.Hell,any 16 year old with some shop skills could build one.
Why would you want to fuss with them? As long as the pump & fan are working & not clogged with mineral deposits it's fine,no need to fuss with it.

"White" people have lived in the southwest for 400 years.The main building materials,adobe & stone,are excellent at combating daytime heat,as they warm slowly during the day & release the heat at night (it's not unusual for temps to drop as much as 40F after sunset).The invention of the swamp cooler did nothing for people on the coasts,where the humidity is too high to use them.

[Raveni]

I've never heard of a swamp cooler- why do you have to open the windows?

Swamp coolers work by bringing in air from outside the home. Since the cooling air originates outside the building, one or more large vents must exist to allow air to move from inside to outside. Think of it like the fan setup of a computer... One fan blows cool air in, while another blows the hot air out. If you plugged up the exit vents, the intake fan doesn't work as well and everything heats up.

Most houses built for a swamp cooler will have exhaust fans built in. However, many are wired for conventional refrigeration and the vents are set up to recycle the interior air. But pop open a few windows and you've got a nice little vent.

[Frantic Freddie]

Swamp coolers work by bringing in air from outside the home. Since the cooling air originates outside the building, one or more large vents must exist to allow air to move from inside to outside. Think of it like the fan setup of a computer... One fan blows cool air in, while another blows the hot air out. If you plugged up the exit vents, the intake fan doesn't work as well and everything heats up.

Most houses built for a swamp cooler will have exhaust fans built in. However, many are wired for conventional refrigeration and the vents are set up to recycle the interior air. But pop open a few windows and you've got a nice little vent.

I've never seen a house with built in exhaust fans & I've been a Realtor for 15 years,so I've seen a LOT of houses.

[teh_blumchenkinder]

Complexity? Danger? I guess if you stick your hand in the belt or the fan (squirrel cage type) it could hurt you,but I've never heard of anyone getting hurt by a swamp cooler,except maybe falling off the roof.As far as "complex",it's just a small pump,an electric fan & the pads.Hell,any 16 year old with some shop skills could build one.
Why would you want to fuss with them? As long as the pump & fan are working & not clogged with mineral deposits it's fine,no need to fuss with it.

"White" people have lived in the southwest for 400 years.The main building materials,adobe & stone,are excellent at combating daytime heat,as they warm slowly during the day & release the heat at night (it's not unusual for temps to drop as much as 40F after sunset).The invention of the swamp cooler did nothing for people on the coasts,where the humidity is too high to use them.

The wiki article said they could catch on fire (which I had never heard of!); if they aren't properly maintained they harbor mold and other interesting critters, and yet, as you said, someone can build one of these things. Fuss with, as in, there are ones that are just box-like units, and you can move them (kinda), so I could point it in a direction that I felt like. That, and like you said, mineral deposits. And I meant "white" as in "Oregon Trail, had no idea how do do things other than the way they did things back East." Hell, the average Spaniard has/had more sense than them. Spain at least was like parts of Mexico/Old Mexico. Eastern Oregon, southern Idaho, Utah, parts of Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona are all, at the least, semi-arid.

[Frantic Freddie]

The wiki article said they could catch on fire (which I had never heard of!); if they aren't properly maintained they harbor mold and other interesting critters, and yet, as you said, someone can build one of these things. Fuss with, as in, there are ones that are just box-like units, and you can move them (kinda), so I could point it in a direction that I felt like. That, and like you said, mineral deposits. And I meant "white" as in "Oregon Trail, had no idea how do do things other than the way they did things back East." Hell, the average Spaniard has/had more sense than them. Spain at least was like parts of Mexico/Old Mexico. Eastern Oregon, southern Idaho, Utah, parts of Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona are all, at the least, semi-arid.

I think you'd be suprised,Madrid's climate is virtually identical to Albuquerque's (I lived in Madrid).

Funny,I just remembered an incident or 3 of swamp coolers catching fire.They were the round plastic units,very flimsy & the plastic was flammable,so if they collapsed in a high wind (the result of not putting all the screws back in) they could touch the hot motor & burn.The vast majority of them are metal though,never heard of one burning.

[Scollie]

I've never heard of a swamp cooler- why do you have to open the windows?

They work through evaporative cooling and by displacing the warmer air in the building. Also, I suspect if left closed up, the house would become like a sweat lodge. My father lived in Carlsbad, NM and his house was small enough to just open the windows of the two rooms on the opposite end of the house instead of all the windows.

Scollie

Peace

[wraiths_crono]

I've never seen a house with built in exhaust fans & I've been a Realtor for 15 years,so I've seen a LOT of houses.

In AZ some of the.. no older than 10 years houses with coolers have them, its a nifty one way vent that has a rubber seal that flaps over the vent in each room when the cooler is off. The catch: you have to lock them when you switch to A/C and heater or... defeat. (My wifes, mothers house has this setup)