It’s swamp cooler season! Even though I resist as long as possible, these hotter days are making me realize it won’t be long until I’ll be itching to flip the switch and let that swampy air rain down on me – wrapping me in cool a blanket of humidity,
I know there are mini-splits now, but swamp coolers have been taking my temperature down since I was a kid, and there is something about cold humid air that for me, brings down the heat faster and cheaper.
If you are the DIY type and haven’t done a service on your swamp cooler, or this is your first time with one of them sticking off the side of your house or roof – fear not, it’s relatively easy to wake up a sleeping swamp cooler from it’s winter slumber.
An ultra-fast primer on swamp coolers: it uses the evaporative cooling effect to make hot, dry air feel like cold, damp air. It’s the same principle as putting a wet towel in front of a fan.
A standard roof mounted swamp cooler will usually have four pads on the side. Depending on the age or brand of your swamp cooler, or just personal preference, you can get the evaporative pads made out of different material. The cheapest and perhaps most common are the aspen pads that are filled with curls of wood from the aspen tree. They naturally hold water pretty well and can last a few seasons.
The other parts of a swamp cooler are pretty basic – a small pump to keep the water dropping down the pads, an electric motor and a fan to blow the cool air into your home, along with a belt connecting the two.
You’ll want to check the pads on your swamp cooler to make sure they aren’t full of calcium deposits – sometimes referred to as scale.
Calcium is harmless in our drinking water, but it can leave a white residue on things over time, building up on things like glasses, or the pipes in your home, or the swamp cooler. If you notice the pads have a chalky white dust on them and don’t have that “wet wood” smell when you first fire up the swamp cooler, you’ll have a cooler summer if you swap out the pads.
Other things to check are the belt – which can be easily replaced if you remember to take it with you to the hardware store so you can get an exact replacement. A little oil on moving parts doesn’t hurt, and if there is any excessive scale in the bottom tub of your cooler, get rid of it before you turn on the tap.
I live and work in Joshua Tree – so the Joshua Basin Water District is where I get my H2O.
READ: Joshua Basin Water District’s Annual Water Reports
I spoke with David Shook down at the District about that calcium scale. You may have also heard of it described as “hard water” – which generally means water with lots dissolved minerals in it. David said that while the Morongo Basin has calcium present, it’s classified as about medium on whatever scale they measure water hardness on. It’s also not something that’s included in the annual water quality report as it’s pretty naturally occurring in almost all water – at least at some level.
There are a couple other ways to mitigate the calcium deposits over the summer. Making sure your system has a bleed off line will help remove some of the extra-concentrated calcium-rich water out of the evaporative cooler’s system. Capture the bleed off water in a bucket or collection system to use on thirsty plants.
If all this sounds too daunting, there are lots of businesses in the area that will service your swamp cooler for you – especially helpful if you don’t feel comfortable getting on the roof.
