I mentioned how well our swamp cooler works in my last post. When our friends Ginette and Greg were visiting, they were amazed to find we weren’t using our air conditioner and kept the house cool with the swamp cooler. In fact, they had never heard of a swamp cooler.
They live on Vancouver Island, Canada where a swamp cooler wouldn’t be very effective. Swamp coolers are evaporative cooling devices and are most effective in dry climates. They take advantage of the physics behind the effect of changing water from liquid to vapor. The swamp cooler is a simple device – it pumps water over a matrix – in our case, it’s batting material made from cellulose fibers. This batting is held in the louvered housing on three sides of the cooler. The fourth side is a duct connected to our Arizona room.
The batting is soaked with water drawn from a sump in the bottom of the cooler. A large squirrel-cage fan sits inside the housing of the cooler. This fan draws air through the louvers past the wet batting and pumps the air into the Arizona room. As the hot, dry air passes over the wet batting, the water absorbs heat from the air and changes from liquid to gas (evaporates), thus cooling the air. The drier the air is, the more effectively this change of state occurs.
This also has the benefit of adding some moisture to the dry air in the house. It’s common to have relative humidity levels under 20% here in central Arizona and last week we had single digit relative humidity.
We typically see a change of temperature in our house of about 20 degrees – it’s about 20 degrees cooler inside than the ambient outside temperature. So, last week when we had temperatures in the 90s outside, our house was comfortably in the 70s inside. The swamp cooler doesn’t require much power – only a couple of amps to run the fan and water pump. Considerably less than the demand of a compressor on an air conditioner unit.
When we bought this place, the previous owner said the swamp cooler didn’t work very well when the temperature reached triple digits. I wondered about this – it should still provide the 20 degree drop regardless, unless humidity rose high enough to slow the evaporative process.
By the way, the 20 degree drop is an average of the interior temperature versus outside. Swamp coolers don’t have any temperature regulation – it’s not governed by a thermostat. I checked the temperature of the grill where the air from the cooler enters the Arizona room with a non-contact infrared thermometer and it’s typically 60-62 degrees. To regulate the interior temperature, I leave a window and the front sliding glass door open, otherwise it would get downright chilly inside!
When it was in the upper 90s, I noticed the swamp cooler seemed to struggle – in fact, it quit working. I checked it out and found the problem. The water supply to feed the sump was feeble and couldn’t keep up with amount of evaporation taking place at that temperature. I could see the water dribbling from the supply valve – it has a float arm like you would find on a toilet ball cock that opens the valve as the water level drops.
On Monday, I went to a shop that sells swamp coolers about a mile from here and bought a new supply valve. I took the old valve off and found the water supply still only dribbled a small amount of water. Hmmm.
I went to the other end of the water supply line and took it off the fitting – still only had a dribble. The clamp over the water pipe holding the water supply feed line was mis-aligned. Once I straighten that out, I had ample water flow to the swamp cooler.
Now the swamp cooler works better than ever and maintains plenty of water in the sump. Job done!
Last week, I played pickleball six days without a break. After taking Sunday off, I played for the next four days. That’s a lot of pickleball and my 65-year-old legs were feeling it. When I first started playing pickleball, I bought a Pro-Lite paddle. I used it for a few years, then I replaced it with a Head paddle. I bought the Head right when they hit the pickleball market – Head was well established as a tennis racquet supplier also sold ski equipment.
Head had their pickleball paddles manufactured in China. As an early adopter, I was a victim of poor quality control – my Head paddle literally fell apart. Then I met a Paddletek representative in Colorado and bought new Paddletek paddles for me and Donna. Paddletek makes their products in the USA – Niles, Michigan.
I’ve been using the Paddletek paddle for over three years now and I decided it was time for a replacement. I did a little research. The biggest factor in pickleball paddles is arguably the shape. The rules give a restriction on overall dimension, but it can be long and narrow or shorter and wider to meet the specification. My game is more of a control and shot placement game rather than power and speed. I opted for the more traditional shape rather than the elongated power-paddle.
I settled on a paddle branded by the tennis racquet company, Prince. These paddles are actually made by Paddletek right here in the USA.
I found it on sale at Pickleball Central for $103 and they included a nice paddle cover. These regularly sell online for about $130 and the cover is an extra cost $17 option, so I think I got a pretty good deal. I’m liking it so far.
As always, Donna is feeding me like a king. Here are a few examples. Last Saturday, she made a new twist on chicken – garlic-roasted chicken thighs with carrots. She served it with guasacaca sauce, a Venezuelan sauce made with avocado, jalapeno, rice vinegar, zest and juice of lime, plus loads of fresh parsley and cilantro. The sauce can be drizzled over grilled flank steak too or used as a dip so it’s very versatile not to mention tasty!
For our Easter Sunday dinner, she grilled wild Alaskan salmon and served it over asparagus with peas and capers in a brown butter sauce and chantilly potatoes on the side. Yummy!
On Tuesday we had real man-food. I grilled New York strip steaks with bok choy and Donna made jalapeno poppers to go with it.
As I mentioned, we had some hot weather. On Monday and Tuesday the thermometer hit 96 and 97 degrees respectively. If the weather guessers are correct, we might see triple digits for the first time this year next Tuesday.
Speaking of next Tuesday, I have an appointment to change the oil in the coach in preparation for hitting the road. Last time I had an oil service, I think I paid $280. Now, every place around here is charging around $400 for the seven-gallon oil change plus filter on a Cummins ISL diesel engine. I don’t see any plan from the current administration to curb inflation and energy costs. It’s disheartening to see these price hikes while my investments are losing value.